Israel upbraids capitals over UNESCO vote on Jerusalem

Jerusalem has sent a “sharply worded letter” to several capitals that supported a recent UNESCO vote to recognize the Western Wall as a Muslim site and accuse Israel of judaizing the capital, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nahshon says.

The letter was sent by Foreign Ministry director Dore Gold at the behest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also doubles as foreign minister.

“Gold complained about the attempt to erase the Jewish connection to the capital of the Jewish people Jerusalem, and to Jewish holy places,” a foreign ministry statement reads.

The full text of the letter is not released by the ministry.

Gold says in a statement to the press that even though the UNESCO decision was non-binding, “we will not allow international actors to blur the Jewish connection to its eternal capital.”

The UNESCO executive board on Thursday adopted a resolution on “Occupied Palestine” presented by several Arab countries referring to the Temple Mount by only its Arab name.

The UNESCO resolution, authorized by the executive board’s Programme and External Relations Commission, was submitted by Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan.

The resolution was approved by 33 states, including France, Russia, Spain and Sweden. Seventeen countries abstained while six voted against, including the United States, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

The text does refer to the Western Wall Plaza but places it in quotation marks, after using the Arabic Al-Buraq Plaza.

The resolution also accuses Israel of “planting fake Jewish graves in Muslim cemeteries” and of “the continued conversion of many Islamic and Byzantine remains into the so-called Jewish ritual baths or into Jewish prayer places.”

The resolution enraged Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, who called it “absurd.”

On Monday, UNESCO chief Irina Bokova called for “respect and dialogue” in an effort to calm tensions.