Het conflict aangaande het graf van Rachel, Ariël en nog wat onderwerpen
Latma.tv
15 november 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpqMbyu8YTU&feature=player_embedded#!
Israel Suspends its Cooperation with UNESCO
by Elad Benari
Nov 4 '10, Cheshvan 27, 5771
Israel announced on Wednesday that it will be suspending its cooperation with The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), due to its decision to declare Rachel’s Tomb a mosque. The suspension will be in place until the organization reverses its decision
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who made the announcement regarding the suspension, said of the resolution by UNESCO: “This resolution was adopted by the Arab automatic majority, lead by the Palestinian Authority, in another attempt to de-legitimize Israel. UNESCO has become a rubber stamp for the PA.”
UNESCO’s recent vote called for Rachel's Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs – the burial site of the other Biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs – to be removed from Israel's National Heritage list.
The Palestinian Authority has claimed that Rachel's Tomb is holy to Muslims as the site of a mosque called the Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque. It demands control over both the tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hevron, as well as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
In response to the resolution, the Prime Minister’s Office released a statement in which it said: “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?”
Wednesday’s decision to suspend cooperation with UNESCO was praised by several MKs, among whom was MK Othniel Schneller (Kadima), who initiated the discussion on UNESCO's decision. Schneller welcomed the announcement and said that “UNESCO's decision to declare Rachel's Tomb as a mosque is another hypocritical decision from the United Nations. The decision ignored historical fact and turned a political controversy into a religious dispute.”
MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) called UNESCO’s decision “hypocritical and anti-Semitic” and said that “Islam is trying to rob the past and falsify history.”
Eldad added, however, that the Israeli governments “who neglected Rachel’s Tonb and the Cave of Machpelah and abandoned the Temple Mount also play a part in the fact that the most important National Heritage Sites are seen by the world as mosques.” He called on the Israeli government to declare the sites National Heritage Sites and invest in their development. Doing this, said Eldad, “will shut the mouths of those who try to rob Israel of its past.”
UNESCO Erases Israeli Protests from Rachel's Tomb Protocol
by Hillel Fendel
Nov 1 '10, Cheshvan 24, 5771
“The attempt to detach the Nation of Israel from its heritage is absurd,” a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office asserts, in response to the UNESCO decision to recognize Rachel’s Tomb as a mosque and criticize Israel's inclusion of the Machpelah Cave as a "national heritage site." http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/140347
“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?” the statement asked rhetorically.
On Oct. 21, UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization – resolved that "Bilal bin Rabah Mosque/Rachel's Tomb [is] an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territories and that any unilateral action by the Israeli authorities is to be considered a violation of international law." http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/news.aspx/140345
Rachel's Tomb, located less than a kilometer south of the Jerusalem municipal border, has been recognized for more than 1,700 years as the tomb of Matriarch Rachel. Only ten years ago, some Muslims began calling it the "Bilal ibn Rabah mosque" as well. However, no Muslims have been known to pray there throughout the 43 years of Israeli control of the site. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/news.aspx/140172
“It is sad,” the PM’s office stated, “that an organization that was established for the purpose of promoting the legacy of historic sites around the world tries, for political reasons, to uproot the ties between the People of Israel and their legacy. The State of Israel, as opposed to our neighbors, will continue to maintain freedom of worship for all religions in these sites.”
UNESCO Erases Israeli Protests from Protocol
INN has learned that UNESCO erased from the protocol at which the resolution was voted on the remarks of protestation by Israeli representative Nimrod Barkan. UNESCO claimed that his words were “too aggressive.”
Barkan said afterwards, “The decision is politically slanted, and UNESCO is making a mockery of itself.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry released a similar statement.
When Did it Ever Become Moslem?
Even the UNESCO decision itself could barely explain the Moslem connection with Rachel’s Tomb. In an explanatory note to the proposed resolution, prepared by seven Arab states, the holy site is called “the Tomb of Rachel, home to the historic Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque.” But nowhere in the 11-paragraph document is it explained how or when the site came to be Moslem. http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/8F8CBDCA74D7D20385257721007157CF
In fact, Rachel’s Tomb was venerated as such by Moslems for centuries, and up to only a few years ago, official Palestinian Authority publications never referred to the "Bilal bin Rabah Mosque.” Nadav Shragai notes that a publication called “Palestine, the Holy Land,” published by the Palestinian Council for Development and Rehabilitation, with an introduction by Yasser Arafat, simply says that "at the northwest entrance to [Bethlehem] lies the tomb of the matriarch Rachel, who died while giving life to Benjamin."