US lawmakers urge UNESCO not to Islamize Temple Mt

US Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) are leading a bipartisan US effort to stop the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) from passing a resolution that would redefine Temple Mount and the Western Wall as holy Muslim sites and rename them respectively as “Al Aqsa Mosque” and “Al Buraq.”

This resolution aims at rewriting history in order to erase the historic and verified Jewish and Christian ties to the Old City of Jerusalem that preceded the rise of Islam by many centuries. “For thousands of years,” said Cruz, “Jerusalem has played a defining, central role in the history and identity of the Jewish people. For Christians, Jerusalem is a seminal spiritual site.”  Those ties and long heritage have been scientifically proven by myriad antiquities and celebrated for thousands of years by millions of people around the world. Yet Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, and the Western Wall, where Jews have come to pray from all over the world, are referenced in the UNESCO draft resolution between quotation marks.