The flag of Vanuatu. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu has become the latest country to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Israel Hayom reported on Thursday.

Vanuatu’s decision follows UNESCO’s vote last month to deny Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem. Later in May, the Czech Parliament approved a resolution recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and condemning recent anti-Israel measures passed by UNESCO. In addition to May’s resolution, the United Nations cultural body last year passed two resolutions denying the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount.

During a recent meeting between Vanuatu’s President Baldwin Lonsdale and the nation’s honorary consul to Israel, the issue of UNESCO came up. Lonsdale, an evangelical Christian with a strong connection to Israel, later signed a document stating Jerusalem should be recognized as Israel’s capital and blasting UNESCO’s early-May vote.

Vanuatu is an 83-island archipelago situated between Australia and Fiji, with a population of about 300,000. Tibor Shalev Schlosser serves as Israel’s ambassador to Vanuatu and to other Pacific island nations, and Vanuatu has an honorary consulate in Israel.

In April, the Russian Foreign Ministry released a statement recognizing western Jerusalem — but not the entire city — as Israel’s capital.

Official US policy, meanwhile, does not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The Trump administration this week signed a waiver to keep the US embassy in Tel Aviv, avoiding a move to the holy city for six months and mirroring the actions of every American president since Congress authorized the relocation the the embassy to Jerusalem in 1995.