Donald Trump is right to ditch Unesco

"The President is right to pull out of Unesco to punish its putrid little obsession with the Jewish state and he should consider a few more UN bodies for this treatment. Ronald Reagan first took America out of this racket in 1984 over its pro-Soviet bias and it was a mistake to return.

Unesco prompts a rewrite of Bob Conquest's Second Law - any international organisation that isn't explicitly committed to Western liberalism, American leadership, and support for the State of Israel will in time become a detractor of all three. Of course, Unesco is not so much a detractor of Israel as a schoolyard bully that regularly rounds on the Jewish state. In this function, it is a useful tool for Arab and Islamic despots who appreciate the value of Israel as a bogeyman to distract their populaces. But its real significance is as a global disseminator of prejudice against Israel and Jews.

Unesco is the cuddly, cultured, We-Are-the-World face of anti-Semitism. Tasked with promoting peace through culture, it strives the world over to protect and preserve heritage sites, cultural artefacts, and holy places. Everywhere, that is, apart from Israel. There Unesco engages in undisguised bigotry against the Jewish people and their history. In July, Unesco voted to reclassify Ma'arat HaMachpelah, the Cave of the Patriarchs, a 'Palestinian' heritage site. The tomb, resting place of the patriarchs and matriarchs of Judaism, is sacred to Jews, second only to Temple Mount.

And even Temple Mount isn't off-limits. Last year, Unesco passed a resolution asserting it was a Muslim site. Not Muslim as well as Jewish. Just Muslim. The hill in Jerusalem where Isaac was bound, where Jacob dreamed, and where the temples stood was not the Jewish Har HaBayit but the Muslim Haram al-Sharif. Unesco added for good measure that the Kotel, the Western Wall where Jews come to pray and rend their garments in mourning for the lost temple, was actually Buraq Plaza, the place where the Prophet Mohammed tethered his steed during the Isra and Mi'raj...

The purpose of this cultural vandalism is to separate the Jewish people from their holy sites and their history, in doing so denying their shared identity and nationhood. Dejudaisation is part of the project to deny the Jewish connection to Eretz Yisrael, cast Jews as interlopers in their homeland, and undermine the rationale for the State of Israel. If Ma'arat HaMachpelah, Temple Mount and the Western Wall can be divested of their Jewish ties, so too can Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa...

[I]f the President wants to take on anti-Zionism, and cut the State Department's budget at the same time, he shouldn't stop at Unesco."