Protect our heritage against the UNESCO decision to re-label the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb as mosques!

ACTION ALERT:  Protect our heritage against the UNESCO decision to re-label the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb as mosques! Join To Protect Our Heritage PAC and other major Jewish and Christian organizations in condemning The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) decision to designate the Tomb of Rachel and The Cave of the Patriarchs as mosques and to remove them from Israel's National Heritage list.  The UNESCO rulings, initiated by Arab member states, are blatant attempts to erase Jewish ties to the land of Israel and are part of a larger campaign to delegitimate the Jewish state. SIGN THE PETITION DEMANDING UNESCO PROTECT, NOT DENY, JEWISH HERITAGE Please sign the petition and forward it to anyone who is concerned about protecting our heritage. THE ISSUES The Tomb of the Patriarchs The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) ruled that Israel has no right to add the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron to the National Heritage list. The Tomb of the Patriarchs, the oldest Jewish shrine and the second holiest site in Judaism, centers around the Cave of Machpelah, an ancient double cave revered for almost 4,000 years as the burial site of the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives. The connection of the Jewish people to the Cave of Machpelah was established some 3,800 years ago, when Abraham, the first Hebrew, purchased it for the express purpose of using it as a burial site for himself, his wife Sarah and their future generations. It is the cradle of Jewish history and the focal point of Jewish identity. The rectangular enclosure over the caves is the only fully surviving Herodian structure. Thus the Tomb of the Patriarchs is of inestimable historical value as well as great sacred significance for the Jewish people. Tomb of the Patriarchs, Hebron Genesis 23 records the purchase by Abraham of a plot of ground in Hebron for a burial cave for his wife Sarah.  In a deal that foreshadows many such other Middle Eastern deals, Abraham paid an outrageous 400 shekels of silver to Ephron the Hittite.  Later Abraham, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Leah would be buried here. Erasing Jewish History: Superseding it with Islam In an effort to erase Jewish history and supersede Jewish religious sites with Islamic institutions, Muslims have intentionally built mosques upon numerous synagogues and Jewish holy sites.  The clearest examples are the Al-Aqsa mosque which sits on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, and the Dome of the Rock, which was built on Judaism's holiest site of the two biblical Jewish Temples. This pattern repeats itself at the second and third holiest sites. Thus at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, there are domes over the tombs of Abraham and Sarah and a mosque over the tombs of Isaac and Rebecca.  Photos from the early 1900's show no Muslim cemetery near the Tomb or Rachel. After 1948 Muslims built their own cemetery surrounding three sides of Rachel's tomb and now claim that Rachel's Tomb is one of their burial plots and that it contains a Muslim rather than Jewish notable. Ludicrous Claims to Protect the Anti-Israel Narrative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office decried the ludicrous nature of the UNESCO decision: "The attempt to detach the Nation of Israel from its heritage is absurd. If the nearly 4,000-year-old burial sites of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the Jewish Nation - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah - are not part of its culture and tradition, then what is a national cultural site?" "Sites such as the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb (which sits on theedge of Bethlehem) present an inconvenient truth for the pro-Palestine movement and its supporters, who want to claim that the Jews have no historic ties to this land." In cooperating with efforts to erase Jewish historical ties to Israel, UNESCO is aiding and abetting those who hope to and obfuscate Israel's Jewish past and undermine Israel's Jewish future. Rachel's Tomb Rachel's Tomb September 8, 1932 UNESCO re-labeled as an Islamic mosque the tomb of Rachel, Israel's other matriarch, and demanded that Israel remove the site from its National Heritage list. The Tomb of Rachel, Judaism's third holiest site, has been the scene of prayer and pilgrimage for more than three thousand years, and has an especially meaningful connection to and for Jewish women. Rachel, the matriarch who died in childbirth and was buried at that spot on the road to Hebron, has been a comfort and hope to Jews since biblical days. "Thus says the Lord, 'Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded...and they shall return from the enemy's land and there is hope for the future'... 'Your children shall return to their own country." Jeremiah 31:16-17.  The tomb has since appeared in thousands of drawings, photographs, stamps, and works of art and has been depicted on the covers of Jewish holy books.   Centuries before Islam was founded, Jewish and Christian pilgrims visited Rachel's burial place and made note of it in their writings. Until 2000, the Palestinians also recognized the site as Rachel's Tomb. It was called "Rachel's Tomb" in Al-mawsu'ah al-filastiniyah, the Palestinian encyclopedia published after 1996 and inPalestine, the Holy Land, a Palestinian publication, with an introduction by Yasser Arafat.  However, during the second intifada, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, a Palestinian daily, announced a new-found historical connection to Rachel's Tomb, declaring that is was "originally a Muslim mosque."  The Tragic Fate of Jewish Holy Sites in Arab Hands Joseph's Tomb desecrated by Palestinian mobs October 7, 2000  If UNESCO's decision prevails, the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel's tomb face the same tragedy that befell Joseph's Tomb on October 7th, 2000. Under the Oslo Agreement, the Palestinian Authority (PA) was to protect holy sites, Jewish and Christian, and ensure access by all. However, when Israeli forces pulled out of the area, Palestinians mobs overran the site, killed a soldier, and ransacked the place, burning Jewish prayer books, and reducing the sacred site to a smoldering heap of rubble. An Associated Press dispatch reported, "the dome of the tomb was painted green and bulldozers were seen clearing the surrounding area," as the Palestinian Arabs sought to transform the biblical resting place of Joseph into a Muslim conquest. The destruction of Joseph's Tomb was one piece of a calculated campaign by Muslim Arabs to write everyone else out of the history of the land of Israel. The same fate waits for Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb if we do not vigilantly protect our sacred sites.