Last week, the United Nations marked its International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, a day created by the U.N. to further promote the continuing Palestinian narrative of victimhood and, of course, bash Israel. The date chosen for the international day—Nov. 29—was no accident. This was the date of the passage in 1947 of General Assembly resolution 181, which recommended partitioning the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted this plan and declared independence; the Arabs rejected it and, along with neighboring states, embarked on a war of annihilation against the newly independent Jewish state. Israel beat back the invading Arab armies and the Zionist dream became a reality.
 
As a result of the fighting, many Arabs fled their homes and became refugees. An even greater number of Jews from Arab countries were expelled from places that had seen thriving Jewish communities for centuries (some of these communities went back to ancient times, preceding the Arab invasion of the North Africa). The Jewish refugees were absorbed by Israel while being completely ignored by the international community. The U.N. created a refugee agency—United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)—only for Palestinian refugees, who, unlike any other refugee population, can pass their refugee status on to their descendants. Billions of dollars (and euros) later, UNRWA now claims to serve over 5 million refugees.
 
After the Arabs lost the war they initiated in 1948, the Jordanians occupied an area known to Jews as Judea and Samaria (that the Jordanians later renamed the West Bank), along with eastern parts of Jerusalem (including the Old City); the Gaza Strip was occupied by Egypt. No Palestinian state was established during this time of Arab control over these lands. The Palestinians have also rejected multiple Israeli peace offers and walked away from the negotiating table at nearly every turn.
 
The Palestinians see Nov. 29 as a catastrophe, and so the U.N.—which does not even attempt to hide its own pro-Palestinian bias—has adopted this narrative.
 
At the international day commemoration by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP), a U.N. body funded by our tax dollars to attack Israel, the president of the General Assembly wore a scarf with the kaffiyeh and a Palestinian flag on it. Not normal attire at the usually buttoned-up U.N. Beyond the odd choice of neckwear, the GA president also endorsed a right of return in his speech, a non-existent “right” which the Palestinians would like to exercise for all five million of their UNRWA-designated refugees to flood Israel. The deputy secretary-general of the organization talked of the U.N. General Assembly’s decision to upgrade the U.N. status of the Palestinians to non-member state in 2012 as a “historic milestone.” Neutrality goes out the window when there is an opportunity to parrot the Palestinian talking points. Is there another conflict situation where the diplomats behave like this? I have yet to encounter one.
 
And this was before the U.N. member states, whose pronouncements on Israel can be far more unhinged, had their chance to vilify and demonize the Jewish state at the CEIRPP session and a later GA session in which a number of condemnatory resolutions (including ones continuing the operation of CEIRPP and other costly Palestinian propaganda bodies embedded deep within the U.N. system) were passed.
 
Algeria complained, rather absurdly considering the importance of Jerusalem to the Jewish people, about the “increasing Judaization of Jerusalem.” Qatar decried the seven decades of occupation, meaning not only areas in dispute from Israel’s victory in the Six Day War of 1967, but Israel’s very existence from 1948. 
 
The vilest speech, though, at this year’s international day activities was delivered by Ecuador. Ecuador’s ambassador, quoting the recently-deceased former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro (who received not one, but two different moments of silence during the day’s proceedings), declared, after condemning the Holocaust, that there was nothing more similar to the Holocaust as the “genocide” committed against the Palestinian people.
 
This display of overt anti-Semitism from a U.N. platform was truly beyond the pale and B’nai B’rith has called on Ecuador to replace the ambassador. But the problem goes beyond the hate-filled words of certain diplomats. When the U.N. sacrifices historical truth and simply repeats and amplifies all manner of lies against Israel, the end result does not improve the lives of anyone in the Middle East. It only encourages more anti-Semitism.
 
Nov. 29 should be recognized for what it was, a date in which the international community voted to affirm the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in our homeland. The rejection by the Palestinians of that compromise (and all of the offers that came in later years) to live in peace next to a Jewish state has led to the current state of affairs. And there should be some recognition, finally, for the Jewish refugees that were violently pushed out of Arab countries throughout the Middle East.
 
If the international community is serious about a peaceful resolution to the conflict, then it is time to send the message to the Palestinians that if they want a state, they need to negotiate with Israel. It’s long past time to close down the Palestinian propaganda bodies at the U.N. and to end the incessant biased attacks against Israel. These are distractions that lead nowhere, but especially not toward peace. Without a change in direction by the international community, the Palestinians can look forward to many more years of ultimately meaningless speeches at the U.N. while more missed opportunities for peace continue to slip by.

The U.N. and its system of “specialized agencies” is famous for barring down indiscriminately on the world’s only Jewish state—Israel—and serving as a kangaroo court to heap abuse on the only country in the Middle East that boasts democratic elections, peaceful transfer of power and an independent judiciary that ensures equality for all citizens. According to figures compiled by Fiamma Nirenstein, a journalist and former Italian parliamentarian, the U.N. Human Rights Council has adopted 135 resolutions from 2006 to 2015, of which 68 have been against Israel; the General Assembly has approved 97 from 2012 to 2015, of which 83 have been against Israel; and UNESCO adopts ten country-specific resolutions every year, and all of them against Israel.  

This travesty continues despite the U.N.’s abysmal failure, since its establishment in 1945, to achieve its chief goal to “maintain international peace and security.” The number of deaths attributed to the 100-year old Israeli-Arab conflict are estimated at some 120,000—compared to the grotesque number of deaths attributed to other wars, massacres, slaughters and oppressions are upward of 200 million in the 20th Century. Still, the U.N. system continues to undermine its credibility by finding new and imaginative ways to attack Israel, serving as one of the chief enablers of anti-Semitism—a term which today includes, by most versions, anti-Israel bias.

The most recent series of tainted resolutions have come from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is headquartered in Paris. In October, the Executive Board voted three times on resolutions that have denied the Jewish connection to Judaism’s holiest site—the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The resolutions, promoted by the Palestinians (which became a full member state at UNESCO in 2011), the Arab bloc and others, were allowed to pass—with diminishing majorities—by the feckless abstentions cast by many member states. This included Christian-majority countries that ostensibly have a vested interest in maintaining the Judeo-Christian historical narrative of the late Second Temple period in the cradle of Christianity.

​These resolutions were so outrageous that they even elicited a rare written condemnation by UNESCO Secretary-General Irina Bokova of Bulgaria and expressions of remorse by the presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Italy at their country’s vote. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi went as far as to tell Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a subsequent telephone conversation that: “To say that the Jewish people have no connection to Jerusalem is like saying that the sun creates darkness.” Renzi promised to vote against such resolutions in the future, and to act to convince other European governments to adopt his position.

All of these efforts by world bodies whittle away at the legitimacy of Israel's presence in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the region, but they have little impact on the ground. These resolutions in fact are so outrageous that they have provided Israel with a perfect cover for keeping out recurrent committees of investigations that the U.N. has tried to send here—usually populated by "experts" whose anti-Israel bona fides are quite evident— in an effort to ignite an already flammable situation.

​The UNESCO resolutions could in fact be credited for the record number of Jewish visitors to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount during the Sukkot holiday. On Oct. 23, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri (Shas) called on all Israeli Jews to converge on the Western Wall for the Priestly Blessing. On a Facebook post he said: "This year, we’ll come, in our masses, to Jerusalem, to the Western Wall, to the Priestly Blessing. This Wednesday…we’ll all be there. We’ll send a clear message—nobody will separate us from our holy places.”

Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the Rabbi of the Western Wall, responded to the UNESCO decision by saying that, "In all of world history I don't know of an 'occupying power' whose land is full of the relics of its ancestors. The holiness of the Temple Mount and the Western Wall for the Jewish people goes back many generations. It does not need anyone's approval. It is ridiculous to deny the (archaeological) discoveries that are occurring all the time. The millions of worshipers who come to pray at the Western Wall in front of the Temple Mount are the Jewish answer to UNESCO."

And as if in perfect timing, two major archaeological discoveries that reinforce the Jewish narrative and connection to Jerusalem came to light just as the international community sought to deny it. On Oct. 27, compelling evidence of the breaching of Jerusalem’s so-called “third wall”—which was said to have surrounded the city during the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.—was announced by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). The new archaeological find included scores of ancient ballista and sling stones that the Romans fired from catapults at the Jewish guards stationed on top of the tower to defend the wall.

​The excavation directors described the find: “This is a fascinating testimony of the intensive bombardment by the Roman army, led by Titus, on their way to conquering the city and destroying the Second Temple.” And a day earlier the IAA displayed an unprecedented document containing a reference to Jerusalem from the First Temple period.
Written in ancient Hebrew script and dating back to the Kingdom of Judah during the 7th century B.C.E., the rare relic—a shipping document made of papyrus—was seized from now-jailed Palestinian antiquities plunderers in a complex IAA unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery operation. The papyrus was pillaged from a remote Judean desert cave and represents the earliest extra-Biblical source yet found to mention Jerusalem in Hebrew writing.

While UNESCO's words might not yet have caused any physical harm, they do undoubtedly provide the grist for ongoing Palestinian efforts to engage in widespread damage to the physical elements of Jewish patrimony in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel. Those archaeological finds provide incontrovertible evidence of Jewish primacy in the Holy City from the time of King David and beyond.

As an avid hiker in the less traversed mountains and valleys of Judea and Samaria, I am confronted with this sad reality on a regular basis in all areas under Palestinian control: plundered Jewish burial caves, mikvas and wine presses. Nowhere is this destruction more prevalent than on Temple Mount controlled to this day by the Muslim Waqif (Holy Trust). In an article released on Oct. 27 at an IAA conference in Jerusalem spotlighting major archeological finds over the past decade, Yuval Baruch, IAA Jerusalem Region director, describes the vast destruction caused by the Waqif in 1999. Heavy machinery was used on the Temple Mount to dig out an entrance to "Solomon's Stables," which turned it into the largest mosque in Israel. In 2007, the Waqif dug a channel for laying electrical cables on the mount.

The debris from the first incident—dumped unceremoniously in the Kidron Valley—is still yielding artifacts that corroborate the biblical story. One of the most significant discoveries was presented by experts just last month—geometrically patterned marble floor tiles believed to have covered the porticos atop the Temple Mount during the Second Temple period. The tiles are so vivid, intricate and novel in design that you can still read the Talmudic teaching that “whoever has not seen Herod's building has not seen a beautiful building in his life.”

The second incident was approved and overseen by Baruch and yielded some of the only First Temple artifacts to be found in situ on Temple Mount. But other senior archaeologists fault IAA for what they argue is a continuing pattern of non-intervention in the Waqif's design to damage and destroy vestiges of Jewish presence on and around Temple Mount. They fault the state for allowing the Temple Mount artifacts to remain buried due to considerations of expediency (i.e. that such digs would cause turmoil in the Muslim world).

While confronting—with considerable success—the diplomatic war against the Jewish people's chronicle in Jerusalem, the State of Israel must do more to ensure that our physical patrimony is not eliminated under the same motivation. If Israel is unable at this time to engage in a comprehensive expert and vetted archaeological dig on Temple Mount—something which is long over do—due to political, diplomatic and other temporal considerations, it must ensure that these artifacts remain in situ until future generations will have the fortune to do so.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Director-General Irina Bokova is not guilty of the hypocrisy, indifference and lack of responsibility of the member states of the organization who are promoting resolutions to incite hatred and create very negative frameworks in a place which should be devoted to expand and preserve culture. UNESCO should never support rage or erase history.

But, the facts overcome the eventual good intentions of the UNESCO general-director.

It is not necessary to be an expert in order to know that Islam was born in the 7th century C.E. The Western Wall is a great wall which was a piece of the great building of the Second Temple, which was built several centuries after the First Temple which was destroyed by the Babylonians. The Western Wall is the remnant of the Second Temple which was destroyed by the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago; 600 years before Islam was born.

This is history. No more, no less. To twist history, lies are needed.

There are people who deny history and take their lies to UNESCO. Accomplices support these lies by action, silence or ignorance, or all together: a disproportionate package of hate and hypocrisy. And those who turn indifferent are not better than the others: they join perpetrators and they fall into oblivion and disgrace.

Bokova has tried not to be indifferent and has said that: “Jerusalem is the sacred city of the three monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is in recognition of this exceptional diversity, and this cultural and religious coexistence, that it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.”

Bokova stressed that denying, hiding or trying to “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.”

Demolishing history is not a question of undermining but aggression. It is very nice to say that from the top offices of UNESCO there will be hard work for justice and repair, but it looks naïve. One week after Bokova’s statement, UNESCO again, for the third time in less than ten days, destroyed history and showed its ugly anti-Semitic face, voting on an absurd resolution that erases Jewish ties to holy sites in Jerusalem, the center of Jews’ national and religious life throughout history.

If UNESCO and its officers really want to recover a little self-respect for the organization, the only thing to be erased, must be the resolutions incited by the Palestinian Authority and supported by rogue governments.
Is it possible? It seems unlikely.

UNESCO, as other U.N. agencies are full of anti-Semitism. It happened when the U.N. elected a former Nazi as secretary-general in 1972. During his tenure as secretary-general, former President of Austria Kurt Waldheim was awarded by UNESCO, and after his term ended, he was discovered to have been a Nazi during World War II.
So, the illness of anti-Semitism inside the U.N. and other agencies is not new.

Those who promote hatred, maybe, are very happy today. They should know that hatred causes a lot of damage and pain, but remains in the dark side of history as it is: hatred.
​
At the end of the day, civilization and freedom always prevail.

​Recently, Israel blew the lid off of deplorable Hamas operations to divert humanitarian aid from development projects in Gaza into their efforts to attack Israeli civilians. And, sadly, the United Nations, and by implication, our tax money, was also affected.
 
The more notorious of the humanitarian aid scandals in Gaza was the arrest of Mohammed El Halabi, Gaza director of World Vision, a Christian charity, for funneling millions of dollars worth of money and supplies to Hamas over a multi-year period. World Vision gets funding from individual donors, churches, foundations and grants from many Western governments. The large amount of money that was diverted is staggering and deeply disturbing. The scandal has led some countries to withhold aid to World Vision, which has suspended operations in Gaza while it investigates. World Vision issued a statement condemning terrorism in only a general way, and instead of showing genuine horror that funds sent from donors (who thought it would benefit Palestinian children) were instead diverted to a terror organization bent on killing Israeli children, expressed skepticism about the allegations and lectured Israel on transparency.
 
The U.N. connection? Prior to working at World Vision, El Halabi worked at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). As Israel alleges, as part of his work for UNDP, El Halabi sent “farmers” to the areas near the border between Israel and Gaza, where they acted as scouts for Hamas terrorists (see more information on the El Halabi case here). The U.N. honored El Halabi as one of its “humanitarian heroes” in 2014 as part of World Humanitarian Day. That webpage was taken down, but is still archived here. World Vision has still not taken down an identical article about El Halabi on its own website.
 
After El Halabi was detained, a second arrest was made, this time of a UNDP Gaza staffer named Waheed Borsh, who allegedly funneled concrete, which was used to construct a base for Hamas’s terrorist operatives.
 
The U.N. reacted to news of the arrest similarly to World Vision—with concern about the allegations but also some skepticism and hectoring of Israel on judicial transparency. It should go without saying that Israel is a democracy with a strong standard of rule of law, while being careful not to endanger security. Gaza, on the other hand, is run by a terrorist gang that summarily executes people.
 
The U.N. also absurdly claimed that Borsh, as a U.N. employee, was entitled to diplomatic immunity. Borsh, however, was a local staff person, not a diplomat. If a local staffer at U.N. Headquarters in New York was accused of giving money to Al Qaeda, or a staffer at UNESCO in Paris of supporting ISIS, would the U.N. also claim diplomatic immunity for them? Highly doubtful.
 
In an added insult, the U.N. demanded that Borsh be let go from the prison where he is being held in Be’er Sheva. But, they did not write it Be’er Sheva, they chose to use Bi’ir as-Sab, the Arabic name for the city—a city with ancient Jewish historical connections. This tactic of purposefully mislabeling Israeli cities and towns with Arab names is a favorite of those who hate Israel and want to see it destroyed and replaced with an Arab state. For the U.N. to degrade itself in this way while demanding that Israel release a staffer accused of using U.N. resources to support terrorism is an unnecessary added provocation. These types of games should have no place under U.N. letterhead. Was this done by mistake? Then the U.N. should admit to it and apologize.
 
Israel hinted when El Halabi was arrested that there could be more arrests coming down the line. Unfortunately, these examples are also not the first time that Palestinian groups have taken advantage of well-meaning donors. During Operation Protective Edge, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the U.N. agency funded by many Western donor governments that takes care of Palestinian refugees and their offspring in perpetuity (while all other refugees are taken care of under the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees—UNHCR), found Hamas rockets hidden in their schools. It is not only Hamas that takes advantage—the Palestinian Authority takes in massive amounts of aid from Western donor governments while continuing to run a pension system for terrorists.
 
Indeed, transparency and accountability is needed, but from the humanitarian NGOs and U.N. agencies working in Gaza who are being used to further Hamas war aims against Israeli civilians.