Abbas Won’t Mention Temple Mount for Fear of ISIS

Geneva, 13 Syawal 1437/18 July 2016 (MINA) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is refusing to include any non-Islamic term for Jerusalem’s Temple Mount in a UNESCO resolution out of fear that he and Jordan’s King Abdullah would be targeted by ISIS, said Israel’s ambassador to the Paris-based UN agency on science, education and culture,

Israel is expressing alarm over an EU members’ revised draft resolution at a session of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee now meeting in Istanbul, unwatch.org was quoted by Mi’raj Islamic New Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said it would be “crazy” for EU states on the 21-member committee—Poland, Portugal, Croatia, and Finland—to agree to a text that is “denying Jewish Jerusalem” and Temple Mount, thereby “denying the roots of Christian Europe.”

In a statement by the foreign ministry, Israel said it was “concerned by the European Union’s intention to propose a draft resolution that denies the connection between the Jewish people and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest site.”

Palestinian-Jordanian draft referred ten times to Al-Haram Al-Sharif, the Islamic term for Temple Mount, without mentioning that it has been the holiest site in Judaism for thousands of years.

Arab states can expect immediate support from 11 of the 21 committee members. Six of them — Cuba, Indonesia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Tunisia and Zimbabwe—are almost certain to back the Palestinians, while another five, the Philippines, Jamaica, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, are likely to do the same. (T/R07/R01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)