Terror at Rachel's tomb
And you wonder why we have all that security and a wall around
Rachel's tomb....
Palestinians hurled two improvised grenades at Israelis in Bethlehem on Monday evening in two attacks, injuring one civilian.
An
explosive was thrown at Rachel's Tomb, causing injuries to one man, who
was evacuated to hospital by paramedics. Earlier, an explosive was
thrown at an IDF base in the area. No injuries were reported in that
attack.
Monday's events are the latest indication that
Palestinian violence is on the rise, though Israeli policymakers and
defense experts remain doubtful that we are on the cusp of a third
intifada.
But just give them a state and let them protect us.... Oh wait.... They don't want to let us near Rachel's tomb even before they try to kick us out of the '48 territories.'
Labels: Palestinian terrorism, Rachel's tomb
Overnight music video: Mama Rochel and 'Rabin's legacy'
I missed 3:00 am Israel time tonight (went to dinner with a cousin), but I'm going to do 3:00 am US time instead because tonight is the 11th of Cheshvan, and there's a song I must play in honor of the occasion. But there's also much more after the video.
The 11th of Cheshvan is the yahrtzeit (anniversary of the death) of our Mother Rachel.
Here's Abie Rotenberg with Mama Rochel (Our Mother Rachel).
Let's go to the videotape.
I'd also like to post
part of last year's post from this date (when I was not allowed to post music).
There's a connection between Yitzchak Rabin, the Prime Minister who was
assassinated on the 12th of Cheshvan, and our matriarch Rachel, and it
goes beyond the coincidence of the consecutive dates of death. Here's the connection.
"During the Rabin administration, Kever Rachel was slated to fall into
'Area A', that is, under full Arab civil and military control. Upon
seeing this, Knesset Member Chanan Porat [National Religious Party.
CiJ] decided that he must speak with Rabin in the hopes of changing his
mind. As Chanan Porat was walking to Rabin's office, Knesset Member
Rabbi Menachem Porush [United Torah Judaism.
CiJ] asked Porat where he was going. Hearing that Porat was about to
fight for Kever Rachel, Porush asked to join in the meeting. At Rabin's
office, Chanan Porat was diligently explaining the ins and outs of the
security situation at Kever Rachel and making rational arguments that
did not seem to move Rabin.
"Suddenly Rabin looked at Porush and
saw that he was crying. Porush held Rabin's hands and with tears
streaming down his face, said: 'Yitzchak, it's Mamma Rachel, Mamma
Rachel.' At that moment Rabin's heart opened, and he altered the map so
that Kever Rachel would remain in Jewish hands."
Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from the respective turnouts for the two memorials on Saturday night. Some 70,000 people showed up to pray at Rachel's tomb. Only 15,000 showed up for the Left's annual hatefest in Rabin Square.
Maybe the people of Israel have figured out that they have never been told the truth about Rabin's death.
More here and here.
The Left tried to turn this year's Rabin memorial (which took place already) into a demonstration for democracy.
They weren't successful. This is from al-Monitor - a mostly Left publication.
Some 35,000 people gathered in Rabin Square, in the center of Tel Aviv,
for the event on the night of Oct. 12. Most were youth movement
members, both right and left wing. In other words, a large number of the
attendees were not even born at the time of the assassination.
Inevitably, they became the subject of intense discussion during
current-event TV and radio shows the next morning. Studio discussions
dealt with the general question of what happened to Rabin's legacy, the
relative dearth of participants as compared with previous years and the
reason why senior political figures and the general public alike were
absent from this year's memorial, especially when compared with years
past.
The general tone was critical and expressed a kind of longing for the
way the assassination was marked in the early years. Back then,
assembling tens of thousands of participants who were joined by
political leaders from the left and the entire Rabin family needed no
organization — while the event itself was broadcast on every channel
imaginable.
In an interview on the Israeli Army radio station — with the event's
moderator, actor Moshe Ivgi — anchor Niv Raskin tried to get him to
compare the enormous funeral for Rabbi Ovadia Yosef,
which took place on Oct. 7, and the significantly more modest event to
commemorate a prime minister who was killed because of his efforts to
achieve peace. Luckily, Ivgi was both wise and seasoned enough to avoid
falling into that easily refuted populist trap.
Efforts to blame the current political leadership or the growing
ignorance of the general population for the decline in the event's
stature misses the main point: Most Israelis are not interested in the
Palestinian issue.
If it's not dead, the 'two-state solution' is on life support. It's time to pull the plug.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Mama Rachel, overnight music video, Rachel's tomb, two-state solution, Yitzchak Rabin
Arab mob threatening Jews in Rachel's tomb
Before I go to this story - for those of you abroad who have children in yeshivoth and seminaries here, they are all under lockdown under war rules.
Meanwhile, both of my Israeli daughters are out with friends tonight....
A group of worshipers is trapped by Arab rioters inside the fortress-like
Rachel's tomb.
Tazpit News reports that for the past two hours an Arab mob has been rioting outside Rachel’s Tomb in Betlehem.
According to reports there are three Jewish groups under siege inside
the structure and the police is ordering them to stay put, for fear of
getting hurt.
The Arabs are throwing rocks and firebombs at the compound.
Since this morning, throughout Judea and Samaria, there have been
demonstrations and violent marches of thousands of Arabs, to mark the so
called “Palestinian Independence Day.” On this day in 1988 a symbolic
declaration of independence was made by the late Chairman Yasser Arafat.
The Judea and Samaria rescue center reported that near the community
of Efrat in Gush Etzion two Jews were lightly injured by shrapnel when
Arabs threw stones at vehicles and one used vehicle was shattered.
Between Beit El and Ofra Arabs blocked route 60 and damaged Jewish
owned vehicles. Ariel Koren, whose vehicle was attacked, told the Jewish
Voice that he was barely able to escape.
“Dozens of Arabs and leftist anarchists with cameras and flags
blocked the road and began to throw stones at my car and beat on it with
the poles of their flags,” Koren relayed. “I pressed the gas pedal and
managed to pass through, but they smashed the left windshield and broke a
mirror.”
A Jewish female motorist driving behind Koren was also attacked with stones.
Hundreds of Arabs marched earlier in the Samaria village of Hawara,
armed with flags and drums, in an event that had been approved and
secured by the IDF.
The Judea and Samaria rescue center reported this morning that Arabs
threw stones at a military post in Beit Omer in Gush Etzion, near the
Arab town of Tekoa. dozens of Arabs gathered and threw stones at Jewish
owned vehicles, and at the Ne’alim checkpoint hundred of Arabs who
arrived in buses rioted and threw stones at the soldiers.
And most of that started before tonight's events. Hmmm.
Labels: Bethlehem, Rachel's tomb
'Thousands of settlers storm a mosque in Bethlehem'
Yes, that's the headline on a
'Palestinian' website. And the picture of the 'mosque' is the picture you see above. Except that it doesn't look like that anymore. Because of all the times 'Palestinians' fired on it, the 'mosque' has evolved into this over the years:
By the way, the number of 'settlers' who stormed the 'mosque' was 70,000 and they were the most peaceful 'stormers' you have ever seen. They came to pray. And many - if not most - of them weren't even 'settlers' unless, of course, one considers all Jews in this country to be 'settlers.'
Labels: Palestinian lies, Rachel's tomb
Mama Rachel and Yitzchak Rabin
Because I am in mourning and do not listen to music this year (in case anyone is wondering about Friday's LATMA update, I watched it with the sound muted), I could not post the music video of Yaakov Shwekey singing
Mama Rachel that I normally post for anniversary of our matriarch Rachel's death, the 11th day of the Jewish month of Cheshvan, which was on the Sabbath.
There's a connection between Yitzchak Rabin, the Prime Minister who was assassinated on the 12th of Cheshvan, and our matriarch Rachel, and it goes beyond the coincidence of the consecutive dates of death.
Here's the connection.
"During the Rabin administration, Kever Rachel was slated to fall into
'Area A', that is, under full Arab civil and military control. Upon
seeing this, Knesset Member Chanan Porat [National Religious Party.
CiJ] decided that he must speak with Rabin in the hopes of changing his
mind. As Chanan Porat was walking to Rabin's office, Knesset Member
Rabbi Menachem Porush [United Torah Judaism.
CiJ] asked Porat where he was going. Hearing that Porat was about to
fight for Kever Rachel, Porush asked to join in the meeting. At Rabin's
office, Chanan Porat was diligently explaining the ins and outs of the
security situation at Kever Rachel and making rational arguments that
did not seem to move Rabin.
"Suddenly Rabin looked at Porush and
saw that he was crying. Porush held Rabin's hands and with tears
streaming down his face, said: 'Yitzchak, it's Mamma Rachel, Mamma
Rachel.' At that moment Rabin's heart opened, and he altered the map so
that Kever Rachel would remain in Jewish hands."
Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from the respective turnouts for the two memorials on Saturday night. Some
70,000 people showed up to pray at Rachel's tomb. Only
15,000 showed up for the Left's annual hatefest in Rabin Square.
Maybe the people of Israel have figured out that they have
never been told the truth about Rabin's death.
More
here and
here.
Labels: Mama Rachel, Rachel's tomb, Yitzchak Rabin
Vatican getting into bed with Islam
Italian journalist Giulio Meotti reports that the Vatican has come out in favor of the 'Palestinian' agenda of
'de-Judaising' Jewish holy sites... and that's only the tip of the iceberg.
The Vatican already declared its support of waving a Palestinian flag over the Temple Mount in the heart of ancient Jerusalem. Next in line is Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem, Judaism’s third most holy site, which for millennia has served as a place of longing, pilgrimage and prayer for the Jewish people. In 1996, Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority began referring to the site as the “Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque,” and this is how UNESCO shamefully listed it in 2010.
Many Catholic groups worldwide already embraced the Palestinian myth. Pax Christi, one of the most famous Catholic organizations, on its website, repeatedly calls the Jewish site a “mosque.” Then there is the Bethlehem University of the Holy Land, the only Vatican-run educational institution in the area and whose founding can be traced back to the visit of Pope Paul VI in the holy land in 1964. The Catholic University recently launched a project about the Rachel’s Tomb. The document calls it “a historical religious site for followers of Christianity and Islam,” whose location is “on Palestinian lands.” The Vatican institution seems to ignore that all of Rachel’s Tomb belongs to Area C, which the Oslo Accords gave to Israeli jurisdiction. The very title of the Catholic project, “Rachel: An Alien in her Hometown,” suggests that the tomb is a spot hijacked by the Israelis. The tomb, the Catholic report says, “is also known by Muslims as the Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque.” According to the Vatican university, the Jewish shrines are Arab treasures stolen by the Zionists and the Israelis are no more than invading colonizers.
...
The Palestinian-Vatican pact is part of a bigger scenario, in which the Catholic Church is adopting a tragic appeasement on Islam. As the brave Andrew Bostom explained, the Vatican embraced “groveling Islamophilia, accompanied by criticism of the U.S. ‘war on terrorism’ as an ‘injustice’ to Muslims, and constant scapegoating of Israel, often expressed with strident animus towards the Jewish State.”
Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, who is known for having a pro-Islam position, has been appointed by Pope Benedict as the head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. In a letter addressing his “Dear Muslim friends,” Tauran asked for Islamic help to form an alliance against atheism. The Vatican promoted “Love of God, Love of Neighbor,” the first three-day forum with Islamic leaders. The Pope agreed to meet one of the most dangerous Islamists in the Western world, the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, Tariq Ramadan – the Swiss scholar who denies Israel’s right to life and who has been banned from entering the US because of his alleged association with extremists.
Bishop Mariano Crociata, secretary general of the Italian Episcopal Conference, announced that the Vatican is in favor of building new mosques in Europe. Then the European Bishops met with European Muslims in Turin (Cardinal Tauran was also present) to proclaim the need for the “progressive enculturation of Islam in Europe” (read it: the Islamization of the old continent).
Read the whole thing. Disgraceful.
Labels: Islam, Pope Benedict XVI, Rachel's tomb, Temple Mount, Vatican
Vatican labels Rachel's Tomb a mosque
For those of you who are puzzled by the Vatican's silence in the face of the Church of the Nativity being handed over to the 'Palestinian Authority,' perhaps an answer lies on the other side of town where the
Church is calling Rachel's Tomb - an exclusively Jewish site for centuries - a mosque. Giulio Meotti reports.
Last February, Unesco, which has accepted the Palestinian Authority as a state, claimed Rachel’s Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs are not exclusively Jewish sites, but “also belong to Christians and Muslims”. Writing in the Palestine Chronicle, the Christian Fadi Kattan denied “the Jewishness” and “the exclusiveness of Jewish access to Rachel’s tomb”.
It was in a meeting with Christian leaders that, in March 2010, Chief Islamic Judge, Tayseer Tamimi, called on Muslim and Christian leaders to take immediate action against Israel’s attempts to “Judaise” Jerusalem and “the Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque”.
Pax Christi, one of the most famous global Catholic organizations, in its website, repeatedly calls the Jewish site a “mosque”.
Then there is the Bethlehem University of the Holy Land, the only Vatican-run educational institution in the area and whose founding can be traced back to the visit of Pope Paul VI in the holy land in 1964. The Catholic University recently launched a project about the Rachel’s Tomb. The document calls it “a historical religious site for followers of Christianity and Islam, a sacred site also for Jews, who today control all access to it, despite its location on Palestinian lands”.
The Vatican institution seems to ignore that all of Rachel’s Tomb belongs to Area C, which the Oslo Accords gave to Israeli jurisdiction.
The very title of the Catholic project, “Rachel:An Alien in her Hometown”, suggests that the tomb is a spot hijacked by the Israelis. The tomb, the Catholic report says, “is also known by Muslims as the Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque”. According to the Vatican university, the Jews stole the past, the Jewish shrines are Arab treasures stolen by the Zionists, and the Jews are no more than invading colonizers.
The last time I visited Rachel’s Tomb, two years ago, the Israeli contractor who worked at the security barrier showed me the Arab houses from where the Palestinian snipers shot at the Jews visiting the grave. Down below, there is the romantic, medieval picture of the once modest, quiet, calm, serene and solitary domed tomb.
The 20th century of Joseph Goebbels has taught all of us that a lie starts as a small one, but if it is not corrected, it festers like a cancer destroying truth, justice and finally - people. A lesson that the Catholics should have learn much better.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Bethlehem, Palestinian Authority, Rachel's tomb, UNESCO
Memories of Mama Rochel
For those of you who have been there, and for those of you who never have, you'll enjoy reading our friend Shrpintz's reminiscences about Kever Rachel (Rachel's tomb)
here.
The picture is how it looked the first time I saw it nearly 40 years ago.
Labels: Rachel's tomb
US may have no choice but to cut UNESCO funding
The New York Times reports that under current law, if the 'Palestinian Authority' wins full membership in UNESCO, as seems likely, the United States may have little choice but to
cut off funding.
Unesco membership “is in the core security interests of the United States,” the agency’s director general, Irina Bokova, said in an interview here. “I think the United States should take a very careful look at this legislation, in their own interests. I don’t believe it’s in the U.S. interest to disengage from the U.N. system as a whole.”
The irony is that the Obama administration agrees and has been a strong supporter of Ms. Bokova. But lawyers at the State Department see no way around the laws, which date from 1990 and 1994 and provide no possibility of a presidential waiver.
...
Mrs. Clinton has asked the American special envoy to the Middle East, David M. Hale, to negotiate with the Palestinians and Arab countries to break the impasse. The State Department has said it hoped to press the Palestinians to withdraw their request.
There have been discussions about inviting the Palestinians, longtime nonstate observers at Unesco, to sign three major conventions — including the World Heritage Convention, which could list key sites currently under Israeli control as Palestinian — as a nonstate signatory, the way the European Union has done. Such a move would give the Palestinians some of the advantages they seek in joining Unesco without full membership.
Repeated requests to interview the Palestinian ambassador to Unesco or his deputy were declined. Palestinian officials have previously said they see membership as part of the recognition they seek as a state, which the Palestinian envoy to Unesco, Elias Wadih Sanbar, referred to as “a new era in which Palestine is recognized.”
An Arab ambassador, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there was also discussion of approving full membership for the Palestinians but delaying it for six months, although that would not prevent a cutoff of American money. There is also talk that other Arab states could make up the shortfall in the Unesco budget.
But Arab representatives say that it will be very difficult for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, to compromise. Any “package deal” short of membership, one of them said, “would look like bribery.”
Unesco has a two-year budget of $643 million for 2010-11 and a projected budget of $653 million for 2012-13. Since the United States normally pays its 22 percent share toward the end of the year, a cutoff could mean no payment for 2011, another $70 million blow to the budget. The result would be immediate cuts in programs and personnel.
Ms. Bokova is hopeful for a resolution, but she said that on a recent visit to Washington she found “skepticism and lack of knowledge” about today’s Unesco.
Likewise, American officials doubt Congress will alter the legislation. Many Republicans, who control the House, are hostile to both the United Nations and the Palestinian statehood bid.
Boo. Hoo. UNESCO has changed since the politicized '80's?
Give me a
break.
Labels: Maimonides, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, Rachel's tomb, UNESCO, Unilateral declaration of independence (UDI)
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Sunday, October 9.
1) Find the real headlines
a) Imams stand in solidarity with burned shrine And yet, during the "tunnel" riots of two weeks ago, there were incidents of murder and sacrilege. One occurred in Nablus, an Arab town under P.L.O. control. There is in Nablus a Jewish religious site, Joseph's Tomb. Under the P.L.O.-Israeli peace accords, it remained a tiny enclave peopled by devout Jews and, for protection, a few Israeli soldiers. On Sept. 26, it was attacked by a Palestinian mob throwing firebombs. Six Israelis were killed. Many prayer books were burned. This is the Middle Eastern equivalent of a mob of whites torching a black church, killing parishioners and burning its holy objects. Yet, while the tunnel received enormous coverage complete with diagrams, the desecration at Joseph's Tomb, if reported at all, merited at most a few sentences. And a similar Palestinian attempt to firebomb Judaism's third holiest shrine, Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, received in the major American press no mention at all, save one in the New York Times--in a picture caption on page 12!
(From Desecration of Truth by Charles Krauthammer: )
b) Imams stand in solidarity with attacked shrine Bullets were fired at Rachel's Tomb as soon as the riots began, from the Aida refugee camp between Beit Jala and Bethlehem, and from the roofs of buildings located to the west, south and east. Palestinian Authority security forces, who were responsible for keeping order, not only failed to prevent the violence, they actively participated in it. When the gunfire at soldiers and visitors increased, the Israeli army took to the neighboring roofs. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the battles, Shahar Vekret and Danny Darai. Darai was murdered by Atef Abayat, a Tanzim operative who headed the main terrorist network in Bethlehem at the time.17 In his book Permission Given, Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman revealed that not only was Abayat not arrested, as Israel demanded from the Palestinian Authority, but Yasser Arafat personally instructed that he be paid.
( From The Palestinian Authority and the Jewish Holy Sites in the West Bank: Rachel's Tomb as a Test Case by Nadav Shragai)
c) Rabbis stand in solidarity with burned mosque More than a thousand rabbis from around the world have signed a statement denouncing the burning of an Israeli mosque as police arrested a suspect who is alleged to be a Jewish extremist. “We condemn those in Israel who exacerbate conflict and strife, and who insist that only one people or religion belongs to this land,” said the statement, which organizers say was overwhelmingly signed by U.S. rabbis.
Regarding those who insist "...only one people or religion belongs to this land," Palestinian Media Watch recently observed: The day after PA Chairman Abbas delivered the Palestinian Authority's request for statehood to the UN, PA TV, which is controlled directly by Abbas' office, broadcast a map that erases Israel and envisions Palestinian sovereignty over all of Israel. The map includes both the PA areas and all of Israel (excluding the Golan Heights) wrapped in the Palestinian flag - a symbol of Palestinian sovereignty over the whole area - and has a key through it, symbolizing ownership.
The key I believe is a symbol of the homes the Palestinians claimed to have left while fleeing the Jews. What's frustrating about the Rabbis who stand with the mosque is that they don't acknowledge that he is a fringe character in Israeli society. Every major politician spoke out against the arson. The Israeli police investigated and arrested a suspect. He will be tried and if found guilty, will be punished. He will not be celebrated. Contrast that with Mother of 4 terrorist murderers chosen by the PA to launch statehood campaign: The Palestinian Authority chose the mother of 4 terrorist murderers, one of whom killed seven Israeli civilians and attempted to kill twelve others, as the person to launch their statehood campaign with the UN. In a widely publicized event, the PA had Latifa Abu Hmeid lead the procession to the UN offices in Ramallah and to hand over a letter for the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.
Among the Palestinians, even moderate Fatah celebrates terror.
2) A headline that you wouldn't have seen 30 years ago. Arab Spring activists from Egypt, Tunisia and Libya observing Poland’s election
3) I get by with a little help from my friends
As the end to the American military presence in Iraq is approaching, the United States is embarking on an a "Marshall Plan" for Iraq. The State Department will take over operations in Iraq from the U.S. military by the end of the year, in its biggest overseas operation since the effort to rebuild Europe after WWII. The Washington Post reports that some 16,000 civilians eventually will work under the American ambassador to Iraq, the scale of which has raised concerns among lawmakers and others.
Iraq is demonstrating its gratitude. More than six months after the start of the Syrian uprising, Iraq is offering key moral and financial support to the country’s embattled president, undermining a central U.S. policy objective and raising fresh concerns that Iraq is drifting further into the orbit of an American arch rival — Iran. Iraq’s stance has dealt an embarrassing setback to the Obama administration, which has sought to enlist Muslim allies in its campaign to isolate Syrian autocrat Bashar al-Assad. While other Arab states have downgraded ties with Assad, Iraq has moved in the opposite direction, hosting official visits by Syrians, signing pacts to expand business ties and offering political support.
The first article also reported: U.S. military officials have said Iraq’s security forces are “good enough” to contain violence after the drawdown.
But the Washington Post reports that there will a delay in the pullback of Iraqi troops from cities: The delay is an acknowledgment that even after four years of declining violence, Iraq’s police force is not capable of maintaining security on its own. The other worry is that violence will increase when American troops complete their own withdrawal from the country at year’s end.
I believed that deposing Saddam Hussein would remove a threat to the Middle East and open the door to a stable pro-Western Iraq. I guess that was overly optimistic.
Labels: Arab spring, Fatah, Iraq, Joseph's tomb, Palestinian Authority, Rachel's tomb, religious freedom, Tuba Zanghariya mosque
UNESCO asked to declare terror attack site a World Heritage site
As part of its drive for 'statehood,' the 'Palestinian Authority' has asked UNESCO to declare Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity a
World Heritage site. It would be the first World Heritage site in the 'Palestinian territories' (That's the Washington Post's and the AP's determination - I'm glad to see they admit that
Rachel's tomb is not part of the 'Palestinian territories'. Yes I screen captured the page).
The Palestinians say they asked UNESCO in January to place the Church of the Nativity on its list of the world's most important cultural sites.
No sites under Palestinian control are on the list because Palestinians do not have a state recognized by the U.N.
Palestinian officials say they hope the site's overwhelming cultural significance will sway member states to approve the request. A decision is expected in mid-2012.
Tourism Minister Khouloud Daibes said Monday that the request is part of the Palestinian campaign to build their state.
The quasi-Islamist 'Palestinian Authority' demanding World Heritage status for the Church of the Nativity is
rich.
And for those who have forgotten, while the terrorists hid in the Church of the Nativity, the Church's Christian owners and the church itself suffered. This is from a recent interview with one of the siege's leaders, Jihad Jaara, who is now in exile in Ireland: Over 200 nuns and priests were trapped in the church after Israeli hostage negotiators failed to secure their release.
...
WND: Again, the church siege took place in front of the world media. There is plenty of video footage of the condition the church was in when the ordeal finally ended. It was a big mess. And the priests afterwards told reporters your group seized church stockpiles of food and "ate like greedy monsters" until the food ran out while civilians inside went hungry. They say you also guzzled beer, wine, and Johnny Walker scotch that your group found in the priests' quarters. Israel says it even found over 40 explosive devices inside.
JAARA: It is not a secret that inside the church there was a very serious lack of food. I don't remember that there were such problems as you describe. Still, we were 250 persons inside the church who suffered from the fact that the Israeli army prevented any food supply and we were obliged to eat the weeds of the gardens in the church. We did not blackmail the religious to give us their food. They kindly and with much generosity offered us to share their food with us.
As for the conditions in which we left the church, it is true there was a lot of dirt but it is normal to the conditions in which we were living. Thirty-nine days without any water and any possibility to move because of the snipers who were placed all around the church.
...
WND: Israel says it found documents after the siege that imply your group attempted to extort Church officials for money in exchange for their assured safety. Is this accurate?
JAARA: This argument is very funny. The officials of the church whom you say we tried to extort were the only ones who gave us money before our exile to Gaza and Europe. This is a very noble position that we will not forget. Secondly, why should we have needed this money during the siege? Were there malls inside the church [for us to shop in]? We did not know if we were going to survive the whole operation or not. So why should we need this money?
...
WND: Explain why Christians accounted for upwards of 90 percent of Bethlehem for years until the Palestinian Authority took control of the city in 1995. Immediately Christians started fleeing the city. Now the population is about 20 to 25 percent Christian. Just what caused the vast majority of Bethlehem's Christians to flee right after the Palestinians took control?
JAARA: This is the responsibility of the Israeli occupation and the Israeli cruelty. The Israeli occupation defaced Christian monuments and sites and this was part of the reasons that incited Christians to leave. The Christian emigration is not a new phenomenon. Muslims leave places too. I reject your attitude that makes a separation between Muslims and Christians.
WND: I am not referring to Israeli reports. I have personally talked to scores of Christians in Bethlehem who say they feel threatened by the Muslim population. Many were afraid to even give me their names for fear of Muslim retaliation. Should Christians in Bethlehem be afraid?
JAARA: I say that all these things are rumors and arguments that Israel brings in order to separate between the two communities hoping that these thoughts will infiltrate our society. Problems can take place between a Muslim family and a Christian one, yet this happens between neighbors all over the world. It is not in any way a planned aggression against Christians. It is true also that when there is a case of a Christian girl who gets married with a young Muslim it is a very sensitive affair that may create some tension but it is very natural now all over the world that couples from different religions get married. It is the occupation that feeds this tension.
If it's designated a World Heritage site, will that stop them from trying to turn it into a mosque?
Labels: Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity, Palestinian Authority, Rachel's tomb
'Palestinians' renaming Jewish historical sites
A new study indicates that since 2001, the 'Palestinian Authority' has systematically
changed the names of Jewish historical sites in 'Palestinian' textbooks in order to deny the Jewish heritage.
According to the CEO of the institute and the author of the report, Shelley Elkayam, the phenomenon is characterised by a few levels of significance, among them gender symbolism alongside subversive logical undermining and a slipping away from the modern-historical to the mythical-legendary.
Elkayam asserted that the Palestinian edition itself explains the process of change as a conscious manipulation which was done by "Palestinian, Arab, and Islamic centres and with the help of charities working to revive the Arab Palestinian heritage to maintain the character of Palestine and its heritage like Al-Burke Wall – the Western Wall, Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque – Rachel's tomb."
The IMPACT-SE report showed the change clearly. On page 91 in the 1995 grade 6 book Palestinian Civil Studies, Rachel's tomb was "Rachel's tomb: mother of Joseph our lord (Said) and Jacob's wife", while on page 56 in the 2001 version of the book for grade 7 Rachel's tomb was transformed by the Palestinians into a mosque.
In the schoolbook from 2001, in an exercise titled "attempts to erase the Palestinian heritage" Bilal Mosque [Rachel's tomb] and the cave of the Patriarchs are presented to the children as part of the Palestinian "philosophical heritage" and examples of "the attempt to 'turn Jewish' Muslim-religious places like: Abraham's Mosque [cave of the patriarchs] and Bilal Ibn Rabah mosque [Rachel's tomb]".
But their goal is 'two states living side by side in peace.' Tell me about it....
Labels: Palestinian denial of Jewish history, Rachel's tomb, Western Wall
The OIC's delegitimization campaign against Israel
Bat Yeor reports that the OIC's ongoing
delegitimization campaign against Israel has notched another accomplishment with the declaration of
Rachel's tomb as an 'Islamic holy site.'
The article is quite long, but I suggest that you
read the whole thing. Bottom line: If the world is to be saved from the menace of Islam, both the OIC and the UN ought to be delegitimized.
So why isn't Israel leading the way?
Labels: Organization of Islamic Countries, Rachel's tomb, UNESCO, United Nations
The despicable Larry Derfner
Mrs. Carl said this morning that she wants to cancel the JPost subscription. We never read it in hard copy except on the Sabbath anyway, and they won't let you have a Sabbath only subscription, so why bother. This
despicable article by Larry Derfner (Hat Tip:
Shy Guy) is the sort of thing that I would expect to see in Haaretz (which is why I don't have a subscription to Haartez). It will make me cancel the Post subscription much sooner. And cancel it altogether.
ISRAEL’S CHAMPIONS in this affair are focusing on the Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque at Rachel’s Tomb, saying it didn’t exist until the 1990s, their point being that Rachel’s Tomb belongs to Jews and Jews alone.
My point is this: Who cares when the Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque was built? If UNESCO is saying Rachel’s Tomb is holy to three religions, why do we have to insist that’s it’s only holy to one, to our religion?
And even if it’s true that the Palestinians only put up a mosque at Rachel’s Tomb to compete with the Jewish claim to the site, we Jews have been doing the same thing to them all over this country. Muslims destroyed Jewish synagogues and cemeteries? Israel destroyed Muslim mosques and cemeteries.
The reason it matters is that the Arabs deny any Jewish connection to this land. They claim we are interlopers who expelled the 'natives' from 'their' land. When the likes of UNESCO take a Jewish site like Rachel's tomb and turn it into a Muslim site, they are telling the world that the land belongs to the Muslims. The Jews? They were here centuries ago, say UNESCO, the 'Palestinians' and Larry Derfner. They're ancient history.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Israel is a Jewish state, Larry Derfner, Machpeila cave, Rachel's tomb
Sign the petition!
There's a petition online against UNESCO's actions in declaring Rachel's tomb to be a 'mosque' and trying to deny that the tomb and the Machpeila cave in Hebron are part of
Israel's Jewish heritage.
We the undersigned protest The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization�s (UNESCO) ruling that Israel has no right to add the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, where almost all of Israel�s patriarchs and matriarchs are buried, to the National Heritage list. The Tomb of the Patriarchs, the oldest Jewish shrine and the second holiest site in Judaism, centers around the Cave of Machpelah, an ancient double cave revered for almost 4,000 years as the burial site of the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives. The connection of the Jewish people to the Cave of Machpelah was established some 3,800 years ago, when Abraham, the first Hebrew, purchased it for the express purpose of using it as a burial site for himself, his wife Sarah, and their future generations. It is the cradle of Jewish history and the focal point of Jewish identity. The rectangular enclosure over the caves is the only fully surviving Herodian structure. Thus the Tomb of the Patriarchs is of inestimable historical value as well as great sacred significance for the Jewish people.
We also protest the decision by UNESCO to re-label as an Islamic mosque the tomb of Rachel, Israel�s other matriarch, and to demand that Israel remove the site from its National Heritage list. The Tomb of Rachel, Judaism's third-holiest site, has been the scene of prayer and pilgrimage for more than three thousand years, and has an especially meaningful connection for Jewish women. Rachel, the matriarch who died in childbirth and was buried at that spot on the road to Hebron, has been a comfort and hope to Jews since biblical days. �Thus says the Lord, 'Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded�and they shall return from the enemy's land and there is hope for the future'� 'Your children shall return to their own country.� Jeremiah 31:16-17. Until 2000, the Palestinians recognized the site as Rachel�s Tomb. It was called �Rachel�s Tomb� in Al-mawsu'ah al-filastiniyah, the Palestinian encyclopedia published after 1996 and in PALESTINE, THE HOLY LAND, a Palestinian publication, with an introduction by Yasser Arafat. However, during the second intifada, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, a Palestinian daily, announced a new-found historical connection to Rachel�s Tomb, declaring that is was "originally a Muslim mosque.�
In an effort to erase Jewish history and supersede Jewish religious sites with Islamic institutions, Muslims have intentionally built mosques upon numerous synagogues and Jewish holy sites. The clearest examples are the Al-Aqsa mosque which sits on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, and the Dome of the Rock, which was built on Judaism�s holiest site of the two biblical Jewish Temples. This pattern repeats itself at the second and third holiest sites. Thus at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, there are domes over the tombs of Abraham and Sarah and a mosque over the tombs of Isaac and Rebecca. Photos from the early 1900's show no Muslim cemetery near the Tomb or Rachel. After 1948 Muslims built their own cemetery surrounding three sides of Rachel�s tomb and now claim that Rachel's Tomb is one of their burial plots and that it contains a Muslim rather than Jewish notable.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu�s office decried the ludicrous nature of the UNESCO decision:
�The attempt to detach the Nation of Israel from its heritage is absurd. If the nearly 4,000-year-old burial sites of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the Jewish Nation � Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah �are not part of its culture and tradition, then what is a national cultural site?�
�Sites such as the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel�s Tomb (which sits on the edge of Bethlehem) present an inconvenient truth for the pro-Palestine movement and its supporters, who want to claim that the Jews have no historic ties to this land.�
In cooperating with efforts to erase Jewish historical ties to Israel, UNESCO is aiding and abetting those who hope to and obfuscate Israel�s Jewish past and undermine Israel�s Jewish future.
Read the whole thing and sign the petition.
Labels: Machpeila cave, Rachel's tomb, UNESCO
How Rachel's tomb became a 'mosque'
Some of you may have been surprised last week to hear that UNESCO decided that Kever Rachel (Rachel's tomb) is a '
mosque.' The notion that Kever Rachel is a 'mosque' began to be
invented by the 'Palestinians' in 1996.
Between 1993 and 1995, Palestinian groups committed terror and suicide attacks that killed 80 Israelis. In February 1996, the IDF feared that Rachel’s Tomb would furnish a convenient target for an attack of this sort, as it was situated on the main highway connecting Jerusalem and Hebron, with heavy Jewish and Arab traffic. Demonstrations of a nationalist Palestinian character erupted at Rachel’s Tomb as Muslims began to raise the argument that the site involved “Islamic soil.”
At the end of September 1996, the “Western Wall Tunnel Riots” broke out. After the attack on Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus and its fall to the Palestinians, hundreds of Arabs from Bethlehem and the Aida refugee camp attacked Rachel’s Tomb. They set on fire the scaffolding that was erected around the tomb as part of fortification work at the site and tried to break into the compound. Marching at their head was Muhammad Rashad al-Jabari, the governor of Bethlehem, an appointee of the Palestinian Authority. The IDF dispersed the demonstrators with gunfire and stun grenades. Scores were wounded, including Kifah Barakat, the commander of Force 17, the presidential guard of PA chairman Yasser Arafat.
With the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, Palestinians again attacked Rachel’s Tomb, and for 41 days Jews were prevented from visiting the site due to shooting incidents.
The Muslims also escalated their rhetoric. They stopped calling the site “Rachel’s Dome,” as they had done for hundreds of years, and began calling it the Mosque of Bilal ibn Rabah. The Muslim religious authorities (Wakf) first began to employ this name in 1996, and it eventually took root in Palestinian national discourse.
Bilal ibn Rabah, an Ethiopian by origin, is known in Islamic history as a black slave who served the household of the prophet Muhammad as the person in charge of calling the Muslims to prayer five times a day – the first muezzin. Upon the death of Muhammad, he went to fight the wars of Islam in Syria, was killed there in 642 CE, and was buried in Damascus. The Palestinian Authority raised the argument that, according to Islamic tradition, the Islamic conquerors of the country called the mosque that was established at Rachel’s Tomb after Bilal ibn Rabah.
Yet the Palestinian argument ignores the presumptive ownership that the Jews acquired at the site for many hundreds of years and from the firmans that the Ottoman authorities issued awarding Rachel’s Tomb to the Jews at the beginning of the 19th century.
The Palestinian arguments ignore even the accepted Muslim tradition that venerates Rachel and identifies the site as her burial place. Prof. Yehoshua Porat termed the claim of a mosque at Rachel’s Tomb as mendacious. He noted that the place was known in Arabic as “Rachel’s Dome – a Jewish place of worship.”
For many years in official publications of Palestinian national bodies, there was no reference to any other name for the site, including in the Palestinian Lexicon issued by the Arab League and the PLO in 1984, or in the Al-mawsu’ah al-filastiniyah published in Italy by the Palestinian Encyclopedia organization after 1996.
The book Palestine the Holy Land simply relates that “At the northern entrance to the city [Bethlehem] the Tomb of Rachel appears, the mother of the matriarchs, who died while giving life to Benjamin.” The book The West Bank and Gaza – Palestine also fails to mention the location of Rachel’s Tomb as a mosque. Despite this, the deputy minister of religious trusts and religious affairs in the Palestinian Authority defined Rachel’s Tomb as an Islamic site.
On Yom Kippur 2000, six days after the IDF retreated from Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, the official PLO newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida published an article indicating Rachel’s Tomb as the next Palestinian target. “Bethlehem – Rachel’s Tomb or the Mosque of Bilal ibn Rabah is one of the stakes that the occupation government and the Zionist movement drove into most of the Palestinian cities... This grave is spurious and was originally a Muslim mosque.”
During the second intifada, Rachel’s Tomb was attacked by gunfire both from the direction of the Aida refugee camp between Beit Jala and Bethlehem, as well as from the rooftops of houses to the west, south and east. Palestinian Authority forces, who were presumably in charge of preserving order and should have prevented violence, not only did not prevent it but took an active part in the fighting. At one point, 50 Jews found themselves besieged at Rachel’s Tomb while a gun battle between the IDF and Palestinian Authority forces was taking place around them.
On April 2, 2002, the IDF returned to Bethlehem in the framework of Operation Defensive Shield and remained there for a protracted time. A bomb was thrown at Rachel’s Tomb on April 10, 2005, and another on December 27, 2006, while on February 10, 2007, scores of Palestinians attacked the site with rocks.
The High Court of Justice has recognized the clear security need of defending this holy site. On February 3, 2005, it rejected petitions by Palestinians who wanted to change the route of the security barrier near Rachel’s Tomb, ruling that the current location of the barrier preserved the balance between freedom of religion and the local residents’ freedom of movement.
To learn more about the history of Kever Rachel (which has been identified as such for about 1,700 years),
read the whole thing.
Labels: Bethlehem, mosque, Rachel's tomb, security fence
Israel reducing cooperation with UNESCO
To protest the designation of Rachel's tomb as a Muslim cultural site, Israel has announced that it is
reducing its cooperation with UNESCO.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said Israel would not cooperate with UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization - in administering five protected sites in Palestinian territory as a dispute that has escalated in recent weeks came to a head.
The ancient tomb, which lies between Jerusalem and the nearby Palestinian-controlled city of Bethlehem, is traditionally regarded as the burial place of a biblical matriarch and is holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews.
Speaking with journalists in Jerusalem, Ayalon blamed the Palestinians for influencing the UN to side against Israel.
"This is another attempt at de-legitimization by the Palestinian Authority," he said.
However, Israel's reaction was not quite as serious as it first appeared. Ayalon's spokeswoman said that Israel would cut off relations with UNESCO altogether - but shortly after said that the announcement had been made in error and retracted the statement.
UNESCO had become a "rubber stamp" for the Palestinian government of President Mahmoud Abbas, Ayalon added:
"Decisions like this take us farther away from peace and understanding between our two nations."
We should cut relations altogether until the decision is changed - and ask our allies to do the same.
Labels: Bethlehem, Danny Ayalon, Rachel's tomb, UNESCO
