Yesha Invites Cabinet to Meet Outside Me’aras Hamachpelah

YERUSHALAYIM
Yesha Council Head Avi Roeh. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

In response to the UNESCO decision to declare the old city of Chevron a Palestinian heritage site, the Yesha Council of Jewish communities in Yehudah and Shomron has invited Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to hold a Cabinet meeting at the foot of Me’aras Hamachpelah, Arutz Sheva reported on Monday.

The invitation was extended in a letter sent by Yesha Chairman Avi Roeh and Secretary-General Ze’ev (Zambish) Hever of the region’s Amana housing organization to Netanyahu and the Cabinet ministers.

The letter denounced the decision as embarrassing and delusional, and says it causes “damage to Jewish and Israeli history and tradition.”

The idea for a Cabinet meeting outside Maaras Hamachpelah has been suggested before but was never acted on. It is believed that the UNESCO vote makes such a move more timely than ever.

In their letter, Roeh and Hever also rejected the claim made at UNESCO that Me’aras Hamachpelah and the Old City of Chevron are endangered.

They wrote, “After hundreds of years in which the Jews were permitted to reach only the seventh step in the structure of the cave, today Muslims and Jews pray together on the graves of the patriarchs and matriarchs without interference, and the cave is open to all religions. There is no one who guards Me’aras Hamachpelah like the State of Israel.”

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