Free Republic

On October 21, UNESCO (the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) declared that Rachel’s Tomb near Jerusalem is the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque – endorsing a Palestinian claim that first surfaced only in 1996 and which ignores centuries of Muslim tradition. In a series of decisions condemning Israel, the UNESCO board called upon the government to rescind its decision in February to include Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Israel’s official list of national heritage sites.(snip) Yet anyone visiting the site today will find it difficult to identify the image known to generations of Jews.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday slammed world culture organization UNESCO's decision to characterize the site of Rachel's Tomb as a Muslim mosque. "The attempt to separate the nation of Israel from its cultural heritage is absurd," said the prime minister. A statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office read, "It is unfortunate that an organization that was established with the goal of promoting the cultural preservation of historical sites around the world, is attempting due to political reasons to uproot the connection between the nation of Israel and its cultural heritage."

'Rachel's Tomb was never Jewish' By JPOST.COM STAFF  07/03/2010 12:47 Speaking to Saudi paper, Turkish PM criticizes Israel's nat'l heritage list. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday continued his verbal assault on Israel, according to Saudi paper Al Wattan, which quoted him as saying that that al Aksa Mosque, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb “were not and never will be Jewish sites, but Islamic sites.” Erdogan was referring to Israel’s recent inclusion of the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb on its national heritage list, but it was unclear why he mentioned the Aksa...

My Name Is Rachel Thaler is not the title of a play likely to be produced anytime soon in London. Thaler, aged 16, was blown up at a pizzeria in an Israeli shopping mall. She died after an 11-day struggle for life following the February 16, 2002 attack when a suicide bomber approached a crowd of teenagers and blew himself up. She was a British citizen, born in London, where her grandparents still live. Yet I doubt that anyone at London's Royal Court Theatre, or most people in the British media, have heard of her. "Not a single British journalist...