UNESCO, the Palestinians and Israel's holy sites

Yesterday I'd posted a story titled "Is Israel abandoning the Mount of Olives?" I used that title because that is the actual title of the opinion piece as it appeared a few days ago in Israel National News. In the article the author bemoaned the fact that the Mount of Olives cemetery "suffers from desecration of graves and violence against visitors, including stones thrown at mourners and family members." The author also went on to explain that the UN heritage organization, UNESCO, consistently denies or restricts status and access to Jewish Holy Sites, such as Jericho Synagogue, the Mugrabi Bridge, Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb.

A reader posted a question, a good one: "I wonder why Israel is giving up some of these sites??? Why did they give David's tomb to the Catholics?" This post is the answer. First, a look at why the sites are slipping out of Israel's hands. It revolves around UNESCO, an organization of the UN.

UNESCO is an organization of the UN "best known for designating world heritage sites, [and also] is a major global development agency whose missions include promoting literacy, science, clean water and education, including sex education and promoting equal treatment for girls and young women."

Here is an example of how the UN restricts status and steals Jewish holy sites:

2010: UNESCO steals Holy Site, gives it to Palestinians
"The board of UNESCO (the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) has decided that Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs — both of which are ancient Jewish holy places — should be removed from Israel’s list of national sites. And that’s not all. According to UNESCO, Rachel’s Tomb isn’t Jewish after all, despite millenia of history. Its name should accordingly be changed to the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque — a demand the Palestinians manufactured, in the teeth of all historical evidence, in 1996."

The process is that members of UNESCO list an inventory of their heritage and holy sites each year. Members produce an inventory of those properties which each State Party intends to consider for nomination. Once nominated and accepted by vote, the site gets protected status and financial aid. Non-members cannot nominate any sites, as this next story reports--

May 2011: UNESCO rejects Palestinian nominations
Unesco is considering adding 11 Middle East sites in June for inclusion on its World Heritage List, but the Palestinian nomination will not be among them. The Palestinian proposal of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was rejected for consideration. “The World Heritage Committee will not be able to consider the nomination until, if and when Palestine becomes a state party to the [World Heritage] Convention,” said Louise Haxthausen, the head of Unesco’s office in Ramallah. Only countries recognised by the United Nations as sovereign states and members of the world body can make nominations to Unesco."

The Palestinians went "HMMMMMM"

On October 31, 2011, the Palestinian Authority, which had applied for membership into UNESCO organization, was voted in.

October 2011: UN accepts Palestinian Authority as members of UNESCO
"Palestine became the 195th full member of Unesco on Monday...Cheers filled the hall at Unesco’s headquarters here after the vote, with one delegate shouting, “Long live Palestine!” in French."

It didn't take long for the Palestinians to get in on the current round of nominations. As a matter of fact, two weeks before the UNESCO membership vote at the UN on Oct 31, this story appeared:

"Palestinians to push heritage status at UNESCO for birthplace of Jesus"
"The Palestinians will seek World Heritage status for the birthplace of Jesus once the U.N. cultural agency admits them as a full member, and will then nominate other sites on Israeli-occupied land for the same standing, an official said. ... He said that after gaining full UNESCO membership, the Palestinians will revive their bid to secure World Heritage status for Bethlehem and its Church of the Nativity, revered as the birthplace of Jesus. The nomination was rejected this year because the Palestinians were not a full UNESCO member."

'Israeli-occupied' land... [snort]. Well the PA did what the article said they planned to do. After the three month waiting period and the moment their membership became active, the PA came out with their list of nominations and sure enough, the birthplace of Jesus was on their list-

March 2012: Palestinians to submit 20 sites for UNESCO listing
"The Palestinians are poised to submit the names of 20 sites in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza for addition to UNESCO's list of World Heritage sites, an official said on Thursday. Palestine was accepted as a full member state of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation last year, over objections from Israel and the United States, and despite not having full United Nations membership. But its tenure as a full UNESCO member came into force on Thursday, and diplomats now plan to move quickly to register Palestinian sites. "From today we are a full party as a state so now we can start all the things that states can do within the rules of the convention, one of them is that we can submit our list to the World Heritage committee," he said. Until now, the Palestinians could not formally submit any sites in the Palestinian territories for inclusion in the list. The tentative list that will be submitted is the first step in the process of obtaining World Heritage status for the sites, and is intended as an inventory of the locations a member wishes to register, UNESCO says. The list includes sites ranging from Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, revered as the birthplace of Jesus Christ, to Hebron's walled Old City in the southern West Bank."

So that is how these sites are slipping from Israel's hands. Now to the second question, why did the Israelis give the Vatican sovereignty over David's tomb?

Let's go back a few months ago, to December 2011:

"The Vatican’s former foreign minister asked to place some Israeli holy places under Vatican authority, alluding to the Cenacle on Mount Zion and the garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. The first site also houses what is referred to as King David’s tomb."

The Cenacle is the Upper Room where authorities say the Last Supper took place. The article continues:

"The Israeli government and the Vatican are deadlocked in discussions over the status of the religious sites. Vatican officials are now reiterating their demand for control over the religious sites in the ancient and holy city founded by King David as the capital of ancient Israel and now the capital of the reestablished Jewish state. Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, declared that Israel might consider giving the Vatican “a greater role” in operating the sites. In the last weeks, the Roman Catholic Church’s authorities increased their political initiatives for Catholic control over some sites in Jerusalem.'

The problem, they allege, is here encapsulated in the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church Fouad Twal's speech, in which he denounced “the Israeli right wing invading more and more of Jerusalem and trying to transform it into an only Hebrew-Jewish city, excluding the other faiths”.

Sigh.

The truth is that everyone wants a piece of Israel, not just the Palestinians and not just the United Nations, not just Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah, but the Catholics too. They are all like snarling wolves fighting over an increasingly carved up Israel. So that is the story of how they are striking at the heart of Israel, not just through rockets lobbed at Israel towns and cities (summary of rocket events here), not just through the Israel-hating UN, but at a constant and subtle chipping away at Israel through its heart and holy sites.

Job 14:19a, "water wears away stones"... and feet wears away stones too.

Canterbury Cathedral: Stairs to the south ambulatory, worn down by pilgrim feet and knees.

The truth is, even stone gets worn and weary, and constant pressure and treading on it wears it away. With pressure on all sides, I can't imagine how the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli people (a million of them recently sheltering in underground bunkers due to rocket barrages) withstand the pressure. But the pressure will get more intense as the jackals come for Israel.

The good news is that the promise of God to the People is that their land is actually Israel, Jordan, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and half of Egypt. They will dwell there someday, during the Millennium.

I believe that the Tribulation events will obliterate most of Jerusalem and that the Millennial Kingdom will usher in a time where the land and the buildings will be new and different, but still, wouldn't it be something if one of the Old Testament Patriarchs said, "Hey, let's take a walk to the Mount of Olives Tombs to see where I used to be buried!"

Greater Israel map Source

Praise God His promises are true! I long for the day when the world will love Israel because they love God and know that it is HIS land and HIS people. Israel must be punished prior to that glorious time, though, and meanwhile, now and then, we pray. We pray the Israelites of today will have the strength to bear what is coming, and we pray in praises to God that He maintains a remnant

"It shall come to pass in that day That the Lord shall set His hand again the second time To recover the remnant of His people who are left, From Assyria and Egypt, From Pathros and Cush, From Elam and Shinar, From Hamath and the islands of the sea." (Isaiah 11:11)

Blessed are the words, 'It shall come to pass.'

UNESCO grants full membership to Palestinian Authority

UNESCO and the Palestinians-

The Palestinians had lodged a request to the UN Security Council to become a full member state in the United Nations. At the same time, they put in a request to be a full member state in the cultural and scientific organisation of the UN called UNESCO. The vote for the statehood-membership to the organization UNESCO was held this morning in Paris and they granted membership to the Palestinian Authority.

BBC News: UN cultural and scientific organisation, Unesco, votes to allow Palestinian Authority full membership
"The Palestinian move is aimed at gaining momentum ahead of a UN Security Council vote in November on whether Palestine should become a full United Nations member state. Membership of Unesco - perhaps best known for its World Heritage Sites - may seem a strange step towards statehood, says the BBC's Jon Donnison, in Ramallah, but Palestinian leaders see it as part of a broader push to get international recognition and put pressure on Israel. The move comes a month after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas asked for Palestine to become a full UN member state.The UN Security Council is expected to vote on that bid in November. The United States has said it will use its veto.

107 votes for Palestinian UNESCO membership. 14 against. 49 abstain. US, Canada, Germany voted against Palestinian UNESCO bid; Russia, China, France voted in favor; UK abstained. Palestine gets UNESCO membership. Laughter in auditorium when Israel voted no. Huge applause when it passed.

CNN Reports: "22% of its funding in its regular budget comes from the United States, said Sue Williams of UNESCO's press office. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Mission to UNESCO said U.S. funding stands at about $80 million annually. "Any recognition of Palestine as a Member State would not only jeopardize the hope for a resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but (it) would endanger the United States' contribution to UNESCO," said an October 13 letter signed by members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, which appropriates UNESCO's U.S. funding."

The funding could be cut off based on this US provision of U.S. code which states: "No funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act or any other Act shall be available for the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states."

I had read last week that the PA also plans to use UNESCO status to lay claim to Israel's Holy and Historical sites. The American Thinker reported thoroughly on this. In that article, they wrote:

"Although UNESCO has no power to confer statehood, Palestinian admittance to this U.N. body will be a launching pad to attack all Jewish and Christian historical claims to the land of Israel. UNESCO has already been complicit in Palestinian historical revisionism when it voted that two of Judaism's holiest sites, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb, are not Israel's heritage sites, but mosques. Palestinians will most likely leverage their UNESCO membership to claim the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Western Wall of the Temple as wholly Palestinian heritage sites. The Palestinian Authority has already issued a paper denying Jewish connection to the Western Wall. Palestinian claims to sacred Jewish sites can't possibly be based on religious connections. Consider that the Temple Mount is currently being used for picnics and soccer games by Palestinians, and when Palestinians gained control over Joseph's Tomb, they tried to burn it down -- twice. The purpose of laying claim to Jewish holy sites is to erase over 3,000 years of Jewish presence in the land. Denying Jewish history is a stepping stone to denying a Jewish future."

Very true.

It is interesting that the PA attempted several times before to gain membership to UNESCO and failed. It seems that it passed quite easily today.

---------------------------------

Now to prophetic meaning--

The time of the West is declining and the time of the Muslim nations is rising. This is prophesied. The Time of Jacob's Trouble as it is known (the Tribulation last 7 years) is about Israel. Israel is the hand on God's prophetic clock. These things must come to pass as it is prophesied that Israel on that last day will stand alone with all her enemies around her.

"A prophecy: The word of the LORD concerning Israel. The LORD, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the human spirit within a person, declares: “I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves." (Zech 12:1-3).

Why? So that they turn to their Messiah, the One whom they rejected but now call upon!

"For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and thus all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, 'The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob'" (Rom. 11:25-26).

That verse tells us that Jews in Israel will be accepting Jesus as Messiah during the Tribulation.

"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit[a] of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.' (Zechariah 12:10).

What a glorious God we worship. Though rejected for 2000 years, on that Day He will pour out grace. Not mete it out, not dribble it out, but POUR it out upon those who refused to know Him but now clamor for His grace.

The rapidity with which it is all lining up is stunning and more than awe-inspiring. It seems to me to be like a Mack Truck bearing down on a stranded turtle in the middle of the highway. I'm not looking for it. I'm not hoping for it. But if indeed this report is true that there are nukes in Libya; (and with all that yellowcake it was obvious that there likely would be) unstable, Sharia instituting, al-Qaeda flag planting, Libya- prophesied to be so much a part of the war and horror of the last days, then these wars seem more likely than ever to be near to us in time.

Why do we read & study prophecy and stay attuned to the news of the world in relation to it? Because we are commanded to be ready.

"So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." (Matthew 24:44).

"When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." (Luke 21:28).

We study these things so we are not surprised.

"But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled." (1 Thessalonians 54-6).

We study these things so we can tell others.

"We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts." (2 Peter 1:19)

The Word is more sure than personal experience. The Word is more sure than even the news. The Word is the surest thing there is, the Word IS Jesus:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."

Friends, the Word is sure. These things will come to pass. And there will only be two kinds of people, friends of Jesus in the Light (believers) and enemies of Jesus in the dark (unbelievers). The rift is growing and the time is coming to make sure of your salvation. In these uncertain times, two things are certain: they will happen exactly as foretold, and Jesus is our Holy God coming to retrieve the saved (1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Corinthians 15) and punish the wicked. (Isaiah 13:11). Make sure you are in the first group! Email me if you are not sure how. Or visit this link, "The Plan of Salvation."
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