Despite loss, Israel’s UNESCO envoy calls vote a ‘great achievement’

Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO tells The Times of Israel even though the UN cultural body passed a resolution ignoring Jewish ties to Jerusalem, the voting results from member nations reflect a “great diplomatic achievement.”

“This is a great diplomatic achievement,” Carmel Shama-Hacohen says. “Support for Israel has almost doubled and spread to Africa, South America and Eastern Europe.”

The UNESCO resolution adopted earlier on Israel’s Independence Day, passed with 20 countries voting in favor, 22 abstaining and 10 opposing.

Shama-Hacohen points to a similar UNESCO resolution passed last October in which the US was the only member nation to vote alongside Israel in opposing the measure.

“Despite these excellent results, these are still proposals that have no place in the family of nations and certainly not in UNESCO,” he says.

“Voting against a country on its independence day is a new low for Arab countries, but the results are a [surprise] for them,” Shama-Hacohen says.

“They arrived this morning full of arrogance, thinking that they have the EU in their pocket, but ended up with five countries voting against them for the first time.”

— with Raphael Ahren