To UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova; UNESCO Executive Board Chairman Michael Worbs; UNESCO World Heritage Committee Chairperson Ms Lale Ülker.
We are deeply concerned to see that on 13 October 2016 and again on 18 October UNESCO adopted a resolution that disregarded Judaism’s connection to the Temple Mount and cast doubts on the deep and strong connection between Judaism and the Western Wall.
We understand that the UNESCO World Heritage Committee will be meeting from the 24 to 26 October 2016, where there will be a vote on whether the resolutions previously passed should be adopted by this Committee.
We urge you to call on World Heritage Committee members to reject a resolution which ignores Judaism’s religiously important and historically and archaeologically proven connections to Temple Mount and the Western Wall and in doing so has insulted millions of Jews and Christians across the world.
We urge you to remind committee members that Israel is taking its responsibilities for safeguarding and preservation of this site of utmost global significance very seriously, and works to ensure that pilgrims from all three major monotheistic faiths – Jewish, Christian and Muslim – can access the Holy Sites of significance to them in Jerusalem, including giving the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf full civil authority over the Haram esh-Sharif/Temple Mount.