On the occasion of Israel’s 69th Independence Day on May 2, the Israeli government received a priceless gift from one of the world’s most important organizations. The day before, the UNESCO executive committee adopted another resolution criticizing Israel on east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. What more can a country ask for on its festive day? Barely a week after commemorating the slaughter of 6 million Jews by the Nazis, UNESCO reminded the denizens of Zion that the entire world is still against us. To use a sports metaphor, UNESCO played directly into Israel’s hands.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first to identify the ball lobbed into his court. The fact that more states opposed this resolution than did a UNESCO resolution in October 2016 (10 voted against this time with 22 in favor; only six voted against last time with 24 in favor) did not spoil this cynic’s party. “We don’t believe in UNESCO,” Netanyahu declared heatedly during the annual international Bible quiz held in Jerusalem. At the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting held the following day, Netanyahu once again lashed out at UNESCO, called its resolution “absurd” and praised the across-the-board support by almost all of Israel’s political parties in rejecting the resolution.

And, in fact, UNESCO has managed to unite all of the Israeli mainstream, not to mention the right wing of the Israeli public and its elected officials. Netanyahu’s decision to punish UNESCO by cutting $1 million in Israel’s annual contribution to UNESCO — a move that could deprive Israel of its voting rights in certain UN bodies — went right over the heads of the Knesset members. The prime minister was not called on to explain why he decided to rebuke the Swedish ambassador to Israel, of all people, while depriving the ambassadors of Russia, China and Brazil of that pleasure, although their representatives to UNESCO had also voted in favor of the anti-Israel resolution.

Professor Yuval Shany of the Hebrew University Law School, a senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, said Israelis’ hostile attitude toward UNESCO stems from UNESCO’S unusual preoccupation with Israel. Speaking this week with Al-Monitor, Shany said that in recent years, this preoccupation has been characterized by a high level of politicization, as reflected in its voting blocs. “Although the UNESCO executive committee often adopts resolutions related to other conflicts in the world,” such as one on the destruction of Palmyra and other heritage sites in Syria, Shany notes that the “preoccupation with Israel is unusual in its extent and frequency.” According to the Jerusalemite expert on international law, the UNESCO member states are using the cultural organization to express their objections to any indications of Israeli sovereignty over heritage sites beyond the Green Line that delineates Israel from the West Bank and other areas it captured in 1967. They also use the organization to express reservations over Israeli military activity that interferes with UNESCO activity and to promote the placing of these heritage sites under international supervision. Its recent resolutions include specific claims against Israeli development activity in Eastern Jerusalem’s Western Wall compound, in violation of Article 5 of the 1972 convention on the protection of cultural and natural heritage sites.