Just when you think that the reductio ad absurdum has reached its lowest point, it slides a little lower. On Friday, April 15, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voted in favor of a declaration that Israel has no claim on Temple Mount. It referred to it only by its Palestinian names, Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif, and ignored its thousands of years of Jewish history. In the release, every time the word, “Israel,” is mentioned, the epithet, “the Occupying Power,” follows it—a total of 16 times in a document of less than five pages.

The declaration does not mention the Jews’ right to worship in or around the Temple Mount even once. Instead, it “strongly condemns the Israeli aggressions and illegal measures against the freedom of worship and Muslims’ access to their Holy Site Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al Sharif.”

The vote, as one might expect in the current milieu at the UN, was overwhelmingly favorable. The member states of the board voted 33 in favor of the decision, 6 against it, and 17 abstentions.

From here to a decision calling for an all-out elimination of the state of Israel due to “infringement of Palestinian rights,” there is a very short distance. We should acknowledge that the vast majority of UN member states would rather the state of Israel did not exist. UNESCO’s benighted declaration does not express their ignorance of Jerusalem’s history, but rather their anger and hatred of the Jewish state.

We can view the UN’s persistent and intensifying anti-Israel sentiment as a crisis, but I think we should view it as an opportunity. It is our chance to reconnect to the reason we settled in the land of Israel in the first place—not in the State of Israel, but in the land of Israel, back in the days of our forefathers.

The Jewish people did not begin in Israel. When Abraham established his first group of followers, he had hoped to transform the society of his homeland. He watched his countryfolk become increasingly alienated, as is happening today, and sought to help them find a way to reunite. But when met with too much resistance to his plea, he left his home and started a new nation. The centuries old composition, Pirkey de-Rabbi Eliezer (Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer), describes how the builders of the Tower of Babylon bemoaned the fall of every stone in the tower, crying, “When will another come up in its stead?” But, “if a man fell and died they would pay him no mind.” In consequence, the book concludes, “When Abraham, son of Terah, walked b