GENEVA – UN Watch, an independent non-governmental organization based in Geneva, condemned the “cynical, divisive, and politicized hijacking of UNESCO’s mission to protect world cultural heritage” by Arab states, after the agency’s 21-nation world heritage committee voted 12-3, with 6 abstentions, to accept a Palestinian motion registering the Biblical city of Hebron—including the Cave of the Patriarchs which is revered as the burial place of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Leah, Jacob and Rebecca—as a Palestinian heritage site endangered by Israel. The resolution was introduced by Lebanon, Kuwait, and Tunisia.
