NY Jews hold counter protests on UNESCO resolution

NEW YORK

Dozens of anti-Zionist Jews on Thursday staged a counter protest to a pro-Israeli demonstration against a prominent UN organization for allegedly ignoring Jewish ties to holy sites in Jerusalem.

They said a resolution by the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) addressed 24 different types of criminal activities conducted by the Israeli government in the occupied territories.

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss said Zionists caused an outcry because the resolution omitted the word Temple Mount.

“We would like to just remind the world that the criminals are the Zionists themselves, who are trying to secure the reality and confuse people and prevent them from thinking about the real issue here, which is that they are occupying illegitimately a land,” he told Anadolu Agency.

“They are a total criminal entity because they hijack the name of Judaism,” he added.

Weiss said opposition to the Israeli state is not because of anti-Semitism, “it’s because Zionism is a political flawed entity, and the opposition is real and legitimate. And has nothing to do with religion; the Jews have been able to pray at the Temple Mount for thousands of years.”

The two UNESCO resolutions adopted last month in Paris by the organization’s World Heritage Committee drew the ire of Israelis and supporters of the Jewish state in the United States for accusing Israel of committing violations, including land grabs for settlements, referring to the Temple Mount compound by its Muslim names -- Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif -- and defining it as “a Muslim holy site of worship”.

Benjamin Turk, who works for a technology company in Manhattan, protested in front of the Israeli mission to the United Nations in Manhattan.

“I think the problem with UNESCO is that there are a lot of people who vote there that don’t have the world’s best interest in mind. There are a lot of terrorist states involved,” Turk said. “I think the United Nations should only be comprised of democracies.”