Jewish Ideas Daily..
16 July '12..
The United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, better known as UNESCO, charges itself with “Building Peace in the minds of men and women,” and its World Heritage Committee claims to safeguard the shared patrimony of the entire human race. According to the 1972 World Heritage Convention, “parts of the cultural or natural heritage are of outstanding interest and therefore need to be preserved as part of the world heritage of mankind as a whole.” Yet the recent UNESCO vote to list of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem as Palestine’s first “World Heritage Site” exemplifies how the world heritage game is played, above all for national interest. The committee consisted of Algeria, Cambodia, Colombia, Estonia, Ethiopia, France, Germany, India, Iraq, Japan, Malaysia, Mali, Mexico, Qatar, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, South Africa, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates. Thirteen voted in favor, with six against and two abstentions.
On its own merits the Church of the Nativity is deserving of global recognition. Indeed, as one of Christianity’s most important places it already has such status. Constantine built the first church there around 330 C.E., while the basilica that stands today was built by the emperor Justinian I in 565 C.E., and has largely survived earthquakes, invasions, and modernity. That Jesus is said to have been born there has transcendent significance for over a billion Christians.
Now it is neither Christendom nor mankind but rather the Palestinian Authority which exercises the right to represent the Church of the Nativity to UNESCO. Hanan Ashrawi, of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Department of Culture and Information, cast the UNESCO vote in terms that hinted at the true goal, “that Israel must be bound by international law and treaties, particularly pertaining to its illegal and detrimental measures as a belligerent occupant and as a major threat to the safety and the responsible preservation of that important segment of human civilization in Palestine.” Omar Awadallah, head of the UN department at the Palestinian foreign ministry, was more blunt, saying that “it is the first time Palestine has exercised its sovereign right as a nation.”
Chaining various historical and archeological sites to itself as its sole patrimony, and receiving world recognition thereby, has long been part of the Palestinian Authority’s strategy for achieving statehood. For forty years, UNESCO has been accusing Israel of destroying the Palestinian past and “Judaizing” Jerusalem, the center of Judaism. As long ago as 1982, the Old City of Jerusalem was listed at Jordan’s behest as a World Heritage Site in danger, and among others, Palestinians have proposed that UNESCO list the ancient Jewish sectarian desert site of Qumran, an Israeli National Park, as a World Heritage Site under its aegis. Without irony, the Palestinian Authority also seeks to claim Battir—better known as Beitar—the site of the last Jewish fortress to fall during the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 C.E.
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