[SunkenCiv]

...just as Muslims claimed the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, so they wrested Machpelah from Jews, who were forbidden entry to their sacred shrine for seven hundred years after 1267. The centuries-old Hebron community was destroyed in 1929 when rampaging Arabs murdered sixty-seven Jews. For more than a decade after the Six-Day War restored Hebron to Israeli authority, Jews were not permitted to reclaim abandoned and stolen property... the Supreme Court has finally decided, rejecting Arab appeals and upholding the legitimacy of the purchase. The responses were predictable. Housing Minister Uri Ariel celebrated the decision that Beit HaShalom “belongs to Jews.” Left-wing Knesset member Nitzan Horowitz, joined by Peace Now, urged that Jews not be allowed to live in the building. But David Wilder, spokesman for the Hebron Jewish community, exulted “Victory at last!”

Thanks SJackson.

[wildbill]

The idea of ‘legitimacy’ in ownership of this area of the Middle East is laughable.

This crossroads has been ‘owned’ by innumerable empires and kingdoms, going back before recorded history.

Talking about ownership of what we know as Palestine or Israel or Syria or Lebanon always reminds me of the poem, Get Off This Estate by Carl Sandberg:

‘Get Off This Estate

‘Get off this estate.’
‘What for?’
‘Because it’s mine.’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘From my father.’
‘Where did he get it?’
‘From his father.’
‘And where did he get it?’
‘He fought for it.’
‘Well, I’ll fight you for it’
- Carl Sandburg