Raging over a decision by a UN body to declare Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs a part of endangered Palestinian heritage, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday recited Biblical verses meant to prove the millennia-old Jewish connection to the West Bank site.
On Friday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voted to list Hebron’s Old City, home to the shrine holy as the burial place of Abraham and other biblical patriarchs and matriarchs, as an endangered Palestinian world heritage site.
According to the Bible, the burial cave was purchased by Abraham to inter his wife Sara. Later, he and his descendants were also buried there, according to Jewish tradition.
“And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the hearing of the children of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant… And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre — the same is Hebron — in the land of Canaan. And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying-place by the children of Heth,” said Netanyahu wearing a skullcap while quoting verses 16-19 from chapter 23 of the book of Genesis.
The prime minister said the UNESCO motion was “delusional.”
“The connection between the Jewish People and Hebron and the Tomb of the Patriarchs is one of purchase and of history which may be without parallel in the history of peoples,” he said. READ MORE
