If there is one place above all where the 70-year-old strife between Arabs and Israelis comes to a head, it is Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This was expressed yet again in all its bitterness by the row over a Palestinian-drafted resolution passed on 12 October by 24 delegates to Unesco, opposed by six, and with 26 abstaining. It was approved by the cultural body’s World Heritage Committee today (26 October) in a secret ballot, 10 states voting in favour, two opposing, and eight abstaining. The resolution refers to Israel throughout as the “occupying” power and the site only as Haram Al Sharif and not also Bet el Har and Temple Mount, its Jewish and Christian names, and it denounces incursions and harassments by Israeli troops, limitation of access to Muslims wishing to pray, excavations that allegedly destroy Muslim historical evidence, suspension of the powers of the waqf, the Jordanian religious foundation that has administered the site for centuries, and new constructions around Temple Mount. It went on to deplore Israeli actions at two __more holy sites, which it calls by both their Muslim and Hebrew names, and the Separation Wall running through Palestinian territory.
Nowhere, however, does the resolution deny that Temple Mount is also a Jewish site, or that the Western Wall is sacred to Jews; in fact, “the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions” is affirmed right at the start of the resolution.
Yet that was the impression given the next day by UN Watch, a website with strong pro-Israeli connnections, which described the resolution as inflammatory, “erasing Jewish and Christian ties to Jerusalem and casting doubt on the connection between Judaism and the ancient city’s Temple Mount and Western Wall”.
The Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted: “What’s next? A Unesco decision denying the connection between peanut butter and jelly? Batman and Robin? Rock and roll?” This went viral, the accounts of the supposed denial on the part of the Palestinians of the connection between Jews and Temple Mount becoming __more and more widespread until, by 21 October, the Italian prime minster, Matteo Renzi, could denounce the resolution for saying, “Jerusalem and Jewishness are unrelated—a statement as wrong as maintaining that the sun creates darkness”.
On 14 October, Irina Bokova, the director-general of Unesco, tried to calm the situation, saying: “To deny, conceal or erase any of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim traditions undermines the integrity of the site, and runs counter to the reasons that justified its inscription on the Unesco World Heritage list.” Israel suspended co-operation with Unesco and began a campaign to persuade members of the Unesco World Heritage Committee to vote against the resolution.
Israel’s modern engagement with Temple Mount began when its troops entered Jerusalem in 1967. General Moshe Dayan recognised the importance of the site to Muslims over 1,300 years, and said that Temple Mount was of largely historical importance to the Jews but of active religious significance to Muslims, and so Jews should be allowed into the precinct but not allowed to pray there. This decision is enshrined in Israeli law, but is being increasingly contested by the religious Right in Israel, some of whom go so far as to lobby for the razing of the mosques on the site and building of the third Temple (the first having been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and the second by Titus).
This latest quarrel with Unesco is against the background of a long history of UN resolutions over Palestinian-Israeli issues, in which the Arab countries unite against Israel.