NEW YORK - World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder on Friday slammed UNESCO for its repeated anti-Jewish resolutions and urged member states to stand up and prevent the “absurd revision of history” repeatedly emerging in such votes. “It’s one thing to oppose Israeli policy, and another to deny the Jewish people’s historic connection to Jerusalem,” Lauder said.
“UNESCO’s Executive Board allowed an inflammatory resolution to pass last April, putting the Western Wall in quotation marks, ignoring the Jewish names of holy sites in Jerusalem, and claiming that Jews had planted graves on Muslim sites to falsify the Jewish connection. These astoundingly included friends of Israel, such as France and India,” Lauder said. 
The other states who voted against Israel in April included: Algeria, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chad, China, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Iran, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Senegal, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Togo, Turkmenistan, Vietnam. The World Jewish Congress sent letters of protest to 17 members of the executive board following the vote, deploring their decision.
Lauder on Friday urged members of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, set to vote on a similar resolution in Istanbul at the committee’s 40th session this month, to rectify the decision of the executive board, recognize the Jewish connection to Israel and halt the “egregious” anti-Jewish resolution from being presented.
“This upcoming resolution in Istanbul, which the Europeans are negotiating with the Palestinians, is unacceptable and inflammatory. It unilaterally ignores the Jewish connection to the Old City of Jerusalem, referring to the Temple Mount exclusively by its Arabic name, Al-Haram Al-Sharif, and as a “Muslim holy site” alone, and it falsely accuses Israel of grossly damaging and violating the character of the city,” Lauder said.
Earlier this month, Lauder sent a letter to the foreign ministers of voting World Heritage Committee member states, deploring the April resolution and calling for a show of support in Istanbul.
Lauder also praised UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova for her public statement Friday reiterating that the Old City of Jerusalem is a sacred site for three monotheistic religions and denouncing attempts to deny these historical connections.
“We urge the members of the World Heritage Committee to follow the UNESCO director-general’s example and recognize that the Jewish people have had a solid presence in Jerusalem for thousands of years, and have an unbreakable religious, traditional and cultural bond with this land. Any attempt to negate this connection is an attack on Judaism and Jewish people throughout the world, and is an absurd and perverse revision of history,” Lauder said.
In response to numerous letters and public statements addressed to her ahead of the 40thsession of the World Heritage Committee in Istanbul, Bokova said: "The heritage of Jerusalem is indivisible, and each of its communities have a right to the explicit recognition of their history and relationship with the city. To deny or conceal any of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim traditions undermines the integrity of the site, and runs counter to the reasons that justified its inscription in 1981 as a World Heritage site.”
