The Palestinian Authority will attempt to register the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem as a world heritage site in the country of Palestine when the World Heritage Committee meets in Russia from June 24 to July 6.

Bethlehem, situated just outside of Jerusalem, is the resting place of the Matriarch Rachel, and features prominently in the biblical story of Ruth, as well as in that of her great-grandson, King David.  It is also significant in Christian theology as the birthplace of Jesus, and became home to a church commemorating his alleged birth at the site.  In the years following Oslo, Bethlehem has become overwhelmingly Arab and Muslim in population.

Earlier this month, the committee announced it would be considering registration of 36 heritage sites around the world, including the Church of the Nativity, which was submitted for consideration by the Palestinian Authority.  This marks the first time the committee has contemplated listing a world heritage site as Palestinian.

The PA has a right to submit its request for the Church of the Nativity recognition because the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognized Palestine as its 195^th member state in October, giving Palestine full state rights in all UNESCO bodies, including the right to register sites on the World Heritage List.  The UN General Assembly has not recognized Palestine as a state.

The PA seeks to register the church and an associated pilgrimage path under an emergency provision for endangered sites.  The International Council on Monuments and Sites has recommended that the PA application be rejected, as it found the site to be neither under imminent threat or severely damaged.  The group recommended the PA resubmit its application for regular consideration by the World Heritage List.

Committee members  to consider the application include Algeria, Cambodia, Colombia, Estonia, Ethiopia, France, Germany, India, Iraq, Japan, Malaysia, Mali, Mexico, Qatar, Russian Federation, Senegal, Serbia, South Africa, Switzerland, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.

The entire planet has been following with bated breath Supermodel Naomi Campbell’s 42nd birthday’s visit to the land where Jesus did stuff (except, apparently, for celebrating his 42nd birthday).

It started well, with Campbell arriving late Monday night with her billionaire boyfriend Vladislav Doronin and an entourage of 21. They drove straight to the Wailing Wall, then retired to the King David hotel.

Day two was different. The beautiful Ms. Campbell has, according to Palestinian security officials speaking to the AP, “lit candles in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem,” which is “built on the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.”

Why, you might ask, does a supermodel require representation by PA security officials? This, as Fido might say, is where the best bones are buried.

An irate Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned the Palestinian Authority’s “heavy-handed treatment of reporters on Tuesday covering a supermodel’s visit to Bethlehem.”

According to Palestinian news agency Ma’an, The PA’s official Palestine TV recorded an exclusive interview with Naomi Campbell at a restaurant outside the Church of the Nativity, but other reporters “weren’t allowed as much as a photograph.”

Can you imagine how frustrating it must be for reporters who normally cover nothing but folks beating up other folks over stuff, when a striking visitor like Naomi walks into their midst – and they’re all pushed off the story? Man, that burns.

Security guards accompanying the model harassed reporters and even threatened to break their cameras if they got near, according to the syndicate, which said its members were “furious.”

No kidding. Who wouldn’t be furious when they can see from afar Campbell celebrating her birthday at the Casa Nova Palace Restaurant, over “a traditional Palestinian meal of lamb and rice,” but no scraps for the Paparazzi.

In fact, according to AP, “Campbell requested anonymity because Palestinian officials threatened to punish people speaking to reporters.”

Did she fear the PA goons would throw her in their dungeon if she dared talk to the press? Seiously?

Unlike the Palestinian reporters who couldn’t do anything except make very angry faces, AP reports that a small, shaggy black dog whom the employees called “shekel,” the name of Israel’s currency, barked at mustachioed plainclothes Palestinian security officials sitting at tables.

You go, Shekel!

Ma’an commented that the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, which has protested a series of arrests of journalists in recent weeks, noted that the Palestinian leadership has expressed its commitment to free speech “on more than one occasion,” while they are nevertheless routinely subjected to restrictions on their work.

Very un-Jesus like…

In a press release issued on Wednesday, the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Ir David Foundation announced that a clay seal was discovered bearing the name of the city of Bethlehem, evidence that the city existed during the period of the First Temple in Jerusalem.  The find fortuitously coincides with the upcoming holiday of Shavuot, during which time Jews from around the world focus on the story of the biblical figure Ruth, set in the city of Bethlehem.

The 1.5cm seal – called a bulla – was discovered during sifting of soil removed from the archeological excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is carrying out in the City of David, just outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.  The sifting is underwritten by the Ir David Foundation, which treated The Jewish Press to a private tour.

The clay bulla was meant to seal a document or object, used as a way of showing that the private item had not been tampered with.

The new bulla bears the words:   בשבעת   Bishv’at    בת לים    Bat Lechem [למל[ך   [Lemel]ekh

Eli Shukron, director of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said “it seems that in the seventh year of the reign of a king (either Hezekiah, Manasseh or Josiah), a shipment was dispatched from Bethlehem to the king in Jerusalem.”

“The bulla we found belongs to the group of “fiscal” bullae – administrative bullae used to seal tax shipments remitted to the taxation system of the Kingdom of Judah in the late eighth and seventh centuries BCE,” Shukron said.  “The tax could have been paid in the form of silver or agricultural produce such as wine or wheat”.

According to Shukron, this is the first time the name Bethlehem has appeared in an inscription from the First Temple period, proving that Bethlehem was a city in the Kingdom of Judah, and possibly in earlier periods.”

The first mention of Bethlehem in the Bible occurs in regard to the matriarch Rachel, wife of Jacob, sister of Leah, and mother of Joseph, who died while giving birth to Benjamin “in Ephrat, which is Bethlehem, and was buried there (Genesis 35:19; 48:7).

In later generations, when the region was settled by the descendants of Jacob and Leah’s son Judah, a man named Boaz made Ruth, a Moabite convert and daughter-in-law of Naomi, his wife (Book of Ruth).  The couple’s great-grandson, David, became the most celebrated king in Jewish history, and made his capital in Jerusalem, on the site of the modern day “Ir David” – City of David.

The Civil Administration arranged for the transport of Yehia, an Arab boy from Bethlehem, to be treated at a hospital in Boston where he underwent a kidney transplant that saved his life.

The child was previously treated for kidney issues at the Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem, where he received dialysis treatment. Eventually, Israeli doctors diagnosed that Yehia was in need of a new kidney.

Yehia was supposed to receive a kidney donated by his father, when the doctors at Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petakh Tikva (where the surgery was meant to take place) detected an organ incompatibility.

The Health Coordinator at the Civil Administration, Dalia Bassa, contacted a team at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, which specializes in kidney diseases, and arranged for Yehia to receive the transplant there.

The Civil Administration flew Yehia to the US in January, 2012, where he stayed till April 24. Since his return, Yehia is undergoing frequent checkups at the Shaare Zedek Hospital.

Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon on Sunday presented “Christians of the Holy Land,” a piece of complex, anti-Israeli propaganda that was clearly intended to cause Israel damage among US Christians. It throws unfair accusations at Israeli Jews—who are essentially blameless in the story of the vanishing Arab Christians—while practically ignoring the active role of Palestinian Muslims in pushing Christians out of Bethlehem, to name but one city.

Fifty years ago, Christians were easily 70 percent of Bethlehem’s population; today they make up less than 15 percent. It’s the same in Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq. In fact, the only place in the Middle east where the Christian population is growing is inside “green line” Israel.

But the 60 Minutes piece, and the “scary” document it keeps referring to, “The Kairos Palestine Document,” have virtually no Muslim villains in them. At most it is “Jewish and Muslim extremists,” a nicely balanced package of crazies, who are to blame for Christian suffering.

There’s a fleeting reference to the fate of Israeli Christian Arabs, who may be equal citizens in a Western democracy, but, trust Bob Simon, they, too, suffer. They may be thriving, unlike their brethren from Casablanca to Tehran, but they’re still crying all the way to the bank.

The classic segment within the piece concerns the security wall – look for it around minute 4. Simon acknowledges that the wall was built to stop Palestinian terrorism, and concedes that it is working, having reduced terrorism by 90 percent. Then the story proceeds to detail how tough it is for Palestinian Christians to be living in the shade of this wall, which has come to be known as an “open air prison.”

“How do you live with this?” Simon asks in horror.

The piece also shows the long lines of Palestinian cars at Israeli checkpoints, and the fact that Palestinians must obtain Israeli permits to be moving about at all. Now the case is complete: Christians are leaving because of the hardship of Israeli occupation.

There are two logical problems here. One is of simple fairness, as Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren actually spells out: which would Bob Simon prefer, continued Jewish bloodshed on buses and in restaurants and hotels, or Arab inconvenience?

The other is even simpler: assuming Muslims are subject to at least the same level of hardship by the Israeli “occupiers,” why has the Muslim population of Bethlehem gone up to 85% while the Christians are fleeing?

If the reason for the emergence of a Christian Diaspora in Michigan is the occupation, there should be a corresponding percentage of Palestinian Muslims leaving Judea and Samaria.

But we haven’t seen 70 percent of Muslims leaving the “disputed territories,” because—and that’s the bit of harsh reality completely absent and, in fact, being denied, in Bob Simon’s piece—it’s the Palestinian Muslims doing much of the pushing.

In 2008, human rights attorney Justus Reid Weiner wrote “Palestinian Crimes against Christian Arabs and Their manipulation against Israel” for the Jerusalem Institute for Global Jewish Affairs. He summed up his argument : “Under the Palestinian regime Christian Arabs have been victims of frequent human rights abuses by Muslims. There are many examples of intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombing of churches and other Christian institutions, denial of employment, economic boycotts, torture, kidnapping, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and extortion. Palestinian Authority (PA) officials are directly responsible for many of the human rights violations. Muslims who have converted to Christianity are in the greatest danger. They are often left defenseless against cruelty by Muslim fundamentalists. Some have been murdered.”

Read this interview by “Christianity Today” with Weiner. He tells these anecdotes:

There is a Greek Orthodox Christian who was so tight with the Palestinian Liberation Organization that during the first intifada, Israel expelled him from the West Bank. Arafat brought him back to the West Bank after the Oslo process began. He ran a TV station that he built in Bethlehem. Despite that connection, he gradually got fed up with what was going on with the Christians. About two months ago, he went public with a dossier that he had previously delivered to Arafat and then Abu Mazen. The dossier gives 70 detailed examples of attacks on specific Christians—beatings, sexual harassment, all nature of theft, stealing land—and 140 cases of land theft where Muslim gangs in cahoots with the Palestinian Authority showed up, poured a slab of cement, built apartment houses, and sold them right under the nose of the land’s Christian owners.
Since going public, he’s gone abroad for a trip. That’s a clue as to how long he would likely be alive if he were to show up in the Middle East anytime soon.

There’s a pastor in Bethlehem whose name I haven’t used, but one day a couple years ago he came home from work at his church, and as he parked his car, he saw a masked man jump over the fence into his front yard. The man had a pistol and took three shots, hitting the pastor once in the shoulder. The pastor fell to the ground and pretended to be dead, and the man jumped back over the fence and left.

A great deal is made by Bob Simon of the fact that Ambassador Oren had called CBS to complain about the anti-Israeli hatchet job in his piece – before the piece had aired. In fact, he practically yells at Oren, that this is the first time a subject had ever called to complain about him to his bosses before the finished piece had a chance to air.

The absence of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem from a list of sites to receive funding as part of Israel’s National Heritage program has raised the ire of MKs in support of Jewish rights in Judea and Samaria.

MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) and MK Ze’ev Elkin (Likud) expressed disapproval that the two sites – the burial places of the Jewish foreparents Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah in Hebron, and Rachel in Bethlehem – were absent from a renovation funding list presented at a ministerial committee meeting on Tuesday.

Eldad defended the importance of the sites, and warned that withholding funding from the sites is equivalent to removing them from the National Heritage Program.

In February 2010, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced a NIS 500 million investment plan aimed at rejuvenating sites of importance to the Jewish People and the State of Israel.  Israel was criticized by the US and the UN body UNESCO for including the two sites on the list.

The Prime Minister’s Office responded to concerns by saying the renovations necessary at the sites were not critical at this time, and that not receiving funding was no indication that the sites had been removed from the National Heritage list.

“Hebron wasn’t funded this time around, but we’ve been assured at the highest levels that in the near future, we will be”, said David Wilder, Spokesman of the Jewish Community of Hebron in an interview with The Jewish Press.  “It wasn’t taken off the list.”

Tel Shiloh, the site which housed the Mishkan (Tabernacle) prior to its installation in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, will likely be picked for immediate renovation by the committee.  It is located north of Jerusalem in the community of Shilo in Samaria.

“But as for me, when I traveled from Padam, Rachel died on me in the land of Canaan on the road…and I buried her there on the road in Ephras, which is Bethlehem.” – Bereishis 48:7

Yaakov Avinu spent the final seventeen years of his life in Mitzrayim. While there he lived in peace for the first time in many years and remained in that state for the rest of his life. Near the end of his days he called in his beloved son Yosef and made an impassioned request: “Please do not bury me in Mitzrayim.”

After this event, when Yaakov felt his end drawing nearer, he again spoke to Yosef, saying, “On the road your mother Rochel died, and I buried her there.”

Rashi explains that these two conversations were connected. In this final meeting, Yaakov was expressing something he had held inside for many years. He was telling Yosef, “I know that you have harbored a complaint in your heart against me. You feel that when your mother died, I didn’t treat her with due respect. I didn’t bury her in a city, or even in an inhabited place, but right there on the road where she died. You should know I did this because Hashem commanded me to. Many years from now, when Nevuzaradan will force the Jews into exile, they will pass along that road where she is interred. Rachel will cry out with bitter weeping, and her tears will save the Jewish people.”

The Siftei Chachmim explains why Yaakov chose this particular moment to explain this to Yosef – “If not now, when?” He hadn’t told him up to then because he didn’t want to tell him about the suffering that was to occur. But he had to tell him now because it would be his last opportunity. He was about to leave this world.

This Rashi is difficult to understand. If Hashem had told Yaakov to bury Rachel there, why didn’t Yaakov explain this to Yosef years ago? Why did he allow his beloved son to feel some sense of ill will against him for so long? Yosef was not a fragile youth who would fall apart if he heard bad news. He was a mature, sophisticated talmid chacham. His role at the time was leader of all of Mitzrayim. He could have handled the knowledge that the Jewish nation would suffer. And Yaakov knew that eventually he was going to have to tell Yosef anyway. Why not just tell him right away and eliminate all those bad feelings?

The answer is that Yaakov was extraordinarily guarded in what he said. Every word was measured, every expression weighed. And he had a policy: “I am not the one to cause suffering to others. If I tell Yosef why I buried his mother on the road, I will have to tell him the Jewish people will be sent into exile. That fact will cause him much suffering, and I won’t be a part of it. When he has to hear the bad news, I will tell him, but not a moment sooner. If this will cause him to question my actions, if this will cause him to feel some element of resentment toward me, I am willing to pay that price rather than cause him the pain of knowing what will occur.”

This Rashi illustrates a number of beautiful concepts. First, we see the extraordinary sensitivity a tzaddik has in not causing another human being to suffer. Even though Yosef could “handle it,” and even though Yaakov would eventually have to tell him, he was willing to bear the burden of letting his son think of him as insensitive rather than cause him pain. We also see an incredible example of discretion. Yaakov was extremely guarded in the words that came out of his mouth. Yaakov had been separated from his beloved son for twenty-two years. For those two decades, Yaakov was living in a state of unending mourning. When they finally met, Yosef was so filled with joy that the tears couldn’t be stopped. The love between the two was overflowing. And yet, there was something that stood between them. Yaakov knew that within the heart of his son was a sense of resentment, of ill will. In Yosef’s mind, his mother had been mistreated; her final honor had been compromised. And his own father was the man who dishonored her.

It wasn’t just at one moment that this was a barrier between them. For the next seventeen years, every time they spoke and every time they were together, there was a certain wedge keeping them apart. And yet Yaakov wouldn’t say a word. Even though these feelings were completely unfounded, he wouldn’t talk about it because that would cause a Jew to suffer, and he couldn’t be a part of that. This self-control is illustrative of the way Yaakov lived every moment of his life.

Hamas is hopeful President Obama will open a dialogue with the group despite Congressional restrictions on such talks, Ahmed Yousef, Hamas’s chief political adviser in Gaza, told this column in an exclusive interview this week.

Speaking from Gaza after Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Yousef said he believes Obama intends to “change” American policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He called Obama a “smart and decent man.”

Asked if he believed Obama intends to open dialogue with Hamas, Yousef replied, “Yeah. Actually, there is [sic] signals.”

“I do believe this will take time,” he said. “This is not an easy job since there is a restriction from the Congress and there are laws and regulations that are preventing taking action without solving things with the Congress.

“So I know that he might himself believe that engaging with Hamas will help put an end to the conflict and also to enhance the American image all over the Arab and Muslim countries. Hamas is the answer if Americans are serious about its image in the Arab and Muslim world.”

Yousef said he expects Obama will make “strong statements” toward the Muslim world during a major address in Egypt next month.

A Knesset inquiry following an expos? by this reporter earlier this month has halted construction of the country’s security barrier along a controversial route that would have effectively blocked off Jewish property and an important Jewish neighborhood from the rest of Jerusalem.

The area in question included the Jewish neighborhood of Maale Adumim in eastern Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as part of a future state. During his candidacy, Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke about the importance of maintaining and developing the Jerusalem region called E1, which encompasses Maale Adumim.

Recently, however, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak personally visited the area and unilaterally ordered the defense ministry to construct a barrier through the neighborhood of Anatot, which would block off Jewish land. The new barrier route would have essentially isolated the so-called Palestinian side of Maale Adumim, as well cordon off local Jewish property.

Following an article on the subject and a petition from a private group, Otonell Schneller, a Knesset member for Israel’s Kadima party, visited Anatot to see the fence construction for himself. Last week, during a Knesset session regarding yearly funding for Barak’s defense ministry, Schneller brought up the issue of the Anatot fence and accused Barak of wasting his ministry’s money, arguing that the Supreme Court could rule against the construction and require the barrier’s removal.

Immediately following that Knesset session, Barak ordered the halting of the Anatot fence construction.

The Palestinian Authority exploited Pope Benedict XVI’s visit here last week for political gain and to wage propaganda attacks against Israel, particularly regarding sovereignty over Jerusalem, according to a new study.

“The PA has exploited Benedict’s visit to Israel … especially the sensitive [issue] of sovereignty over Jerusalem. According to PA-affiliated spokesmen, Israel’s presence in eastern Jerusalem does not give it sovereignty or any other rights,” states a report by the Terrorism and Information Center at Israel’s Center for Special Studies.

Reuven Erlich, the center’s director, told WorldNetDaily that the PA’s exploitation extended to the pope’s tour of Bethlehem.

“The pope was deliberately paraded in front of the security barrier to make a non-issue into an issue. Also [PA President] Mahmoud Abbas used his speech alongside the pope for pure propaganda purposes,” said Erlich.

The pope stood beside Abbas as the Palestinian leader pointed to a concrete separation barrier in Bethlehem and blamed that barrier, as well as Israeli “occupation,” for the plight of Christians.

Bethlehem, however, is not surrounded by any wall. Israel built a fence in 2002 in the area where northern Bethlehem interfaces with Jerusalem. A tiny segment of the barrier, facing a major Israeli roadway, is a concrete wall that Israel says is meant to prevent gunmen from shooting at Israeli motorists.

The PA strategically positioned the pope to make statements alongside the one segment of the barrier that is a wall.

Abbas’s claim that the barrier is driving away Christians is contradicted by demographic facts. Israel built the barrier five years ago, but Bethlehem’s Christian population started to drastically decline in 1995, the year Arafat’s Palestinian Authority took over the Christian city in line with the U.S.-backed Oslo Accords. As soon as the PA took over Bethlehem, reports of Christian intimidation and persecution surfaced. The city’s Christian population dropped from 80 percent to about 22 percent.

If Pope Benedict XVI so fervently supports a Palestinian state – which would split sections of Israel – he also should divide Rome, said the leader of a coalition of more than 350 Israeli rabbinic leaders and pulpit rabbis.

“I was shocked to hear that the first thing the pope had to say when he landed in Israel was that the Holy Land must be divided to make room for a Palestinian state,” said Joseph Gerlitzky, rabbi of central Tel Aviv and chairman of the Rabbinical Congress for Peace, which includes some of Israel’s most prominent Jewish leaders.

“I suggest that he divide Rome. The Holy Land was promised to the Jewish people and absolutely no human being on this earth has a right to relinquish even one inch of this land.”