larger section is generally accessible to Muslims, while a smaller part is accessible to Jews.
The Jewish section includes the cenotaphs of Abraham, Sarah, Jacob and Leah, while the Muslim side has those of Isaac and Rebecca.
On ten days a year, Jews have exclusive access to the entire building. On ten other days of the year, Muslims have full access, and Jews are barred. The Muslims, on their exclusive days, have routinely desecrated Jewish religious objects and books.
Today was one of the rare days that Jews could visit the room dedicated to Isaac and Rebecca. Thousands of Jews came to visit the holy site.
My son, Junior Elder, was one of them.
Shortly after my son left Hebron, an Arab sniper killed an Israeli soldier - who was there to defend the visitors at the holy site.
A Palestinian sniper shot dead a soldier stationed the Tut Atarek Junction, across from the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Sunday.The murderer was upset that Jews have access to their own holy site. His gunshot was meant to deny Jews that right. No doubt, he would not have cared if he shot a child, a woman, or my son.
The soldier was named as Gavriel Kobi, 20, from Tirat Carmel. He was promoted to St.-Sgt. Maj. upon his death.
The gunman fired at Kobi and another Givati Brigade infantryman positioned to defend the Jewish community, as part of the army’s holiday preparations. The soldiers were positioned near the pharmacy intersection and Beit Hamachpela, defending the road used by Jewish residents of the quarter in Hebron.
“From what we see, the shooting occurred over a long distance,” a senior IDF source said. “At this stage, we have no clear direction as to the identity of the shooter.”
Freedom of religion is a human right. The murderer, and indeed most Muslims in the Middle East, insist daily that Jews do not have the right to worship in their holiest places - the Temple Mount, the Cave of the Patriarchs, Rachel's Tomb, Joseph's Tomb. Each of these holy sites, all of which predate Islam, have been usurped by Islam and converted into mosques, an effective desecration of sacred Jewish sites.
Even so, the Jewish state bends over backwards to allow Muslims to gather and worship at these places that they have effectively stolen from Jews.
But in the Arabic media, there is daily incitement to riot and violently oppose the Jewish right to worship in these sites.
This is an issue of human rights. Freedom of religion is accepted by the UN, the EU and indeed the entire Western world. But the same people who pretend to energetically defend human rights, like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, are mute about the daily incitement to deny Jews those very rights. In fact, they effectively support the Muslim desecration and usurpation of Jewish holy sites by saying that the land underneath every single site is "illegally occupied" and should be, effectively, Judenrein.
HRW and Amnesty want to deny my son, and thousands of other Jews, the right to worship at and respectfully visit their holy sites.
They effectively support the same goal as the murderer of Gavriel Kovi.
In the end, they don't care about human rights. They care about politically correct human rights.
Their silence in the face of daily incitement against Jewish religious rights speaks volumes.