David T. Brown, chairman, and Emily Sweet, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, and Michael H. Zaransky, chairman, and Steven B. Nasatir, president, of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, have issued the following statement in response to the passage by UNESCO of a draft resolutions purging Jewish historical connection to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The Executive Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) this week issued another in a series of repugnant resolution, which rewrites 3,000 years of the history of the Jewish people and of Western civilization.

By denying the indisputable and inseparable connection between Judaism and the Temple Mount, including the Western Wall, as well as other ancient Jewish holy sites, the resolution is an outrageous ploy to rewrite history for political ends. Indeed, this is a double erasure, for it is only through the Temple of Judaism and the Jewish people that Jesus and the Apostles come to the stage of history in Jerusalem. To deny the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount is to deny critical events in the foundation of Christianity.

Spearheaded by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, the resolution is an affront not only to Jews, but also to Christians and Muslims who value the sacred place of historical reality in maintaining civilization. In its twisted intent, the resolution seeks to do in spirit what groups such as the Taliban and ISIS do with dynamite when they routinely and systematically destroy the holy sites of other faiths.

The resolution, which condemns Israeli actions on the Temple Mount, in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza while ignoring violence and attacks committed by Palestinians against Israeli citizens, only serves to escalate conflict.

We applaud the six countries that voted against the resolution (United States, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Estonia, and Germany). And we call on UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova to have this resolution revoked, as a step toward restoring trust in this world body.

UNESCO’s gross distortion and rewriting of history must be confronted at every level. We call on donor nations to withhold funding from the organization unless and until it recommits to its purpose, which is to combat ignorance, prejudice, suspicion, inequality and mistrust between peoples, and to advance the dignity, equality, mutual respect, and intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.

We urge all people of conscience to contact their elected representatives and appropriate public officials to seek immediate reversal of UNESCO’s action, and to call upon them to end funding of UNESCO should its hateful and destructive distortion of reality continue.