Jericho is NOT a Palestinian Heritage Site

The deeply corrupt, highly politicized United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will vote later this week on declaring Jericho, an ancient Jewish city, a "World Heritage Site in Palestine.”

UNESCO is convening in Saudi Arabia from September 10-25 for its 45th session and to vote on new sites to include for its World Heritage List. The Palestinian Authority submitted a nomination of Jericho, which it wants to rename Tell es-Sultan.

If UNESCO votes to declare (yet another) ancient Jewish city a Palestinian heritage site, it will not only amount to a falsification of history but also exacerbate tensions in the region toward the widespread war that Iran and its proxies have openly been trying to provoke. In addition, this interference in the Israeli-Arab conflict is one Arab conflict in which the UN body has no authority to meddle: UNESCO's purpose is to promote "international cooperation in education, sciences, culture, communication and information" which it is supposed to do through "knowledge sharing and the free flow of ideas." Nowhere does it say that UNESCO has the least right to meddle in ongoing conflicts and create make-believe "facts" on the ground.

This illegitimate imposition is not the first time that UNESCO is putting on display its anti-Israel bias, penchant for faking history and an impressive tradition of lying (here, here, here, here and here).

In 2010, UNESCO renamed the Jewish site of Rachel's Tomb the "Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque," stating that it was part of "occupied Palestine." In addition, UNESCO criticized Israel for including Rachel's Tomb on its heritage list, and urged itto remove it from the list. The resolution also criticized Israel for including the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on its national heritage list, as UNESCO considers both Hebron and the Cave of the Patriarchs to be Islamic sites, having renamed the cave the Al-Ibrahimi Mosque. At the time, only the US voted against these straight-faced falsifications of Jewish history.

In 2016, UNESCO declared Jerusalem's Temple Mount – site of the two biblical Jewish temples – "a Muslim holy site of worship" and mentioned it only by its Islamic names, the "Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif." It also renamed the Western Wall -- a retaining wall which is all that remains of the Jewish Second Temple that was destroyed by the Roman Legions in 70 CE -- "Al-Buraq Plaza”.

At the time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "This time they decided that the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron is a Palestinian site, meaning that it is not Jewish, and that the site is in danger. Not a Jewish site?! Who is buried there? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah – our patriarchs and matriarchs! And the site is in danger? It is only in those places where Israel is, such as Hebron, that freedom of religion for all is ensured.”

If US membership in UNESCO is to have any purpose at all, the least the Biden administration can do with its taxpayer dollars is all it can to prevent Jericho from becoming a "Heritage site in Palestine.”

For a start, there is no "State of Palestine." In fact, until 1964, there was not even a "Palestinian people". As published in an interview with James Dorsey in the Dutch news outlet Trouw on March 31, 1977, Palestinian leader Zoheir Mohsenconfirmed: "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."
The only times there were Palestinians was around 135 CE, when the Roman Empire renamed Judea to "Syria Palaestina" to strip it of its Jewish identity-- or from April 1920, during the British Mandate for Palestine, until Israel declared its independence in 1948. During the British Mandate, Muslims, Christians, and Jews all had "Palestine" on their passports.

Until 1918, the area was part of the Ottoman Empire, although never administrated independently or as a whole territorial unit. In April 1920, the Ottoman regions that are now Israel and Jordan were handed over to Great Britain to administer, and the regions that are now Syria and Lebanon were handed to France.

The Philistines (from whom the term "Palestine" came), in antiquity, also came to the area -- often referred to as Canaan -- mainly from Crete.

It is important to remember: Until the seventh century there were not even any Muslims in the world, let alone Palestinians. The Qur'an was reportedly only begun in approximately 609 CE, more than a millennium after Joshua in 1,400 BCE conquered the ancient city of Jericho (which dates back to 9,000 BCE). Now a "Heritage Site in Palestine" – presumably to avoid saying "A Palestinian Heritage Site" – obliquely refers to a people who were not even there at the time, and whose identity was lifted, with changes and embellishments, more than two millennia later, from the Jews, who were there at the time. Ibrahim is the Arabic name for Abraham, Moussa is Moses, Youssef is Joseph, Yacoub is Jacob, Daoud is David, Jibril is Gabriel, Suleyman is Solomon, Issa is Jesus, and scores more. How is that for "cultural appropriation”?

[TBC: For footnotes and the full article, see:]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19972/jericho-unesco-heritage-site