Israelis warned: Watch U.N. over ownership of Dead Sea Scrolls

Qumran. ( Mark Karis, copyright 2017 WorldNetDaily.com)

A United Nations agency already has insisted on calling Jerusalem's Temple Mount, considered the site of the historic Jewish temples of biblical times, "Islamic."

It's ascribed to "Palestine" Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, the site of the ancient Jewish fortress at Betar and Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs.

Now an expert is warning that the Palestinians' next target for claim of ownership likely will be Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls that were found there.

The Jerusalem Post reported the warning comes from Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

He spoke at the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem during a panel on the denial of Jewish history.

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WND has reported that previous claims made by Palestinians and UNESCO, the U.N.'s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, have prompted the United States and Israel to drop out of the agency.

Significantly, the U.S. took with it its annual funding for the international organization.

The breaking point for the U.S. came when UNESCO declared that the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron was a "Palestinian heritage site."

At the time, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the funding cut came about because, at least partly, of the need for fundamental reform at the agency and the continuing anti-Israel bias.

President Trump's administration has been highly critical of the United Nations in general and in particular of its anti-Israel bias. A petition is encouraging Congress and the president to defund the U.N. and expel its headquarters from the U.S.

WND reported a prominent supporter of Israel said the United Nations has turned "delusional."

Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, was responding to UNESCO's vote on the Hebron site.

"This recent UNESCO resolution is another delusional U.N. decision which disregards the historical truth and the Jewish people's deep connection to Hebron," said Staver at the time.

Staver also is president of Christians in Defense of Israel and founder of Covenant Journey, all in support of Israel.

"To refer to Hebron as 'Islamic' denies thousands of years of Jewish history as well as Christian ties to the site. The biblical patriarchs Abraham and Isaac, as well as the matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca and Leah are believed to be buried there, and to deny that is another move toward the Palestinian Authority and Hamas renaming the entire land to Palestine and denying Israel’s right to exist," said Staver.

There are many sites and antiquities that the Palestinians likely will try to claim at the U.N., and Samuels said the next likely targets are the scrolls and the Qumran Caves in which they were discovered.

The international organization stirred controversy earlier with its adoption of resolutions that call the Temple Mount and the Western Wall by the names adopted by Muslims, al-Haram al-Sharif and the Buraq Plaza.

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The Post said Irina Bokova, who served as UNESCO’s director-general from 2009 until last November, visited Israel this week and told the Post of steps she took to combat anti-Semitism. But she acknowledged she had failed to stop anti-Israel resolutions, of which she has long been an outspoken critic.

On the issue of UNESCO accepting "Palestine" as a member in 2011, she noted it cost the organization the membership of the U.S. and Israel and American financial support.

Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu earlier issued a statement on Facebook he titled "The theatre of the absurd continues at the UN":

Today UNESCO adopted its second decision this year denying the Jewish people's connection to the Temple Mount, our holiest site for over three thousand years.

What's next? A UNESCO decision denying the connection between peanut butter and jelly? Batman and Robin? Rock and roll?

Is it any wonder the UN has become a moral farce when UNESCO, the UN body tasked with preserving history, denies and distorts history?