SWC to UNESCO: Condemn ISIS' Destruction of Historic Mosque in Mosul Instead of Voting on Palestinians’ Phony Resolution

June 22, 2017

The Palestinian Authority and its supporters are demanding that UNESCO “protect” Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs from Israel. This is but the latest cynical move by the Palestinians to erase Jewish history by rebranding Judaism’s holiest sites, including the Western Wall, Rachel’s Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs as Muslim.

“We just commemorated the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War, which not only reunited the Holy City of Jerusalem but enabled Jews to get access to their holiest sites in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Hebron for the first time in 19 years,” declared Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish Human Rights NGO. “This also marks 50 years of Israel’s ability to protect the religious rights of all and to protect all sites revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims throughout the Old City of Jerusalem and the West Bank,” he added.

“When the 21 member states of the World Heritage Committee convene its 41st session in Krakow, Poland, it will vote on the scurrilous Palestinian resolution as well as on 34 other sites. But one site they won’t be talking about protecting is Mosul’s historic mosque. It was destroyed this week by ISIS, acting they say in the name of God,” Rabbi Cooper added. “We call on the Arab League and the OIC, to take off some time from the campaign to pass a phony resolution condemning Israel for the 'crime' of protecting the Tomb of the Patriarchs from violence and terrorism, and to actually condemn those forces who with the destruction of the Mosul mosque continue to debase Islam through their wanton destruction of holy sites,” Cooper concluded.

Rabbi Cooper noted that the Wiesenthal Center’s Director of International Affairs, Dr. Shimon Samuels will represent the Center at the Cracow meeting that begins on July 2nd.

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).