US slams Israel over designating heritage sites
As Clinton works to relaunch peace talks, State Department officials come out against Israel's inclusion of revered West Bank religious sites on Israel's national heritage site list
Associated Press
The Obama administration criticized Israel for designating two shrines on Palestinian territory as Israeli national heritage sites.
The criticism came as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday she hopes long-stalled peace talks between Israelis and the Palestinians will resume. Clinton told a congressional committee that groundwork is being laid to restart the talks with the help of US envoy George Mitchell.
The United States, Russia and their Middle East peace partners are trying to organize a strategy session among top diplomats next month in Moscow to prod the two sides to relaunch the negotiations.
"We hope that that will commence shortly," Clinton told the Senate Appropriations Committee, referring to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. "We think it is absolutely necessary that they begin to talk about the final-status issues that divide them, that have perpetuated the conflict over all of these years."
Underscoring those difficulties, the State Department on Wednesday sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government for adding two shrines in the West Bank to Israel's list of national heritage sites. The move, announced Sunday, sparked Palestinian protests and has drawn criticism from other quarters, including the United Nations.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the administration viewed the move as provocative and unhelpful to the goal of getting the two sides back to the table.
Toner said US displeasure with the designations of the Cave of the Patriarchs in the flash point town of Hebron and the traditional tomb of the biblical matriarch Rachel in Bethlehem had been conveyed to senior Israeli officials by American diplomats.
The Palestinians claim all the West Bank as part of a future state and also protested the Israeli move as a provocation, a largely symbolic gesture. The move heightened long-standing tensions, particularly around the shrine in Hebron.
Jews revere the site as the Cave of the Patriarchs, where the Bible says the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were buried along with three of their wives. Muslims call it the al-Ibrahimi mosque, reflecting that Abraham is considered the father of both Judaism and Islam.
The State Department does not like what Israel has done.
Let me be honest and say the following.
When you vote for, G-D less liberal scum, don't be surprised if they don't know their bible.
If the G-D less liberal scum would read their bible they would know that Avraham our father bought the land where he is buried along with his son and grandson.
So it has been bought and paid for by the worlds first Jew and this Jew prays Israel never gives into pressure from G-D less liberal scum and gives it to our enemies.
