Washington – The Obama administration criticized Israel for designating two shrines on Palestinian territory as Israeli national heritage sites.
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The criticism came as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday she hopes long-stalled peace talks between Israelis and the Palestinians will resume. Clinton told a congressional committee that groundwork is being laid to restart the talks with the help of US envoy George Mitchell.
She did not say exactly when the negotiations might resume, but her remarks come amid a flurry of US diplomatic activity in the region.
The United States, Russia and their Middle East peace partners are trying to organize a strategy session among top diplomats next month in Moscow to prod the two sides to relaunch the negotiations.
“We hope that that will commence shortly,” Clinton told the Senate Appropriations Committee, referring to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. “We think it is absolutely necessary that they begin to talk about the final-status issues that divide them, that have perpetuated the conflict over all of these years.”
Underscoring those difficulties, the State Department on Wednesday sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for adding two shrines in the West Bank to Israel’s list of national heritage sites. The move, announced Sunday, sparked Palestinian protests and has drawn criticism from other quarters, including the United Nations.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the administration viewed the move as provocative and unhelpful to the goal of getting the two sides back to the table.
Toner said US displeasure with the designations of the Cave of the Patriarchs in the flash point town of Hebron and the traditional tomb of the biblical matriarch Rachel in Bethlehem had been conveyed to senior Israeli officials by American diplomats.
The Palestinians claim all the West Bank as part of a future state and also protested the Israeli move as a provocation, a largely symbolic gesture. The move heightened long-standing tensions, particularly around the shrine in Hebron.
Jews revere the site as the Cave of the Patriarchs, where the Bible says the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were buried along with three of their wives. Muslims call it the al-Ibrahimi mosque, reflecting that Abraham is considered the father of both Judaism and Islam.
Quartet meeting sought
The US and Russia are trying to convene a meeting of the so-called Quartet group of peacemakers those two countries plus the European Union and the United Nations in mid-March in Moscow, according to diplomats. A tentative date of March 19 has been discussed but is not yet confirmed.
The meeting would bring together Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton along with other European officials, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is now the Quartet’s special representative.
It would seek to build on the work of Mitchell, the special US envoy for Middle East peace, who has been shuttling back and forth to the region with only limited success in improving the atmosphere for a resumption in peace talks.
If held as planned, the meeting would follow a recent flurry of US diplomatic activity in the Middle East, including a coming trip to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden in the second week of March.
Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg is in Israel now to participate in this week’s US-Israel Strategic Dialogue, and Clinton’s other two top deputies, Jacob Lew and William Burns, each returned from separate trips to the region in the past 10 days.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is due in Washington this week for talks with senior administration officials and will see Clinton at the State Department on Friday. Clinton herself just returned from a trip to Qatar and Saudi Arabia that coincided with a visit to Israel by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Doesn’t seem to bother Obama that the Mt. Rushmore National Memorial sits on land stolen from the Sioux Indians.
If the American Jewish community lets this one go without a fight then they deserve their Anti-Semite president.
who cares what they say, our grandfather abraham bought the ma’arat hamechpeila far git gelt
How about the famous Alamo sitting on land that belongs to Mexico? Why is the West Bank any different than most of western USA that was stolen from various Native American nations? So we do the Indians a favor and give them back a few hundred acres and give them the right to earn billions from casinos. Where does that money go? To the pockets of their own administrations. Leaving the vast majority of Native Americans in squalor and on drugs and alcohol. Thank you Department of the Interior – Indian Affairs. And this government, with memorials on other nations property, is telling Israel not to administer our holy heritage sites which are on our land?
what a nerve. are we going to wake up when it to late AGAIN?
these are our parents, great great grandparents.how can we give them up! look what the arabs did to yoseph’s kever, destroyed it.
No way, NO WAY are we to give them this. there is a saying give a finger they’ll take your hand, (and most likely brake it into one million parts)
we can not allow this to even come up in anyones mind. !!!!!!!!!!!
what a nerve obama is at war with the world.Three more years till he departs to chicago
The whole world knows the history of the Jews. The whole world knows, in their heart of hearts, that the Jews are special and that the Land of Israel belongs to them. They know that the Tomb of the Patriarchs is Jewish, but they are corrupt. The world is full of corruption.
Prime Minister Netanyahu:
Be strong and be a proud Jew. Do not cave in on this issue. The whole y are fighting the spiritual battle of Satan but in their hearts they know and feel that Hashem has turned the corner with us , and will speedily send the Moshiach. They are afraid and they tremble before the coming judgement of Hashem Almighty. Give them nothing , Mr. Prime Minister.
Since when was Kever Rochel a Muslim Shrine?
Obama was allegedly born in Hawaii. A state that was forcefully taken from the native population by the US on behalf of pineapple growers and for the strategic port of Perl Harbour….or then again….Where was he REALLY born? At this point, who cares? He’s still a hypocrite.
Obama has managed to render himself irrelevant to this discussion. Simply ignore him and he will fade away.
I don’t understand even Arafat YM”SH agreed to them at Oslo, what has changed?
Only Arabs can occupy our land?
I myself witnessed the Kalever rebbe shlita bemoaning the fact that he had survived the nazis yemach shemom only to witness.the Reshaim (Netanyahu administation) give back Chevron to the Arabs. He said this at a public forum (a melave malka and chanukas habayis for a subsidized chasuna hall in Yerushalayim).
If the palestinians would have kept all the christian sites what a stink hillary would have made!! But she does not need Kever Rachel or Me’arat Ha’Machpelah so what does she care!!! She does not have a Jewish heart and she IS NOT JEWISH!!! She has no feelings!! (Only for the Arabs) I hope VIN posts this
“State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the administration viewed the move as “provocative” and unhelpful to the goal of getting the two sides back to the table.”
It should quite obvious to any intelligent person that the Palestinians are merely looking for any pretense to attack Israel and this particluar one is so blatantly false and absurd that for the Obama administartion to go along with it clearly and unequivocally demonstrates where this administration stands vis a vis Israel.
A) Both of the named sites were of Jewish heritage more than 1000 years before Islam even existed and where there might be some attachment to the Cave of the Patriarchs for the Arabs there is absolutely no attachment whatsoever, and everyone knows it, to the Tomb of Rachel (of course to try and upend this, in 1966 the Arabs started claiming that Rachel’s Tomb is a Mosque which is totally laughable).
B) Under Arab control, no non-Muslim religious sites have been protected and kept safe for other religions to visit. In fact, they have destroyed religious sites under their control. Some as recently as only a few years ago such as the Tomb of Joseph even though they “promised” as part of the Oslo accords to maintain it and allow Jews to visit. Other broken promises included access to ancient synagogues in Jericho as well as other sites.
C) All religious sites under Israeli control, no matter what religion, have been maintained, and kept safe for all to visit. This has always been Israel’s policy and still is Israel’s policy. That Israel delcared these sites as national Jewish Heritage sites, something no one can deny, does not and will not mean that Arabs can’t access them as they wish. There are plenty of Arabs who visit and pray in the Cave of Patriarchs (as for the other “mosque”, the Tomb of Rachel, Arabs don’t even attempt to visit as it is of no significance to them).
D) The attempted de-Judaization of Israel by the Arabs has picked up in intensity these last few years. Israel has no other choice than to take these steps to ensure that no one forgets that Israel is the Jewish homeland, now and forever.
E) Lastly, the Obama administration knows full well that the Palestinians are the ones who are dragging their feet are not willing to sit down and negotiate, especially since it was some of the Obama administration policies and statements that contributed greatly to this. If the Obama administration truly wishes for peace in the Middle East they will stop making “provocative” statements that only serve to embolden the Palestinians intransigence.
While voicing your many opinions here on VIN, I do hope you take the time to email Secretary Clinton and others mentioned in the news stories to tell them your views. If all we do is kvetch on VIN, it’s devarim b’teylim. Will Rochel’s children speak up in her defense? Let’s see.
And which American is happy with Washington. Almost all americans from all parts of the political spectrum can not bare the current regime in washington.
Israel needs to declare all of Israel as a Jewish heritage site.
If you guys have time on Purim at 1 pm there will be a Jewish tea party event in Brooklyn on Ave T corner East 21 Street. Sunday. The Foward newspaper is sending down a crew which is good because they make it into the liberal obama type jews. This will be a new groundswell effort to organize Jews against Obama and against any local politician who is part of thaty anti semitic gang.
Kever Rochel is on jewish land not arab land or terriotory.
There is no such thing as “Palestinian territory” because there is no Nation called “Palestine.”
Even the goyim read and know what it says in and accept the Chumash where it states that Avraham Avinu PAID IN FULL for the Mearas Hamachpela. That is addition to Eretez Yisrael given by G-d to the Jews, is written in the Torah (bible) which even the Kusim and the Goyim know and accept.
If Obama and Clinton have so much love for these Palestinians let them give away Washington DC and capital hill to them.
What nerve! The person I’m named after, my grandfather, is buried there! Where is the outcry from Jewish orgs? This is an attack against the heritage of the Jewish People!