By Adam Abrams/JNS.org – Following UNESCO’s May 2 vote to deny Israel’s sovereignty over its capital city of Jerusalem, the Jewish state has taken immediate steps to counter the latest anti-Israel move at the United Nations by censuring Sweden’s ambassador to Israel and announcing a funding cut to the world body. Israel summoned Swedish Ambassador Carl Magnus Nesser on May 3 to protest Sweden’s vote in favor of the UNESCO resolution, which described the Jewish state as an “occupying power” in Jerusalem and said any Israeli efforts to assert sovereignty over the holy city are “null and must be rescinded forthwith.” Rodica Radian-Gordon, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s deputy director-general for Europe, and Alon Bar, head of the Foreign Ministry’s international organizations department, reproached the Swedish envoy. Sweden was the only European Union country to vote in favor of the resolution, which passed in a 22-10 vote, with 26 countries either abstaining (23) or not registering a voting decision (three). Six EU countries – Italy, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, Lithuania and the U.K. – voted against the resolution, while France, Spain, Slovenia and Estonia abstained.

Explaining Sweden’s support for the resolution, the country’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday it “welcomes the constructive efforts undertaken by Palestine and Jordan in presenting a more focused draft resolution to the [UNESCO] Executive Board.” Sweden was presumably referring to Arab states’ softening of the resolution’s language to acknowledge “the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions,” in an effort to garner European support for the measure. Last October, UNESCO passed two anti-Israel resolutions with harsher language, denying all Jewish and Christian connections to Jerusalem’s holy sites.

CAP: UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris. Photo: Matthias Ripp via Wikimedia Commons.