Update on the Temple Mount

 

In a recent resolution concerning Israel, the United Nations (UN)[i] referred to the Temple Mount simply as Haram al-Sharif.  In doing so, some see this as denying the Jewish identity and history with that location.  A majority of the UN panel approved the resolution on November 4, whose document was dated October 28, 2020, and which addressed “Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people….” See the following link to the UN draft resolution.  The resolution was approved by 138 member states.  The following nine countries voted against the resolution.

·        Australia

·        Canada

·        Guatemala

·        Hungary

·        Israel

·        Marshall Islands

·        Micronesia

·        Nauru

·        The United States

Sixteen countries abstained from voting.  In comparison with last year, the total number of countries that supported dropped 19 votes. *

The section of the UN document in question is short.  It expresses grave concern at “the tensions and violence in the recent period throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and including with regard to the holy places of Jerusalem, including the Haram al-Sharif, and deploring the loss of innocent civilian life….”

According to Tovah Lazaroff, Israel’s ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan called the text “a disgrace” and that “no resolution passed here will change the eternal connection between the Jewish people and the holiest site of our faith – Har HaBayit, the Temple Mount.”  Lazaroff also pointed out that a German representative of the European Union (EU) stated that the EU rejects the sole use of Haram al-Sharif to describe the Temple Mount and that the language used for the holy sites in Jerusalem needs to reflect the identity and history of the three monotheistic religions.

With the growing archaeological evidence for the presence of the Semitic/Hebrew/Jewish people in, on, and around the Temple Mount—that is, the first and second Jewish temples—it is time for the UN to affirm the existence of the Har HaBayit.    

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[i] The Special Political and Decolonization Committee on “Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.” 

Jerusalem Trip (Summer 2017)