Almost a third of all Knesset MKs are demanding from IDF Central Command Officer, Major General Yair Naveh to reopen easy access to Kever Yosef Hatzadik, which Arabs ransacked at the beginning of the second intifada in 2000.
Thirty-five MKs from the United Torah Judaism, Shas, Likud, Kadima, Pensioners and Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) parties all signed the petition.
During the start of the Oslo War, the tomb which is located inside PA-controlled Shechem (Nablus) was attacked by local Arabs.
When the September fighting began then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak ordered the IDF to withdraw from the Kever, leaving it in the hands of PA police.
The police subsequently allowed local Palestinians to approach the area and set it ablaze, defiling and destroying Sidurim and a Sefer Torah at the Kever.
In 2002, Israel retook the Kever and began heavily guarded late night-access for as many as 800 visitors at a time but haphazardly entering the zone was denied due to heavy security risks.
Israeli legislation from 1967 states all “Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places.”
However, during past and present Jewish history, the Jewish State’s Arab neighbors have not been as kind, as they denied Jews from praying at a number of locations. Some include Chevron, the Temple Mount and smaller sites such as Kever Yosef.
One Response
From what I’ve heard, certain kaballa-type sforim say that anyone who messes with Kever Yosef – will be doomed, and is in deep trouble. For all of you who “complained” yesterday about the arab drunk driver ym”s who died quickly, well, we can wait and sit back patiently until Hashem Yisborach takes His nekoma from these ones as well.