BICOM

Israel has recalled its ambassador to UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation) for consultations, after the body’s World Heritage Committee yesterday approved a controversial motion on Jerusalem.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last night that Israel’s envoy Carmel Shama-Hacohen had been invited back to Israel, and “we will decide what to do and what follow-up measures will face this organisation [UNESCO]”.

Shama-Hacohen himself said that his recall is “a necessary step in light of the recent decisions in UNESCO”.

Yesterday’s motion was submitted by Lebanon and Tunisia, who sit on the 21-member World Heritage Committee, on behalf of Jordan and the Palestinians. The motion keeps Jerusalem’s Old City on UNESCO’s list of world heritage sites in danger and, according to several media reports, claims that Israel is damaging holy sites and infringing freedom of religion in Jerusalem. The motion refers to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount exclusively by its Muslim name of Al-Haram Al-Sharif and omits any reference to Jerusalem’s holy sites as significant to either Jewish or Christian faiths.

The Jordanians and Palestinians had wanted the resolution to pass by consensus with full support of all 21 member states – Finland, Poland, Portugal, Croatia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Tunisia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Peru, Cuba, Jamaica, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Angola and Tanzania – asking them to submit their positions on the resolution a day before the vote. However, apparent Israeli and American diplomatic activity persuaded Croatia and Tanzania to demand a secret ballot, thus making it easier for each state to vote as it saw fit.

Although the motion was carried by ten in favour, two against and eight abstentions, Shama-Hacohen told Haaretz: “The Palestinians and the Arab countries were left… without the consensus that they were sure was in their pocket.”

Netanyahu noted that eleven of the 21 members did not vote for the motion. Those that did are thought to have been overwhelmingly Arab and Muslim states.

Addressing the World Heritage Committee itself, Shama-Hacohen said that the vote stands “in complete and utter contradiction to all values, which this disintegrating organisation is supposed to stand for”.

Yesterday’s motions comes in the wake of a similar motion approved last week by UNESCO’s Executive Board, which pointedly used quotation marks to the phrase “Western Wall”, the Jewish Holy site. However, last week’s motion did acknowledge that Jerusalem is holy to the three monotheistic religions.