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(JPost) The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem on Friday became the first World Heritage Site to be listed under the name of Palestine.
Its approval, by a 13 to 6 vote with two abstentions, marks the second victory in less than a year for the Palestinian Authority’s pursuit of unilateral statehood at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The vote, which was held by a secret ballot, gives an emotional boost to the Palestinian drive to eventually be recognized unilaterally as a member state of the United Nations.
Resounding applause greeted the announcement of the vote by the World Heritage Committee at its 36th meeting at its 36th session held this week and next in St. Petersburg Russia.
The Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Minister Riad Malki who was in St. Petersburg for the vote thanked the committee for helping the Palestinians obtain their cultural right to self-determination.
Already in October UNESCO agreed to accept Palestine as its 195th member state, even though it is not a member of the overall United Nations. It does, however, now have state rights in all UNESCO related bodies, such as the World Heritage Center.
For technical reasons relating to the signing of the convention, the PA must meet the cut-off to submit the church for registration as a World Heritage site, and therefore requested that it be considered under an emergency procedure. It said that the church needed urgent repairs and that it was additionally in danger from Israel’s “occupation” of the area.
The World Heritage’s technical advisory body, as well it’s the committee’s secretariat both advised the committee prior to its Friday meeting that the application did not meet the necessary criteria to be listed through the emergency procedure. But 13 of the 21 member states on the committee disregarded that advice.
Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, Nimrod Barkan said that it was a mistake for the committee to ignore the technical advice of its own advisers.
There was no link he said between the water damage to the church roof and its placement on the list through an emergency procedure. He noted that nothing prevented the Palestinian Authority from fixing the roof.
The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) blasted the decision as proof that UNESCO is motivated by political objectives and not cultural ones.
"Instead of the Palestinians taking steps to further peace, they are acting in a unilateral way that only distances peace," a statement released by the PMO read. "The world must remember that the church of the Nativity which is holy to Christianity was desecrated by Palestinian terrorists."
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