At the UN, 129 countries erase Jewish ties to Jerusalem
By Pesach Benson, United With Israel, December 2, 2021.
The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution erasing Jewish ties to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount on Wednesday. It was the most controversial of a set three resolutions that were passed together by a vote of 129-11 with 31 abstentions.
The other resolutions blamed only Israel for the impasse in peace efforts and denounced Israel’s “occupation” of the “Syrian Golan.”
The text of the UNGA’s “Jerusalem resolution,” however, threw the most mud at Israel.
The text made no mention of the holy city’s ties to Judaism or Christianity. It referred to the Temple Mount only by its Arabic name, al-Haram al-Sharif. It “deplored” Israeli settlement activity in and around Jerusalem, and Israeli “acts of provocation and incitement” at the city’s holy site.
The resolution also accused Israel of displacing Palestinians from homes in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan and conducting illegal excavations in the Old City.
The only thing the text didn’t throw at Israel was the kitchen sink.
The vote’s passage was a foregone conclusion. With 193 countries and no protective US veto power, the Palestinians enjoy what Israelis refer to as “an automatic majority.”
The US voted against the resolution, saying it was “morally, historically and politically wrong” for the UN to deny Jewish and Christian ties to the city. Britain abstained.
The resolution prompted UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer to tweet, “On the 4th night of Chanukah, as we celebrate the Maccabees’ 167 BCE rededication of the Jewish Temple & victorious resistance over Greek Seleucid tyrant Antiochus who outlawed Judaism in ancient Israel, the U.N. wants to pretend this Temple never existed.”
The second resolution, titled “The peaceful resolution of the question of Palestine,” put the sole blame for the lack of peace on Israel. The text reiterated previous resolutions labelling settlements as illegal and made no mention of Palestinian terror.
In remarks to the UN before the vote, Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan castigated the UN and the Palestinian Authority for not denouncing Palestinian terror, including the recent murder of Eli Kay by a Palestinian terrorist in the Old City. Three others were injured in that attack, one seriously.
“Spurring a culture of hate and incitement against Israel is more important to Palestinian leaders than improving the quality of life of their own citizens. The Jewish blood has barely dried, and you have the audacity to single out Israel for violence in Jerusalem? Today, you will vote on three resolutions. Three resolutions that have one purpose and one purpose only: to demonize Israel,” Erdan said.
The votes came on the heels of the UN’s annual “Day of Solidarity With the Palestinians” on Nov. 29. That was the day in 1947 when the UN General Assembly endorsed the Partition Plan, a recommendation to divide British Mandate Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The Jewish establishment accepted the proposal but the Arab world rejected it.
In other words, the UN was celebrating Arab rejectionism of the two-state solution.
The Partition Plan prompted Arab states to begin taking the earliest discriminatory measures against their Jewish citizens. That’s why Israel marks Nov. 29 as a day to recall the expulsion of more than 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands.
The third resolution denouncing Israel’s refusal to return the “Syrian Golan” is barely worthy of comment. Israel captured the Golan Heights during the Six-Day War of 1967 after the Syrian army shelled villages throughout the Galilee. Returning the Golan to Syria would simply put Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps rocket and drone squads across the Kinneret.
On the day after the vote, two Israelis were nearly lynched after driving into Ramallah. The two were extricated by PA security forces, but their car was torched by a mob. Initial unconfirmed reports suggest they were given wrong directions by an Arab at a gas station.
Had the lynching taken place before the UN vote, no doubt Israel would have been blamed for that too.