Larry Derfner in the Jerusalem Post: UNESCO is right, Israel is wrong

The UN agency is recognizing Jewish connection to Tomb of the Patriarchs, Rachel’s Tomb. What it’s denouncing is Israel’s claim to sovereignty over these sites, which lie in occupied territory.

The word is that UNESCO is on an anti-Semitic tear, trying to “de-Judaize” and “Islamicize” two of the most holy Jewish sites in this country – the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem.

“Talk about distortions,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told thousands of American Jews in New Orleans this week. “Can you imagine that UNESCO tried to deny the Jewish connection to Rachel’s Tomb next to Jerusalem and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron? The absurdity to try to erase our past...”

For all good, belligerent Jews, UNESCO is the outrage of the month. But they’re just blowing smoke again, trying to get off the defensive about the occupation by accusing the occupation’s critics of anti- Semitism. (Or rather “delegitimization,” which is the new, approved euphemism now that “anti-Semitism” has begun to sound like “wolf.”)

Read UNESCO’s declaration of October 21. It spells out in black and white that the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb are holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews.

The declaration is titled “The two Palestinian sites of al-Haram al-Ibrahim/Tomb of the Patriarchs in al- Khalil/Hebron and the Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque/Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem.”
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