Wiesenthal Centre Measures Jewish Status for UNESCO World Heritage

To:
Madam Audrey Azoulay
Director-General of UNESCO
Paris

From:
Dr. Shimon Samuels
Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations

Paris, 2 August

Madam Director-General,

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre is delighted to inform you of our work concerning World Heritage:

- With Argentina for Moises Ville, the village founded in 1889 by Jewish immigrants fleeing the pogroms in Tsarist Russia andEastern Europe;
- With the Dominican Republic, as the only State willing to take Jewish fugitives from Nazism, at the 1939 League of Nationsconference in Evian.

The refugees founded the town of Sosua;
- With Azerbaijan, to seek World Heritage status for the village of Qırmızı Qəsəbə, where the Caucasus region highland Jewshad lived for centuries.

Sadly, on the other hand, Madam Director-General, as the Wiesenthal Centre is Associate Partner to UNESCO, we turn to you regardingyour policy for depoliticization among the member-States, especially in the case of claims by “Palestine”.

Since its accession to UNESCO in 2011, its policy has been ID theft of Jewish and Christian heritage, through its appropriation ofhistorical sites.

In 2012, the first alarm was the claim that Jesus was a Palestinian - though all historical and religious sources indicate him asJewish.

This was promptly followed by the demand for the Church (or Basilica) of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Though the site is formallyunder the custodianship of the Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholic and the Armenian Apostolic churches, in the current context they hardly risked speaking out freely regarding cases ofintimidation ... In a visit to Yerevan, the Catholicos of All Armenians admitted to us that he had not even been informed beforehand by the Palestinians, regarding their intention to take controlover the Basilica.

Since then, there have been a number of other claims by “Palestine” over both Jewish and Christian heritage sites:
- “Battir, Land of Olives and Vines” - also called Khirbet al-Yahud, “ruin of the Jews”. This is the ancient Hasmonean fortress ofBeitar, the base of the Bar Kochba Israelite revolt against the Romans;
- Rachel’s Tomb, the burial site of the Biblical matriarch, claimed as the Bilal bin Rabah Mosque;
- The Western Wall, the holiest shrine of Judaism, renamed as the “Buraq Wall”, to honour Muhammad’s winged steed,Buraq, tethered tothe Wall as the Prophet spent the night in Heaven.
- Hebron and the Tomb of the Patriarchs, also known as the Machpelah Caves, claimed as the Ibrahimi Mosque;
- The Qumran Caves and the Dead Sea Scrolls - the oldest manuscripts, mostly in Hebrew, but some also in Aramaic and Greek, ofessential historical and religious significance - foundational documents for Judaism and Christianity.

The ID theft of Jewish or Christian sites, heritage and narrative, is how “Palestine” seeks its own validation.

Madam Director-General, we call your attention to Palestine's voracious appetite, now craving for Jericho, that is a holy site forboth Jews and Christians, based on the Biblical story of the Israelite leader, Joshua.

On behalf of our Centre, we urge you to be again consistent with your intent to depoliticize, so that the WHC may focus on theprotection and preservation of all heritage sites. This year the World Heritage Committee is to meet in Riyadh. We wish Saudi Arabia, as host, a great success.

Most respectfully,

Dr Shimon Samuels

Director for International Relations

Simon Wiesenthal Centre