Israel rebukes Sweden for supporting UNESCO resolution

By Kaamil Ahmed

JERUSALEM (AA) - Israel has reprimanded the Swedish government for breaking with the rest of the EU and voting in favor of a UNESCO resolution critical of Israel.

According to a Wednesday statement issued by Israel’s Foreign Ministry, senior ministry officials had complained to Swedish Ambassador Carl Magnus Nesser that the move was part of a Swedish "voting pattern" against the self-proclaimed Jewish state.

The resolution, adopted Tuesday by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), declared all Israeli legislation relating to Jerusalem’s disputed status to be “null and void”.

The resolution -- which passed with 22 UNESCO member-states voting in favor, 10 voting against and 23 abstaining -- also criticized Israel for carrying out what it described as "persistent excavations, tunneling, works and projects in East Jerusalem, particularly in and around Jerusalem’s Old City".

In a subsequent statement, the Swedish government explained that it had broken with the rest of the EU over the vote because it found the resolution's text acceptable.

In a tweet, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahson described the Swedish explanation as “a masterpiece of hypocrisy, playing skillfully with nasty anti-Israel propaganda”.

Several other Israeli government officials likewise slammed the resolution, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who -- at a Tuesday dinner with foreign diplomats held to mark Israel's Independence Day -- described it as "absurd".

Netanyahu went on to note, however, that the number of countries who voted in favor of the resolution had dropped significantly compared to similar UNESCO resolutions in the past, reflecting what he described as Israel's growing diplomatic influence.

"We're making progress,” he said. “But there's still a way to go and the way we have to go is in fact to cut out this nonsense."

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, for his part, said the resolution revealed UNESCO's “ludicrous and anti-Israel nature”.