Love of the Land: When Dedicating a Synagogue Is a War Crime

When Dedicating a Synagogue Is a War Crime

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
17 March '10

Yes, really. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights — one of a myriad of NGOs waging a war of delegitimization against Israel — has issued a press release declaring that:

The inauguration of a Jewish synagogue in East Jerusalem [sic] is considered a form of settlement activity, and thus constitutes a war crime under international humanitarian law.

Of course, this was not the inauguration of a synagogue — it was the rededication of a synagogue that dates to the Ottoman empire and was destroyed by the Jordanians during their occupation of Jerusalem. The Hurva synagogue was built in the 1860’s (even then on the ruins of a synagogue that had been built during the previous century) and demolished intentionally by the Arab Legion in 1948, during the War of Independence. Oh, and I almost forgot: it’s not in “East Jerusalem” — it’s in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. Just a stroll away from the Western Wall, whose existence by this logic is also a war crime.

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Love of the Land: When Dedicating a Synagogue Is a War Crime

Love of the Land: UN “Peace” Coordinator: Jewish Heritage an Invalid Concept

UN “Peace” Coordinator: Jewish Heritage an Invalid Concept

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
22 February '10

Earlier today I wrote about the implications of an important new archeological discovery that highlights the 3,000-year-old Jewish heritage in East Jerusalem. Such finds have political significance specifically because the whole focus of Palestinian nationalism has been to deny Jewish ties to the land and to attempt to rewrite history in such a way as to expunge the historicity and continuity of the Jewish presence.

But the reason why this issue is so important was brought home again today by a statement coming from Robert Serry, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. In it, Serry went out of his way to condemn the recently announced National Heritage Plan announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because two ancient Jewish religious shrines were included in the list of sites to be preserved and protected. Serry objected to the inclusion of Rachel’s Tomb outside Bethlehem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in the list of essential places in Jewish history, because the two are in the West Bank and thus, in his view, “occupied Palestinian territory.” The fact that they are located on land that is subject to dispute between the two parties is of no interest to the UN official who, despite his status as a peace mediator, is ready to dictate where the borders of a putative Palestinian state must be. But Serry’s argument is not merely one of borders, because in the same statement he claimed that the sites “are of historical and religious significance not only to Judaism but also to Islam, and to Christianity as well.”

It is true that Christians and Muslims have an intrinsic interest in any biblical site. And since Muslims, like Jews, consider Abraham to be one of their patriarchs, they have a religious stake in the Cave of the Patriarchs. But Muslims have never been willing to share this most ancient of Jewish shrines with other faiths. Throughout the history of Muslim control of the land of Israel, through the Ottoman era and even during the time of British rule, Jews were forbidden to enter the cave and were, instead, constrained to ascend no higher than the seventh step of the entrance to the sacred place. Jewish prayer inside the cave only resumed in June 1967, after the Israeli conquest of Hebron, after which the two religions have shared the place despite the history of tension and bloodshed in the Hebron area.

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Love of the Land: UN “Peace” Coordinator: Jewish Heritage an Invalid Concept

Love of the Land: Document: Palestinian NGO's objection to Israeli "Heritage" ties to biblical sites illustrates absence of pluralism

Document: Palestinian NGO's objection to Israeli "Heritage" ties to biblical sites illustrates absence of pluralism

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
22 February '10

Here is where we are:

1. There are numerous places in the "Holy Land" beyond the "Green Line" that are intimately linked to Jewish history and thus to Jewish identity and heritage. Recognizing these historical links in now way rules out a priori that some of these places may not be under Israeli control in a final status arrangement.

2. There are numerous places in "Historical Palestine" within the "Green Line" that are intimately linked to the history of Arab Palestinians and thus to the identity and heritage of Palestinian Arabs. Recognizing these historical links in now way rules out these places (Jaffo, for example) will remain under Israeli control in a final status arrangement.

3. In the instance that a place that is holy to both Islam and other religions is under Moslem control, non-Moslem prayer is prohibited at the site.

4. As demonstrated in the "Tomb of the Patriarchs" (a place that is holy to both Judaism and other religions is under Israeli control), non-Jewish prayer is also accommodated at the site.

5. As for the Hague and Geneva Conventions cited, inasmuch as Israel has preserved and improved rather than destroyed,.are we to understand that the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights believes that international law somehow supports discrimination against Jews in places holy to Jews and Moslems?

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PCHR
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Press Release

Ref: 10/2010
Date: 22 February 2010
Time: 11:30 GMT

PCHR Condemns Israel's Decision to Include the Ibrahimi Mosque and Bilal Ben Rabah Mosque on the List of Israeli Archaeological Sites

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns a decisions taken by the Israeli government on Sunday, 21 February 2010, to include the "Tomb of the Patriarch" (the Ibrahimi Mosque) in Hebron and "Rachel Tomb" (Bilal Ben Rabah Mosque) in Bethlehem on the list of Israeli archaeological sites.

(Read full PCHR press release)

Love of the Land: Document: Palestinian NGO's objection to Israeli "Heritage" ties to biblical sites illustrates absence of pluralism

Love of the Land: Palestinian Group Blasts Hamas; Washington Post Misses News

Palestinian Group Blasts Hamas; Washington Post Misses News

CAMERA/Snapshots
09 December 09

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemned “external travel restrictions imposed on the population” by the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers. It said Palestinian police on December 7 “prevented 37 patients and their companions from heading towards the [Erez] crossing to travel to hospitals” in the West Bank and Israel.

PCHR called on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip government to cancel Interior Ministry provisions announced on November 25. Lengthy forms, multiple identification, photocopies of Israeli permits and a requirement that individuals obtain permission to travel abroad three days in advance “have obstructed their travel to hospital, raising concerns regarding their health,” the organization charged.

The Washington Post did not cover the story. In a letter to Executive Editor Marcus W. Brauchli, retired McClatchy Newspapers Washington bureau chief and CAMERA member Leo Rennert noted that the newspaper “has devoted extensive space to Palestinians discomforted by Israeli travel restrictions .... while ignoring or paying at best minimal attention to Palestinian abuses of Palestinian human rights.”

It should be noted that PCHR, funded by the European Union, Norway, Denmark, the Ford Foundation, and George Soros’ Open Society Fund, among others, routinely refers to Jerusalem a part of the West Bank, the Israel Defense Forces as the Israel Occupation Forces, and falsely claims that “a very limited number of [Palestinian Arab] patients” have been permitted to cross at Erez for treatment in Israel when thousand do annually. That would seem to make its criticism of Hamas’ regulations as “illegal measures violat[ing] international human rights standards” and medical threats especially newsworthy.

Love of the Land: Palestinian Group Blasts Hamas; Washington Post Misses News