Obama could have prevented UNESCO’s declaration that the Cave of the Patriarchs is Muslim

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by Ezequiel DoinyThe UN applies double standards by backing Arab false claims that Jews are changing the status quo in Temple Mount but endorsing changes in the status quo in other Jewish Holy Sites. While Israel keeps the status quo in Temple Mount, the Palestinians, with the help of the UN, are changing the status quo in other Jewish Holy Sites:

On October 2015 the Jewish Press informed that “UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization decided on Wednesday that Rachel’s Tomb (Kever Rachel) and the Patriarchs Cave (MaHarat HaMachpelah) are Muslim sites.” (1)

The Jewish Virtual Library informs that “The Cave of Machpelah is the world’s most ancient Jewish site and the second holiest place for the Jewish people, after Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The cave and the adjoining field were purchased—at full market price—by Abraham some 3700 years ago. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah are all later buried in the same Cave of Machpelah. These are considered the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people. The only one who is missing is Rachel, who was buried near Bethlehem where she died in childbirth.

The double cave, a mystery of thousands of years, was uncovered several years ago beneath the massive building, revealing artifacts from the Early Israelite Period (some 30 centuries ago). The structure was built during the Second Temple Period (about two thousand years ago) by Herod, King of Judea, providing a place for gatherings and Jewish prayers at the graves of the Patriarchs.

This uniquely impressive building is the only one that stands intact and still fulfills its original function after thousands of years. Foreign conquerors and invaders used the site for their own purposes, depending on their religious orientation: the Byzantines and Crusaders transformed it into a church and the Muslims rendered it a mosque. About 700 years ago, the Muslim Mamelukes conquered Hebron, declared the structure a mosque and forbade entry to Jews, who were not allowed past the seventh step on a staircase outside the building.

Upon the liberation of Hebron in 1967, the Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, the late Major-General Rabbi Shlomo Goren, was the first Jew to enter the Cave of Machpelah. Since then, Jews have been struggling to regain their prayer rights at the site, still run by the Muslim Waqf (Religious Trust) that took control during the Arab conquest. Many restrictions are imposed on Jewish prayers and customs at the Tomb of the Patriarchs despite the site’s significance, primacy and sanctity in Jewish heritage and history.

Over 300,000 people visit Ma’arat HaMachpelah annually. The structure is divided into three rooms: Ohel Avraham, Ohel Yitzhak, and Ohel Ya’akov. Presently Jews have no access to Ohel Yitzhak, the largest room, with the exception of 10 days a year.” (2)

The Palestinians are using the Muslim overwhelming support in the UN to claim Jewish Holy Sites. They have automatic majority in any UN vote against Israel because there are 57 Muslim Countries (see members of Organization of Islamic Cooperation) but only one Jewish State.

The US voted against the resolution but it could have done much more. Obama could have prevented Abbas’ UNESCO proposal by threatening the PA with economic sanctions as John Bolton revealed in 2012 when the UN changed the PA status “Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton blamed the Obama administration for failing to block the U.N.’s defacto recognition Thursday of a sovereign Palestinian state…Bolton said the Obama administration could have taken a page from the playbook of former Secretary of State James Baker more than two decades ago when a similar effort to change the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s observer status at the U.N. from an “entity” to a “non-member state,” the same status held by the Vatican.

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“We’ve been through this before. We did this 20 years ago and defeated the Palestinians,” Bolton said. “And this is how we did it. Secretary of State Jim Baker issued a statement saying he would recommend to the president that the United States make no further contributions, voluntary or assessed, to any international organization which makes any change in the PLO’s status as an observer organization.

“If the administration had simply done what Jim Baker did 20 years ago, this thing would have been deader than a doornail,” Bolton added…” (3)

Abbas accuses Israel of plotting to change the status quo in Temple Mount yet it is the Palestinians who are changing the status quo in Jewish Holy sites.

Not only in Israel but in Turkey also Muslims are taking over the holy sites of others. Raymond Ibrahim wrote in PJ Media that that in Istambul the“…Hagia Sophia museum is on its way to becoming a mosque.

Why does the fate of an old building matter?

Because Hagia Sophia — Greek for “Holy Wisdom” — was for some thousand years Christianity’s greatest cathedral. Built in 537 A.D. in Constantinople, the heart of the Christian empire, it was also a stalwart symbol of defiance against an ever encroaching Islam from the east.

After parrying centuries of jihadi thrusts, Constantinople was finally sacked by Ottoman Turks in 1453. Its crosses desecrated and icons defaced, Hagia Sophia — as well as thousands of other churches — was immediately converted into a mosque, the tall minarets of Islam surrounding it in triumph.

Then, after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, as part of several reforms, secularist Ataturk transformed Hagia Sophia into a “neutral” museum in 1934 — a gesture of goodwill to a then-triumphant West from a then-crestfallen Turkey.

Thus the fate of this ancient building is full of portents. And according to Hurriyet Daily News, “A parliamentary commission is considering an application by citizens to turn the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul into a mosque…. A survey conducted with 401 people was attached to the application, in which more than 97 percent of interviewees requested the transformation of the ancient building into a mosque and afterwards for it to be reopened for Muslim worship.”

Even lesser known is the fact that other historic churches are currently being transformed into mosques, such as a 13th century church building — portentously also named Hagia Sophia — in Trabzon. After the Islamic conquest, it was turned into a mosque. But because of its “great historical and cultural significance” for Christians, it too, during Turkey’s secular age, was turned into a museum and its frescoes restored. Yet local authorities recently decreed that its Christian frescoes would again be covered and the church/museum turned into a mosque.

Similarly, the 5th century Studios Monastery, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, is set to become an active mosque. And the existence of the oldest functioning Christian monastery in the world, 5th century Mor Gabriel Monastery, is at risk. Inhabited today by only a few dozen Christians dedicated to learning the monastery’s teachings, the ancient Aramaic language spoken by Jesus, and the Orthodox Syriac tradition, neighboring Muslims filed a lawsuit accusing the monks of practicing “anti-Turkish activities” and of illegally occupying land which belongs to Muslim villagers. The highest appeals court in Ankara ruled in favor of the Muslim villagers, saying the land that had been part of the monastery for 1,600 years is not its property, absurdly claiming that the monastery was built over the ruins of a mosque — even though Muhammad was born 170 years after the monastery was built.

Turkey’s Christian minority, including the Orthodox Patriarch, are naturally protesting this renewed Islamic onslaught against what remains of their cultural heritage — to deaf ears.

The Muslim populace’s role in transforming once Christian sites into mosques is a reminder of all those other Turks not protesting the Islamization of Turkey, and who if anything consider Erdogan’s government too “secular.”

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Their numbers are telling. In May 2012, Reuters reported that:

Thousands of devout Muslims prayed outside Turkey’s historic Hagia Sophia museum on Saturday [May 23] to protest a 1934 law that bars religious services at the former church and mosque. Worshippers shouted, “Break the chains, let Hagia Sophia Mosque open,” and “God is great” [the notorious “Allahu Akbar”] before kneeling in prayer as tourists looked on. Turkey’s secular laws prevent Muslims and Christians from formal worship within the 6th-century monument, the world’s greatest cathedral for almost a millennium before invading Ottomans converted it into a mosque in the 15th century.

The desire to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque is not about Muslims wanting a place to pray — as of 2010, there were 3,000 active mosques in Istanbul alone. Rather, it’s about their reveling, and trying to revivify, the glory days of Islamic jihad and conquest: Reuters added that Muslims “staged the prayers ahead of celebrations next week marking the 559th anniversary of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet’s conquest of Byzantine Constantinople.” According to Salih Turhan, a spokesman quoted by Reuters, “As the grandchildren of Mehmet the Conqueror, seeking the re-opening Hagia Sophia as a mosque is our legitimate right.” (4)

Arutz7 reported about the Islamic practice of turning the holy sites of others into Mosques “… Through its history of conquest, Islamic armies invaded many nations. In their process of colonization, Islam erased native cultures and converted holy places into Mosques. Holy Sites stolen by Islamic Armies in the past continue to be occupied today.

It is time for modern, moderate Muslim regimes to repent for Islam’s violent past. The same way that today Germany apologizes for the crimes of the Nazis, the same way that today Spain apologizes for the Inquisition, the Muslims today must apologize for the crimes of Islam and return stolen holy sites to whom they belong.

Below is a list of non-Muslim Holy Sites, sites stolen by Islamic armies:

1. Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Holiest site for Judaism. Site of the two Jewish Temples. The Muslims built two mosques there, adding the legend that Mohammed tied his horse to a post there.

2. Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron. The Jewish Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are undeniably buried there. The Muslims built a mosque there.

3. There are 2000 Hindu Temples in India that were converted to mosques. During the reign of Aurangzeb, tens of thousands of temples were desecrated: their facades and interiors were defaced and their divine images looted. In many cases, temples were destroyed entirely; in numerous instances mosques were built on their foundations, sometimes using the same stones. Among the temples Aurangzeb destroyed were two that are most sacred to Hindus, in Varanasi and Mathura. In both cases, he had large mosques built on the sites.

4. The Babri Mosque in Ayodhya (North India) was built on the site of a Hindu Temple. In 1992 a mob of 150,000 Hindus razed the mosque. Nobel Laureate writer V. S. Naipaul has praised the act for “reclaiming India’s Hindu heritage”.

5. The great temple of Keshava Rai at Mathura was one of the most magnificent hindu temples ever built in India. The Temple was demolished in 1670 and on its site a mosque was built.

6. The Somnath Temple in India: destroyed by Muslim invaders and converted into a mosque. In AD 1025, Mahmud destroyed and looted the temple, killing over 50,000 people who tried to defend it. After independence, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel pledged on November 13, 1947, that the temple would be reconstructed. The mosque was not destroyed but carefully relocated. In 1951 Dr. Rajendra Prasad performed the consecration ceremony. The temple construction was completed on December 1, 1995. The then President of India, Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, dedicated it to the nation.”

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7. Kashi or Varanasi is the most sacred site in Hinduism and the worship of Lord Shiva as Vishveshvara goes back to ancient times. The temple was demolished several times by Muslim invaders, and was reconstructed again and again by Hindu kings. A mosque was built which still stands.

8. A surge in church-mosque conversion followed the 1974 Turkish Invasion of Cyprus. Many of the Orthodox churches in Northern Cyprus have been converted to mosques.

9. Hundreds of Greek Orthodox churches in Turkey were converted into mosques. Hagia Sophia, the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, was converted into a mosque, and then, in order not to return it to the Christians, into a museum where until today Christians are forbidden to pray.

10. The Assyrian International News Agency published a list of Christian Institutions converted into mosques or destroyed by ISIS in Mosul, Iraq in 2014.

“Since taking over Mosul on June 10, ISIS has destroyed, occupied, converted to mosques, converted to ISIS headquarters or shuttered all 45 Christian institutions in Mosul. The following is the complete list of the Christian institutions in Mosul, grouped by denomination.

Syriac Catholic Church:

1.Syrian Catholic Diocese – Maidan Neighborhood, Mosul

2.The Old Church of the Immaculate – Maidan Neighborhood, Mosul (The church goes back to the eighth century AD)

3.The New Church of the Immaculate – Maidan Neighborhood

4.Church of Mar (Saint) Toma – Khazraj Neighborhood

5.Museum of Mar (Saint) Toma – Khazraj Neighborhood

6.Church of Our Lady of the Annunciation – Muhandiseen Neighborhood

7.Church of the Virgin of Fatima – Faisaliah Neighborhood

8.Our Lady of Deliverance Chapel – Shifaa Neighborhood

9.The House of the Young Sisters of Jesus – Ras Al-Kour Neighborhood

10.Archbishop’s Palace Chapel – Dawasa Neighborhood

Syriac Orthodox Church:

1.Syrian Orthodox Archdiocese – Shurta Neighborhood

2.The Antiquarian Church of Saint Ahodeeni – Bab AlJadeed Neighborhood

3.Mar (Saint) Toma Church and cemetery, (the old Bishopric) – Khazraj Neighborhood

4.Church of The Immaculate (Castle) – Maidan Neighborhood

5.Church of The Immaculate – Shifaa Neighborhood

6.Mar (Saint) Aprim Church – Shurta Neighborhood

7.St. Joseph Church – The New Mosul Neighborhood

Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East:

1.Diocese of the Assyrian Church of the East – Noor Neighborhood

2.Assyrian Church of the East, Dawasa Neighborhood

3.Church of the Virgin Mary (old rite) – Wihda Neighborhood

Chaldean Church of Babylon:

1.Chaldean Diocese – Shurta Neighborhood

2.Miskinta Church – Mayassa Neighborhood

3.The Antiquarian Church of Shimon alSafa – Mayassa Neighborhood

4.Church of Mar (Saint) Buthyoon – Shahar AlSouq Neighborhood

5.Church of St. Ephrem, Wady AlAin Neighborhood

6.Church of St. Paul – Majmooaa AlThaqafiya District

7.The Old Church of the Immaculate (with the bombed archdiocese)- Shifaa Neighborhood

8.Church of the Holy Spirit – Bakir Neighborhood

9.Church of the Virgin Mary – Drakziliya Neighborhood

10.Ancient Church of Saint Isaiah and Cemetery – Ras AlKour Neighborhood

11.Mother of Aid Church – Dawasa Neighborhood

12.The Antiquarian Church of St. George- Khazraj Neighborhood

13.St. George Monastery with Cemetery – Arab Neighborhood

14.Monastery of AlNasir (Victory) – Arab Neighborhood

15.Convent of the Chaldean Nuns – Mayassa Neighborhood

16.Monastery of St. Michael – Hawi Church Neighborhood

17.The Antiquarian Monastery of St. Elijah – Ghazlany Neighborhood

Armenian Orthodox Church:

1.Armenian Church – Maidan Neighborhood

2.The New Armenian Church – Wihda Neighborhood

Evangelical Presbyterian Church:

1.Evangelical Presbyterian Church – Mayassa Neighborhood

Latin Church:

1.Latin Church and Monastery of the Dominican Fathers and Convent of Katrina Siena Nuns – Sa’a Neighborhood

2.Convent of the Dominican Sisters, – Mosul AlJadeed Neighborhood

3.Convent of the Dominican Sisters (AlKilma Monastery) – Majmooaa AlThaqafiya District

4.House of Qasada AlRasouliya (Apostolic Aim) (Institute of St. John the Beloved)” (5)

(1) http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/unesco-decides-rachels-tomb-and-patriarchs-cave-are-muslim-sites/2015/10/21/
(2) http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/machpelah.html
(3) http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/palestinian-state-bolton/2012/11/30/id/465974/
(4) http://pjmedia.com/blog/hagia-sophia-to-become-mosque/
(5) http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/16050#.VihpDJtzPMx

Posted in Freedoms.