The picture is Kever Rachel (Rachel's tomb) as it looked until about ten years ago, when the government turned it into an armed fortress to counteract 'Palestinian' terrorists firing upon it.
Earlier, the government almost gave the tomb away.
"During the Rabin administration, Kever Rachel was slated to fall into 'Area A', that is, under full Arab civil and military control. Upon seeing this, Knesset Member Chanan Porat [National Religious Party. CiJ] decided that he must speak with Rabin in the hopes of changing his mind. As Chanan Porat was walking to Rabin's office, Knesset Member Rabbi Menachem Porush [United Torah Judaism. CiJ] asked Porat where he was going. Hearing that Porat was about to fight for Kever Rachel, Porush asked to join in the meeting. At Rabin's office, Chanan Porat was diligently explaining the ins and outs of the security situation at Kever Rachel and making rational arguments that did not seem to move Rabin.Now UNESCO has recognized Kever Rachel as a site worthy of historical preservation... as a mosque.
"Suddenly Rabin looked at Porush and saw that he was crying. Porush held Rabin's hands and with tears streaming down his face, said: 'Yitzchak, it's Mamma Rachel, Mamma Rachel.' At that moment Rabin's heart opened, and he altered the map so that Kever Rachel would remain in Jewish hands."
The executive committee of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) a few days ago, recognized the tomb of Biblical matriarch Rachel, between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, as the Mosque of Bilal Ibn-Rabach according to a Friday report by Yisrael Hayom (Israel today). The recognition was approved by a large majority despite Israeli opposition and a United States vote against the proposal.Indeed. We should have 'thought about it' and stopped cooperating a LONG time ago.
Research by reporter Nadav Shragai shows that while there is a Muslim cemetery surrounding the facility, it was never used as a mosque and always referred to by local Arabs as "Rachel's Tomb", until the Temple Tunnel disturbances of 1996, when they started using the name recognized by UNESCO. Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz of the Western Wall and other holy places called the UNESCO decision an outrageous distortion of history and said Israel should think seriously about future cooperation.
