The Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City is the closest point observant Jews are usually able to get to the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

(CNSNews.com) – The State Department reaffirmed Thursday its desire to resume funding for the U.N. Education Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), after the U.S. failed in its latest bid to prevent the agency’s executive board from passing a resolution minimizing the Jewish people’s links to Judaism’s most revered site.

Spokesman Mark Toner said the influence of the U.S. has been damaged by the fact it is unable to be a fully-functioning member of the Paris-based agency.

“It’s important that the U.S. be a fully paying, full member of UNESCO so that we can work to put forward a positive agenda,” he said.

“Recognizing the limitations under which we are currently active or acting within UNESCO, it does have an effect on our overall influence within that organization,” he said.

However, Toner conceded he could not say whether a change to its status would have any difference in stopping the resolution relating to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which passed by 24-6, with 26 countries abstaining.

The U.S. lost its voting rights in UNESCO’s 195-member general conference in 2013, two years after the administration reluctantly cut funding – in compliance with U.S. law – in response to the agency’s decision to admit “Palestine.”

The U.S. remains a member of UNESCO’s 58-member executive board, however, and it was that body rather than the general conference that passed the controversial resolution.

“We are deeply concerned about these kinds of recurring, politicized resolutions that do nothing to advance constructive results on the ground,” Toner said. “And we don’t believe they should be adopted.”

“This kind of politicized – recurring, politicized use of the UNESCO executive board underscores the need for the U.S. to reassert leadership within UNESCO,” something which he said had been “undercut since 2011, since we were legislatively mandated not to … pay our dues.”

Sponsored by Islamic states, the resolution in question refers to the Temple Mount only by its Islamic name, al-Haram al-Sharif.

It also refers to the paved open area in front of the Western Wall – the closest observant Jews can get to their holiest site to pray – as the Al-Buraq plaza, followed by the words “Western Wall plaza” in quotation marks.

Calling the area the Al-Buraq Plaza in effect backs the Muslim narrative regarding what is arguably the most sensitive religiously-contested piece of real estate on earth – a hilltop platform around 35 acres in size that was the location of the ancient biblical Temples and is home to Islam’s third-holiest site, the Al-Aqsa mosque.

The name Al-Buraq plaza is derived from the Muslim claim that Mohammed tethered his legendary winged steed, Al-Buraq, there during his “night journey” from Mecca to heaven. (En route, the belief goes, he stopped at “the farthest mosque” to lead a congregation of “Islamic prophets” including Adam, Noah and Joseph in prayer.)

The UNESCO resolution wording is controversial, since Palestinian leaders and clerics have long contested Jews’ claim to the Temple Mount – even disputing that the Temples ever stood there, despite significant archeological evidence.

‘Like saying that China has no link to the Great Wall’

Israeli leaders reacted angrily to the measure’s passage, with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu calling it “delusional” and saying the agency “has lost what little legitimacy it still had.”

“To say that Israel has no link to the Temple Mount is like saying that China has no link to the Great Wall or that Egypt has no connection to the Pyramids,” he said.

In an earlier letter to UNESCO member states, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called for opposition to a measure which Ros-Lehtinen said was designed to “deny the historical record of the Jewish peoples’ connections to their holiest city and to imply that Jerusalem is inconsequential to Jews and Christians.”

“This resolution flies in the face of, among other things, science as recent archeological excavations, notably in the City of David, have revealed incontrovertible, physical evidence that reaffirms Jewish and Christian ties to the holy city of Jerusalem,” said Cruz.

UNESCO’s declared mission is “building peace in the minds of men and women” through culture, education and science.

Its loss in 2011 of U.S. taxpayers’ contributions – accounting for 22 percent of its budget – had a severe impact on its functioning, and its director-general, Irina Bokova, has lobbied hard to get it restored.

So too has the Obama administration, which has sought congressional waiver authority ever since, but to no avail. Pro-Israel lawmakers argued that the funding cutoff was a deterrent to other U.N. agencies following UNESCO’s lead and granting membership to “Palestine,” a non-sovereign entity.

Although the U.S. has stood firm against anti-Israel resolutions at UNESCO, it maintains that other work done by the organization – such as tsunami-warning and Holocaust education – is essential and worth supporting.

Critics are not impressed, pointing to other controversial initiatives in recent years, such as including the writings of “Che” Guevara in a UNESCO register of some of the human race’s most important heritage; appointing the Assad regime to a committee dealing with human rights; and granting a life-sciences award sponsored by a notorious African dictator.

UNESCO controversies date back a long way. In 1984, President Reagan withdrew the U.S. from the organization altogether, accusing it of mismanagement and pursuing an anti-Western agenda. President George W. Bush returned to UNESCO in 2003, saying important reforms had been made by its then-Japanese director-general.

“UNESCO was created to build intercultural understanding yet, as is the case across the entire U.N. system, intolerance and intentionally corrosive behavior on the part of many of the organization’s members has undermined its original mission,” Ros-Lehtinen said this week.

Such conduct, she added, “only further underscores the need for drastic reform throughout the entire U.N. system.”