The Netherlands has decided to take a bold stand for Israel in the United Nations and to oppose all resolutions that do not use the Jewish name for the Temple Mount.
Israel and Israel supporters have long contended that using just the Arabic name for the site, Haram al-Sharif, amounts to a blatant denial of Judaism’s connection to its holiest site. The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism.
The Dutch Senate passed the motion 50 to 25 earlier this month.
Sen. Peter Schalk of the Christian SGP party asked the government “to vote as much as possible against UN resolutions referring to the Temple Mount using only the Arabic name al-Haram al-Sharif and to encourage other European Union countries to do the same.”
The motion was passed only after Netherlands voted in favor of six out of seven annual resolutions that mentioned only Haram al-Sharif Israel that same week.
It is common practice in the UN to vote on a slew of anti-Israel resolutions while also denying the Jewish state’s ties to the Temple Mount.
Israel’s Ambassador to the Netherlands Naor Gilon applauded the motion.
“This is a clear message against attempts by different factors to erase the historic connection of over 3,000 years between the Jewish people and Jerusalem,” Gilon stated.
In 2017, the Dutch parliament called on the government to oppose the disproportionate focus against Israel. A pro-Israel group in the Hague welcomed the latest motion as well as the one from 2017.
“All members of the UN should receive the same, equal treatment,” the organization said in a statement. “The motion adopted now by the Senate should be a wake-up call for the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs that it has to truly start working on implementing the parliamentary adopted motion.”
