It is a clear blue and busy day in the holy city of Hebron. A small crowd of press gathers around Israeli Minister Yuli Edelstein outside the Tomb of Patriarchs. A Bar Mitzvah celebration is taking place and a procession of musicians lead the Israeli family whose son is celebrating his coming of age to the world's most ancient Jewish site. Meanwhile, a group of Mennonite Christians from North Carolina make their way up the steps to the tombs, while a local Palestinian tour guide leads a group of Germans to a tourist shop selling hand-made pottery nearby.
Beyond the rather picturesque scene in Hebron today, conflict rears its head elsewhere. Now that the Palestinians have been accepted as UNESCO's 195th member in late October, they can now apply for World Heritage classification for cultural sites they deem exclusively theirs. Such sites would be protected by the UN and could receive funding from UNESCO for restoration.
The Israeli minister's visit last Monday came in light of Palestinian attempts to persuade UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to declare the Cave of Patriarchs as a World Heritage Site belonging to Palestinians only.
Israel's Minister of Information and Diaspora, Yuli Edelstein in front of the Tomb of Patriarchs in Hebron last Monday. Photo: Anav Silverman
Also known as Ma'arat HaMachpela in Hebrew and the Ibrahim Mosque in Arabic, Edelstein declared that Israel "was now more motivated than ever to show that the connection of the Jewish people to the site goes back thousands of years ago."
The cave houses the tombs of the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. According to the Bible's Book of Genesis, Chapter 23, Abraham purchased the cave and the adjoining field from Ephron the Hittite, to bury his wife Sarah there.
This past weekend marked the anniversary of Sarah's death as recorded in the Biblical portion read in synagogues across the world. Over 20,000 Jews from Israel and abroad, visited Hebron to pay homage to the first matriarch of the Jewish people.
UNESCO has worked tirelessly to undermine Israel's cultural and historical connection to holy sites. In November 2010, the agency classified Rachel's Tomb, the third holiest site in Judaism as a mosque, Bilal bin Rabah Mosque, "an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territories." A study of Palestinian Authority school textbooks in 2008, however found that the site was never referred to as such, and instead was known at the "Dome of Rachel," until 2001, when the term, Bilal bin Rabah Mosque suddenly emerged in new educational textbooks.
According to the Palestinian Minister of Tourism Khouloud Daibes Abu Dayyeh, in addition to Hebron, the Palestinians are also asking UNESCO to recognize 19 other sites in the Holy Land to be incorporated as Palestinian World Heritage Sites including Jericho and Bethlehem.
Franciscans in charge of Bethlehem's holy places do not want UNESCO to designate Christian shrines in the city as Palestinian World Heritage Sites. Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa told the Italian bishops' news agency, SIR, that the Greek Orthodox and Armenian patriarchates have asked the Palestinian Authority to exclude the Church of the Nativity from the UNESCO application. "The holy places may be used for political reasons...we do not want to be exploited for issues in which the holy places must not be involved," Pizzaballa was quoted as saying.
The Catholic Franciscans fear that UNESCO recognition will make it difficult for the church to run the holy sites because the sites would be under the jurisdiction of UNESCO and would have to abide by the agency's rules.
Meanwhile Edelstein believes that the current Palestinian Authority government is trying to excommunicate Israel from the Jewish site. "They want to wipe out our ties, and any Jewish trace from this area," he said.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, during his address to the UN General Assembly in September, referred to the entire Holy Land, as the "land of Palestine, the land of the Prophet Muhammad and the birthplace of Jesus."
"We don't want to exclude anyone from holy sites in Israel," Edelstein emphasized. "Under Israeli policy, Christian, Muslim and Jewish sites have always been open to people of all faiths."
For about 700 years, Jews were forbidden to enter the Cave of Patriarchs, following a Muslim Mameluk decree which restricted Jews from praying past the seventh step leading to the entrance. The Mameluks, who capture Hebron following the Byzantines and Crusaders in the 13th century, declared the structure a mosque which non-Muslims could not enter.
During the British mandate, the Jews were still forbidden inside the tombs to pray, although a Jewish presence had always been maintained in the city prior to British rule. When Jordan seized control of the area in 1948 during Israel's War of Independence, the Jordanians forbade the Jews from even living in the city and built an animal pen on the ruins of the ancient Avraham Avinu Synagogue built in the 16th century by the Jewish community. It was only in 1967, after Israel's Six Day War that Jews were allowed into Hebron again.
Following Israeli control of the Tomb of Patriarchs, arrangements were made which enabled both Muslems and Jews to worship and pray in an orderly manner on the basis of mutual respect. The tomb's Isaac and Rebekah Hall, the largest and most important hall to Judaism and Islam, as it contains the Imam's Pulpit (Mimbar) is kept exclusively for Muslim prayers. Jewish services cannot take place in that particular hall except for 10 days during the year.
"Only under Israeli rule can we be sure that this open policy continues," said Edelstein. "We want to continue to ensure that people of all faiths have access to holy sites here in Israel and can worship freely at them."
Walid, the local Palestinian tour guide in Hebron on the day of Edelstein's visit, however thinks differently. "We will have peace here once we get the Jews out of this city," he adamantly declared, as his group of German tourists lingered in the pottery shops a few feet away from the Cave of Patriarchs.
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Of Course You are entitle to your opinion
And the PA’s failure by one vote to garner sufficient support in the Security Council for full membership – meaning that eight members were prepared to approve the laughable notion that the Palestinians meet the established criteria for membership – also makes the point.
Imagine – the PA came so close without a viable economy, without borders, without an army, and with Israel in control of most of the PA’s claimed territory and Hamas in control of most of the rest. And it is a foregone conclusion that, given the chance, the General Assembly would overwhelmingly vote for full membership for the Palestinians.
Wow.. there's a lot in just one sentence.
1) Thanks for acknowledging that Israel prevents the palestinians from having a viable economy, borders, army.
2) Also thanks for acknowledging that Israel controls most of the PA's claimed territory. Usually the hasbara brigades try to spread the message that the Palestinians control "90 % of their aspired territorial claims".
And indeed, every year, the General Assembly, votes against the Israeli Occupation of Palestine. That is around 180 nations are in favour, with only the USA, Israel Nauru, palau, Tuvalu, Micronesia and the Marshall islands opposed to granting the Palestinians their own State.
I don't know for the USA and Israel, but I guess that the others' national intrests are threatened by an Independent palestine.
Ah well... It's going to happen, sonner rather than later.
Here are some of them:
1. Israel is actively taking ‘Palestinian land’
2. Israel is occupying ‘Palestinian land’
3. The ‘West Bank’ (Judea and Samaria) is ‘Palestinian land’
4. Settlement expansion makes peace talks impossible
5. If all the settlements were removed, a peaceful Palestinian state could be created.
Israel has not significantly expanded the boundaries of existing settlements or established new ones in years. But the Palestinians say, and the media repeat, that every new apartment built or planned inside a town outside the 1949 armistice line, even in an existing Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem, constitutes ‘settlement expansion’, which ‘prevents the establishment of a viable Palestinian state’.
So even if you find acceptable the racist idea that ‘Palestine’ cannot contain Jewish villages the way Israel contains Arab ones, construction in existing settlements does not change existing facts on the ground.
Even if you think there is such a thing as ‘Palestinian land’ and it starts at the Green Line (I most assuredly do not), Israel is not taking it.
Even if you think settlements would need to be removed in order to have a peace agreement, there were peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority from 1993 to 2009 in the presence of settlements.
Says EVERYTHING about UNESCO - controlled by sleazy politics and Arab oil
Yes your critique is meaningless.
Unfortunately, the UN is under the thumb of the Islamic bloc, so their lies get a hearing.
The land isn't theirs, and never has been (previous owners, the British Empire, before that the Ottoman Empire), so the existence of Israel is not theft, but the return of the land to its original owners, established and sanctioned by the UN.
Depending on who you ask in the world, israel isn't a country either. Even the Vatican only recognized it something like 20 years ago.
Should Israel be the arbiter for all religious sites, or just ones that facilitate their occupation?
This is an incredibly poorly written article and I hope any writing privileges you have get revoked.
It's simply EXPERIENCE!!!
But---what would you expect from UNESCO---
UNESCO Promotes Syria to Human Rights Position
Nov 18, 2011
On Wednesday, the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad was chosen to be the Arab representative on the UNESCO committee the deals with issues relating to the implementation of human rights.
UNESCO's decision comes after Assad's regime managed to kill 3,500 demonstrators and arrest tens of thousands, without any due process whatsoever.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/unesco-promotes-syria-human-rights-position_609183.html
israel has no say its operations.
Oh, and there will be peace when the Jews get out of this city, you say? Kind of makes you lose your appetite for peace....
I'm with Israel--far better to maintain the status quo then to turn over what unquestionably belongs to Jews to the enemies of the Jews.
Oh, and Hebron is an ancient Jewish city...why do you think it's called HEBron?????
Next
Surely a compromise can be worked out to allow both groups to visit.
Now Hebron is controlled by the IDF which allows militant settlers to attack Palestinians who are not allowed to operate their businesses in many areas. Palestinians are not allowed to walk on Shahada Street. Children must climb over roof tops and down ladders on round about roads to get to school.
There is a shadow over Hebron you do not mention. In 1929 the Palestinians created a pogrom in Hebron, executing many Jews. You can't live the present in the shadow of the past, but you can't understand the present without considering the past.
I don't agree with much of what you post, but I'm happy to fav this one.
U lot can claim u invented Micky mouse for all I care but u can't usurp Jewish prophets
Gods covenant is with the Jews only Mohammed wasn't even on the planet for another 2000yrs
This seems like an odd statement to make in a non-news story about a famously violent place that is within an occupied territory and under the control of the IDF. If Mr. Edelstein's government wants to continue to control the site, then it should annex it and allow its population to vote.
Why should Israel need to annex it? It is completely unreasonable to expect the palestinians to let israelis go there??
israel doesn't eve allow that!
Are u referring to Judea and Samaria occupied by Arabs from Jordan Syria Egypt etc
No. The only Palestinians I know who came from Jordan got there in 1948 from Palestine.
Abraham is the same Abraham for the Muslim people.
UNESCO can certainly work with both groups to ensure access. Israel has allowed militant settlers, protected by the IDF to take over Hebron, making life for the native Palestinians difficult. Children must be escorted to school because settlers harass them. Palestinians are not allowed to walk on the same street. Their shops are shuttered.
No ones fooled