Israeli Ambassador to the U.N.: Call I just received from my plumber was more important than UNESCO decision

[OriZ 3,157]

 I have to totally agree with him there. I'd 100% support not complying with any UNESCO decisions going forward.

 

The Heritage Committee of the UN's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted on Friday a Palestinian request to declare Hebron's Old City—and with it the Cave of the Patriarchs—as a Palestinian World Heritage Site.

 

 

Israel's efforts to foil the resolution failed after 12 member states voted in favor of the resolution, three voted against it, and six abstained.

 

While Poland, Croatia and Jamaica asked for a secret ballot vote on the resolution to enable at least one nation that doesn't have diplomatic ties with Israel to vote against the resolution, the vote was not held in a voting booth, but rather out in the open with each representative marking their vote on the ballot from their seats.

 

"Despite the agreement with the Polish chairman, who promised to ensure the secret ballot vote will be done in a voting booth, the 'secret'

 

vote was held in front of all, in the middle of the hall, with dozens of eyes and cameras around every voting representatives," Israel's Ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama-Hacohen said. "This nixed the possibility one Arab nation would vote for us."

 

Arab nations were also able to thwart Israeli efforts to soften the resolution's language, bringing the original resolution draft from June 30 to a vote instead of an amended version.

 

The initial version distorted and misrepresented an International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) report, which determined the Palestinian claim does not meet any of the three criteria needed for recognition of the Cave of the Patriarchs and Hebron's Old City as a Palestinian World Heritage Site. Furthermore, ICOMOS determined, the Palestinian request ignores most of the Jewish and Christian history of the site.

 

The recommendations section of the Palestinian resolution draft removed findings from the report unfavorable to the Palestinians, leaving only the claim that Israel refused to allow the ICOMOS delegation access to the site.

 

Upon discovering this, Shama-Hacohen turned to UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, who ordered the document be altered accordingly. But the Arab nations protested the change, and the committee decided to vote on the original language.  

 

"We've done all we could and beyond that," a visibly upset Shama-Hacohen said after the vote. "The Poles reneged on our agreement with them and sold us out to benefit the Arab gang."

  

The Israeli ambassador also said a phone call he had just received from his plumber was more important than the "disgraceful" decision UNESCO made.

 

Before the vote, Shama-Hacohen slammed the mayor of Hebron, who was at the UNESCO gathering, reminding member states the mayor was a convicted terrorist with Israeli blood on his hands.

 

He also slammed Cuba for refusing to stand during a minute of silence in memory of the victims of the Holocaust and instead asked to stand in memory of Palestinian victims.

 

Shama-Hacohen didn't spare his rod from the German ambassador either, after the latter failed to condemn the Cuban ambassador's behavior.

 

"Do you represent the German government with your disgraceful behavior?" Shama-Hacohen asked the German ambassador in anger. "Is there no difference between Anne Frank and a Palestinian woman who stabs innocent Israelis with a knife? I ask that you clarify your shameful actions and you insist on not doing so."

 

Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon called the vote "a disgraceful decision that destroys any shred of credibility UNESCO had left," adding that "this grave attempt to cut the ties between Israel and Hebron and the graves of the fathers and mothers of our people is an ugly move, which is offensive to the Jewish people."

 

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman condemned the decision, calling UNESCO "a politically biased, disgraceful and anti-Semitic organization, which passes outrageous decisions."

 

"No resolution from this irrelevant organization can hurt our thousands of years old historical right over the Cave of the Patriarchs, or our right over Israel," Lieberman added, further saying he hoped the US helps defund UNESCO.

 

"This decision also proves, once more, that the Palestinian Authority is not looking for peace, but rather to incitement against and besmirching of Israel in the world," the defense minister concluded.

 

Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan dismissed the resolution, saying, "If the Palestinians try to pass a resolution in UNESCO that the world was square, a majority would be found for that as well. That's the level of credibility a UNESCO decision has."

 

He added, however, that "fortunately, the majority of the world, including the Muslim world, understands one cannot just erase the rich past of a people and a nation and replace it with made-up and rewritten history of a made-up Palestinian people."

 

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked joined the chorus of condemnation, saying the resolution "is another stain on the international organization and on each of the countries that voted in favor of it."

 

She noted that "The Cave of the Patriarchs and Hebron are not just Jewish heritage sites, but also sites over which the people of Israel have a historical, possessory and legal right, based to international law as well."

 

Shaked vowed to "work to ensure our right over these important sites will be realized."

 

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4986036,00.html

[Dashinka 25,487]

UNESCO, such a joke as part of a bigger joke.

 

[OriZ 3,157]

1 hour ago, Bill & Katya said:

UNESCO, such a joke as part of a bigger joke.

 

A sad and expensive joke at that.

[Boiler 46,944]

Can not imagine anybody expecting more.

[OriZ 3,157]

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley joined Israel in its adamant critique of UNESCO's decision to designate Hebron's Old City and the Cave of the Patriarchs as Palestinian territory and endangered world heritage sites in a sharply-worded statement released Friday night. 

"The UNESCO vote on Hebron is tragic on several levels," the US envoy said about the World Heritage committee's decision, approved by 12 countries in a secret ballot vote, to inscribe Judaism's second most holy site as part of the State of Palestine. 

"It [the decision] represents an affront to history," Haley charged, and added that "today's vote does no one any good and causes much harm." 

The US ambassador went on to express her concerns about the impact the vote would have on the stalled Middle East peace process and the future of the conflict. "It undermines the trust that is needed for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to be successful," she stressed.

Haley then went on to deliver an overt jab at UNESCO. "It [the vote] further discredits an already highly questionable UN agency," she stated. 

Haley had already expressed her opposition to the vote earlier this week when she urged the UN to oppose the Palestinian Authority's request to inscribe the Old City of Hebron and the Tomb of the Patriarchs on the World Heritage in Danger list on Monday ahead of the vote. 

In a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, Haley questioned the logic of such a vote. "The Tomb of the Patriarchs, which is sacred to three faiths, is under no immediate threat. Such a designation risks undermining the seriousness such as assessment by UNESCO should have," she wrote.

UNESCO declares the Cave of the Patriarchs as Palestinian, angering Israe
“Many precious sites — from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Libya to Iraq to Syria — are under real and imminent threat of destruction today. They urgently demand UNESCO’s full and immediate attention, which should not be wasted on this sort of symbolic action,” she added.

“As the United States is engaged in trying to increase the chance of a peace deal that is in the best interest of both Israel and the Palestinians, this effort at UNESCO — the motto of which is “Building Peace in the Minds of Men and Women” — is particularly ill-timed and unfortunate,” Haley wrote.

Haley has been known to take action against UN policies she views as biased and unjust, and has spoken out in defense of Israel numerous times in the past in relation to the world body's treatment of the Jewish state. 

In June Haley penned an opinion article for the Washington Post in which she lambasted the UN's Security Council for its harsh judgement of Israel. "The council must end its practice of wrongly singling out Israel for criticism," she wrote. 

Prior to Haley's statement the US representative to UNESCO spoke out against the vote as well, deeming it unnecessary and uncalled for. "The decision to inscribe Hebron/Al Khalil Old Town on an emergency basis is divisive, confusing and impossible to justify. The site is not under any real or immediate threat. The only urgency here is the urgency to express political anger." 

The US, which is still one of the 58 members of UNESCO's Executive Board, is currently evaluating its continued engagement at the UN agency and protested the agency's intent to go to vote on the matter when it was announced earlier in the week. 

 

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Nikki-Haley-UNESCO-vote-on-Hebron-tragic-an-affront-to-history-499088