The United Nations is Just Wrong

Israel was voted into existence after years of fighting to exist in 1948. The land was taken from British control and given as a "homeland to the Jewish people." Every since that day, everything Israel has done is challenged by the outside world. They have been attacked by multiple countries on multiple occasion and have had success every time. The only thing Israel really wants is peace in the region and works tirelessly to get. They have even handed over part of their country to try and be fair. However, nobody treats Israel the same way an anybody else.

Three summers ago, Israel was attacked without mersey by the Gaza strip. Hundreds if not thousands of rockets were shot off into Israel and if it wasn't for Israel's "Iron Dome" system which deflects or shoots down rocket fire, thousands would had been killed. These shootings were hardly if at all covered in the media. At some point enough is enough and Israel invaded Gaza to stop the bombings. They played the safest game of war in the world trying to ensure that no civilians were injured. This goal was impossible with Hammas, the terrorist organization which runs Gaza, using their citizens as human shield. The goal of the mission was to destroy the tunnels created by Hammas with their aid money to build schools, in order to prevent illegal transportation into Israel, as well as to eliminate Gaza's rockets funded to them by Iran. Every time Israel would launch an offensive attack, they would call and tell Hammas exactly where they would be and which building would be destroyed. That isn't exactly a way to be effective. However the media still portrayed Israel as the villain taking civilian lives.

This past year their were a plethora of stabbing and shooting attacks in Israel. Whenever the attacker would be taken down, the headline around the world would read, "Israeli police kill Palestinian citizen, four Israelis also Injured." The only time the media got it right is when American citizen Ezra Schwartz was gunned down sitting in a cab minding his own business. Ezra had just graduated high school and was taking a gap-year in Israel. I did not know Ezra personally, however I did meet him in California in the summer of 2013, we were on the same program for the summer, just on different busses. I also have a lot of friends that knew him so as far away as all this commotion seems to most American's, for me it is right next door and being lived by and fought for by some of my friends who decided to join the Israeli Defense Forces after High School.

I am writing about this because this past week, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), voted that Jerusalem is not a holy site to the Jewish people. For starters, everything in the Jewish religion points back toward Jerusalem. The fact that we have Synagogues around the world is because since the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, Jewish people needed a place to perform their rituals because they no longer could get to the Temple. Their is no denying that the Temple existed because the Wailing Wall stills stand and you can go visit it whenever you'd like. There is also no denying that Jerusalem is holy to Islam and Christianity as well. I am not going to go into all the reasons Jerusalem is a holy city for the Jewish people however their are many. My point is that this is just another attack on the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Israel will never be treated equally, however this decision by UNESCO is just wrong and anti-Semitic.

- Eric