The Palestinian Authority and the Jewish Holy Sites
in the West Bank: Rachel's Tomb as a Test Case
Nadav Shragai The Jerusalem Viewpoints No. 559 22 Kislev 5768 / 2
December 2007
The Jerusalem Viewpoints series is published by the Institute for
Contemporary Affairs, founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation.

Rachel's Tomb lies on the northern outskirts of Bethlehem, about 460 meters
(about 500 yards) south of the Jerusalem municipal border, and for more than
1,700 years has been identified as the tomb of the matriarch Rachel. "The
building with the dome and olive tree" became a Jewish symbol, appearing in
thousands of drawings, photographs, and works of art and depicted on the
covers of Jewish holy books. However, today the little domed structure has
been encased in a sleeve of reinforced concrete with firing holes and
defensive trenches, and covered with camouflage netting.

According to the armistice agreement signed on April 3, 1949, Jordan was to
allow Israel "free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and
use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives." In practice, Jordan did not
allow Jews free access to their holy places, and for 19 years, until 1967,
Jews could not go to the Western Wall, Rachel's Tomb, the Tomb of the
Patriarchs in Hebron, Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus), or other sites
sacred to Jews which remained in Jordanian hands.

The Gaza-Jericho Agreement signed in May 1994 stated: "The Palestinian
Authority shall ensure free access to all holy sites in the Gaza Strip and
the Jericho Area." The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement, signed on the
White House lawn on September 28, 1995, dealt with the status of 23 places
holy to Jews. The Palestinians promised to assure freedom of access to those
places. However, the Palestinians either made access extremely difficult or
prevented it entirely.

In October 2000, Joseph's Tomb in Nablus was attacked, set ablaze and
desecrated. Druze Border Police Corporal Yusef Madhat bled to death on
October 4 because Palestinians refused to allow his evacuation. The "Shalom
al Israel" synagogue in Jericho was also attacked. Holy books and relics
were burned, and the synagogue's ancient mosaic was damaged.

In 2000, after hundreds of years of recognizing the site as Rachel's Tomb,
Muslims began calling it the "Bilal ibn Rabah mosque" - a name that has
since entered the national Palestinian discourse. The Palestinian claim
ignored the fact that Ottoman firmans (decrees) gave Jews in the Land of
Israel the right of access to the site at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. Israel's experience since the Oslo agreements has shown that the
responsibility for Jewish holy sites or the roads leading to them should
remain in Israeli hands.

The Fortification of Rachel's Tomb

In September 1997 the Israeli media departed from its routine chronicling of
security and society, and for a few days the radio, television and press
joined forces in harsh criticism of what looked like an architectural
catastrophe: the scene at the Tomb of Rachel, the mother of the Jewish
people. Writers, poets, intellectuals, and newspapermen bewailed the loss of
a picturesque tableau: the small stone structure with its dome, appended
room and ancient olive tree nearby. Enraged, they railed against the new
vista: a giant concrete blockhouse surrounded by gun positions and guard
towers which obscured the image of the ancient, traditional structure
engraved on Israel's collective memory.1

The architectural logic behind the fortifications was based upon security
considerations: hundreds of incidents in which Palestinians from Bethlehem
and the nearby refugee camps threw rocks and Molotov cocktails, and even
shot at Jewish worshippers and Israeli soldiers.

A 1,700-Year-Old Tradition

Rachel's Tomb lies on the northern outskirts of Bethlehem, about 460 meters
(about 500 yards) south of the Jerusalem municipal border, and for more than
1,700 years has been identified as the tomb of the matriarch Rachel. A vast
amount of literature written by pilgrims - Jewish, Christian and Muslim -
documents the site as Rachel's burial place.2

Jews have visited the site for generations, coming to pray, request and
plead. The place became a kind of miniature Wailing Wall where suppliant
Jews came to pour out their hearts and recount their misfortunes at the
bosom of the beloved mother, where they could find consolation and cure.

According to Jewish tradition, Rachel's tears have special powers,3 which is
why those who visit her grave ask her to cry and intercede with the
Divinity. According to Genesis 36:16-19, Rachel died giving birth to
Benjamin and was "buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem," and
became, in Jewish tradition and history, biblical interpretation and
essence, the mother whose tears have a special function.4 Writers, poets and
biblical exegetics identified her tears with almost every catastrophe or
trouble which plagued the Jewish people.

Visitors to Rachel's Tomb connected her and her tears to the tomb itself.
"The building with the dome and olive tree" became a Jewish symbol.5 The
room added to the original structure by Sir Moses Montefiore in 1841 only
served to reinforce the connection. The tomb has since appeared in thousands
of drawings, photographs, stamps, and works of art and has been depicted on
the covers of Jewish holy books. However, whoever visits the tomb today will
find it hard to recognize it as the place engraved on Jewish hearts and
memories. The little domed structure, the memory, and tomb of the matriarch
Rachel has been encased in a sleeve of reinforced concrete with firing holes
and defensive trenches, and covered with camouflage netting.

In accordance with an Israeli government decision of September 11, 2002,
Rachel's Tomb, which millions of Jews have visited since the Six-Day War,
was enclosed by the security fence built by Israel. That made it look even
worse. Not only was the tomb within the fortification, but the short road to
it - a few hundred yards from Jerusalem - was closed off inside concrete
walls and firing positions.

The Fate of the Jewish Holy Places

Since its establishment, the State of Israel has been badly disappointed by
agreements transferring responsibility for Jewish holy places to neighboring
Arab or Palestinian rule. On April 3, 1949, Israel signed an armistice with
Jordan. According to Paragraph 8, Article 2 of the agreement, Jordan was to
allow Israel "free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and
use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives." In practice, not only could
Jews not visit the graves of their loved ones on the Mount of Olives, but
the site was desecrated. Headstones of Jewish graves were shattered and some
were used as paving stones or in construction.6 Jordan did not allow Jews
free access to their holy places, and for 19 years, until 1967, Jews could
not go to the Western Wall, Rachel's Tomb, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in
Hebron, Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus), or other sites sacred to Jews
which remained in Jordanian hands.7

In May 1994, Israel signed the Gaza-Jericho Agreement in Cairo. According to
Article 15 of Annex II, "the Palestinian Authority shall ensure free access
to all holy sites in the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area," mentioning the
Naaran synagogue, the Jewish cemetery in Tel Sammarat, the "Shalom al
Israel" synagogue in Jericho, and the synagogue in Gaza City.8

On September 28, 1995, the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement was signed
on the White House lawn, making the Palestinians responsible for civilian
and security matters in additional areas of the West Bank. In accordance
with the agreement, Israel withdrew from six Palestinian cities and part of
Hebron; the IDF and the civil administration were withdrawn. In addition,
Israel withdrew from 450 villages, towns, refugee camps, and other areas
throughout the West Bank.

The holy sites in those regions, or adjacent regions (access to which passed
through or close to Palestinian areas), were designated as "sites of
religious significance" or "archaeological sites." The agreement also dealt
with the status of 23 places holy to Jews, including the tombs of biblical
figures, the ruins of ancient synagogues, and ancient cemeteries. The
Palestinians promised to assure freedom of access to those places.9 In
reality, however, the Palestinians either made access extremely difficult or
prevented it entirely.

In October 2000, Joseph's Tomb in Nablus was attacked, set ablaze and
desecrated. Druze Border Police Corporal Yusef Madhat bled to death on
October 4 because Palestinians refused to allow his evacuation. It also
became extremely complicated for Jews to reach other, less well-known
places, such as the tomb of Avner ben Ner near Hebron,10 or similar sites,
to say nothing of the synagogue in Gaza. Only at the "Shalom al Israel"
synagogue in Jericho did the Palestinians generally adhere to the agreement,
for a time, until it too was attacked with the outbreak of the second
intifada in the fall of 2000. Holy books and relics were burned, and the
synagogue's ancient mosaic was damaged.11 Unfortunately, there has been a
discernable deterioration in Palestinian treatment of Jewish holy sites in
2007, including the Tomb of Joshua bin Nun at Kefel Hares.12 In November
2007, the Palestinian Authority began to clean Joseph's Tomb and discussions
have been held regarding visits by Jews to the site.

Jewish Religious Leaders Plead for "Mother Rachel"

During 1995, when it became known that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
had agreed to give the Palestinians full security and civilian control over
Rachel's Tomb, there was a strong reaction in the Jewish world. The Chief
Rabbi of Israel, Israel Meir Lau, met with Prime Minister Rabin and said,
"One does not part from one's mother." In a scene fraught with emotion,
Menachem Porush, an aged ultra-Orthodox Knesset representative from the
Yahadut Hatorah party, broke down in tears, weeping on the prime minister's
shoulder (in his office). He would not leave Rabin in peace until he changed
the decision.13 Rabbis, political parties, Jewish organizations, and many
important figures involved themselves in the issue until Rabin and Shimon
Peres, at that time foreign minister, reached a new agreement with Yasser
Arafat: Rachel's Tomb and the road leading to it would remain under Israeli
control.

On December 1, 1995, after Rabin's assassination, Bethlehem, with the
exception of the enclave of the tomb, passed under the full control of the
Palestinian Authority. Rachel's Tomb is now an outpost marking Jerusalem's
southern border. It has been massively fortified and Jews can only reach it
in bulletproof vehicles under military supervision.

Why Rachel's Tomb Became a Fortress

By February 1996 it was generally suspected that the Palestinians would
carry out terrorist and suicide bombing attacks at Rachel's Tomb as they had
done elsewhere in Israel. The IDF feared the tomb would be an easy target,
situated as it was on the main road linking Jerusalem and Hebron, which was
well-travelled by both Jews and Arabs, and a decision was made to fortify
the site.

In response, for the first time since 1967, the Palestinians claimed that
"the Tomb of Rachel was on Islamic land."14 At the end of September 1996,
Palestinian riots broke out over the opening of an ancient tunnel in
Jerusalem. After an attack on Joseph's Tomb and its subsequent takeover by
Palestinians, hundreds of residents of Bethlehem and the Aida refugee camp
also attacked Rachel's Tomb. They set the scaffolding which had been erected
around it on fire and tried to break in. The rioters were led by the
Palestinian Authority-appointed governor of Bethlehem, Muhammad Rashad
al-Jabari. The IDF dispersed the mob with gunfire and stun grenades, and
dozens were wounded. One of them was Kifah Barakat, a commander of Force 17,
the presidential guard of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.15

In the following years, the Palestinians occasionally disturbed the peace
and public order, but. a serious escalation occurred at the end of 2000 when
the second intifada broke out. For forty-one days Jews did not visit the
tomb because Palestinians attacked the site with gunfire.16

Bullets were fired at Rachel's Tomb as soon as the riots began, from the
Aida refugee camp between Beit Jala and Bethlehem, and from the roofs of
buildings located to the west, south and east. Palestinian Authority
security forces, who were responsible for keeping order, not only failed to
prevent the violence, they actively participated in it. When the gunfire at
soldiers and visitors increased, the Israeli army took to the neighboring
roofs. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the battles, Shahar Vekret and
Danny Darai. Darai was murdered by Atef Abayat, a Tanzim operative who
headed the main terrorist network in Bethlehem at the time.17 In his book
Permission Given, Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman revealed that not only
was Abayat not arrested, as Israel demanded from the Palestinian Authority,
but Yasser Arafat personally instructed that he be paid.

On December 4, 2000, Fatah operatives and members of the Palestinian
security services also attacked Rachel's Tomb. In May 2001, fifty Jews found
themselves trapped inside by a firefight between the IDF and Palestinian
Authority gunmen.18 In March 2002 the IDF returned to Bethlehem as part of
Operation Defensive Shield and remained there for an extended period of
time. In April 2002 the IDF laid siege to wanted terrorists who were hiding
in the Church of the Nativity, not far from the tomb. In recent years there
have been terrorist attacks at the site (although Israeli military control
has decreased the level of violence), such as bombs thrown on April 10,
2000, and December 27, 2006, and scores of Palestinians who threw rocks as
recently as February 10, 2007.

The Israel Supreme Court, which has often acceded to Palestinian appeals to
change the path of the security fence, recognized the obvious security needs
for protecting the holy site and on February 3, 2005, rejected a Palestinian
appeal to change its path in the region of the tomb. The court decreed that
the balance between freedom of worship and the local residents' freedom of
movement was to be preserved.19

The Palestinians Invent a Religious Claim

In 2000, after hundreds of years of recognizing the site as Rachel's Tomb,
Muslims began calling it the "Bilal ibn Rabah mosque."20 Members of the Wakf
used the name first in 1996, but it has since entered the national
Palestinian discourse. Bilal ibn Rabah was an Ethiopian known in Islamic
history as a slave who served in the house of the prophet Muhammad as the
first muezzin (the individual who calls the faithful to prayer five times a
day).21 When Muhammad died, ibn Rabah went to fight the Muslim wars in
Syria, was killed in 642 CE, and buried in either Aleppo or Damascus.22 The
Palestinian Authority claimed that according to Islamic tradition, it was
Muslim conquerors who named the mosque erected at Rachel's Tomb after Bilal
ibn Rabah.

The Palestinian claim ignored the fact that Ottoman firmans (mandates or
decrees) gave Jews in the Land of Israel the right of access to the site at
the beginning of the nineteenth century.23 The Palestinian claim even
ignored accepted Muslim tradition, which admires Rachel and recognizes the
site as her burial place. According to tradition, the name "Rachel" comes
from the word "wander," because she died during one of her wanderings and
was buried on the Bethlehem road.24 Her name is referred to in the Koran,25
and in other Muslim sources, Joseph is said to fall upon his mother Rachel's
grave and cry bitterly as the caravan of his captors passes by.26 For
hundreds of years, Muslim holy men (walis) were buried in tombs whose form
was the same as Rachel's.

Then, out of the blue, the connection between Rachel, admired even by the
Muslims, and her tomb is erased and the place becomes "the Bilal ibn Rabah
mosque." Well-known Orientalist Professor Yehoshua Porat has called the
"tradition" the Muslims referred to as "false." He said the Arabic name of
the site was "the Dome of Rachel, a place where the Jews prayed."27

Only a few years ago, official Palestinian publications contained not a
single reference to such a mosque. The same was true for the Palestinian
Lexicon issued by the Arab League and the PLO in 1984, and for Al-mawsu'ah
al-filastiniyah, the Palestinian encyclopedia published in Italy after 1996.
Palestine, the Holy Land, published by the Palestinian Council for
Development and Rehabilitation, with an introduction written by Yasser
Arafat, simply says that "at the northwest entrance to the city [Bethlehem]
lies the tomb of the matriarch Rachel, who died while giving life to
Benjamin." The West Bank and Gaza - Palestine also mentions the site as the
Tomb of Rachel and not as the Mosque of Bilal ibn Rabah.28 However, the
Palestinian deputy minister for
endowments and religious affairs has now defined Rachel's Tomb as a Muslim
site.29

On Yom Kippur in 2000, six days after the IDF withdrew from Joseph's Tomb,
the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida published an article
marking the next target as Rachel's Tomb. It read in part, "Bethlehem - 'the
Tomb of Rachel,' or the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque, is one of the nails the
occupation government and the Zionist movement hammered into many
Palestinian cities....The tomb is false and was originally a Muslim
mosque."30

Conclusions

Beyond religious, historical, and political arguments about the right to
control Jewish holy places in Judea and Samaria, the situation on the ground
since the Oslo agreements has shown that the Palestinians should not be
given responsibility for the sites or the roads leading to them. That
responsibility should remain in Israeli hands.

The Palestinians, as they have in the past at the Temple Mount and the
Western Wall, use their real or supposed religious interests to make
political capital for their national campaign. The story of Rachel's Tomb,
recognized as a Jewish holy site for two thousand years31 - which has become
"Rachel's Fortress" - only serves to illustrate this.
* * *

Notes
1. For an expanded version of this article, see Nadav Shragai, At the
Crossroads, the Story of the Tomb of Rachel, Jerusalem Studies, 2005, pp.
216-26 (Al em ha-derekh, sipuro shel kever rachel, shaarim le-heker
yerushalaim, 2005, 216-26).
2. For more documentation, see Avraham Yaari, Jewish Pilgrims' Journeys to
the Land of Israel (Gazit, 1946) (Masaot eretz israel shel olim yehudim,
Gazit, 1946); Zeev Vilnai, Sacred Tombstones in the Land of Israel (Rav Kook
Institute, 1963) (Matzevot kodesh be-eretz israel, Mosad harav kook, 1963);
Michael Ish Shalom, Christian Pilgrimages to the Land of Israel (Am Oved,
1979) (Masaot notrzim l'Eretz Israel, Am Oved, 1979); Natan Shor, "The
Jewish Settlement in Jerusalem according to Franciscan Chronicles and
Travellers' Letters" (Yad Ben-Tzvi, 1979) (Ha-yeshuv ha-yehudi
be-yerushalaim al pi chronickot frantziskaniot ve-kitvei nosim, Yad
Ben-Tzvi, 1979); Eli Schiller, The Tomb of Rachel (Ariel, 1977) (Kever
Rachel, 1977). For a summary of these and other sources, see At the
Crossroads, the Story of the Tomb of Rachel, Part I, 1700 Years of Testimony
(Jerusalem Studies, 2005) (Al em ha-derekh, sipuro shel kever rachel, helek
alef, 1700 shanim shel eduiot, Shaarim le-heker yerushalaim, 2005).
3. See the summary in Gilad Messing, And You Were Better than Us All
(Private Publication, 2001), pp. 161-4 (Ve-at alit al kulanu, hotzaa pratit,
2001, pp. 161-4).
4. See, for example, Shragai, At the Crossroads, pp. 163-5.
5. Ibid., p. 14.
6. Meiron Benvenisti, The Torn City (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson,
1973), pp. 78-9.
7. Ibid., pp. 78-81; Shmuel Berkowitz, The Wars of the Holy Places
(Jerusalem Institute for Israeli Studies and Hed Artzi, 2000), pp. 50, 54
(Milhamot ha-mekomot ha-kedoshim, Machon yerushalaim le-heker israel ve-hed
artzi, 2000, pp. 50, 54).
8. Berkowitz, ibid., p. 215.
9. Ibid., pp. 215-21.
10. A biblical figure, commander-in-chief of King Saul's army. He appears
mostly in 2 Samuel.
11. "Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee - First Statement of the
Government of Israel," Jewish Holy Sites, #233, December 28, 2000,
http://www.israel.org/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2000/12/Sharm%20el-Sheikh%20Fact-Finding%20Committee%20-%20First%20Sta
12. Jonathan Dahoah Halevi, "A History of Desecrating Holy Sites," Jerusalem
Center for Public Affairs (Hebrew) October 29, 2007,
http://www.jcpa.org.il/JCPA/Templates/showpage.asp?FID=416&DBID=1&LNGID=2&TMID=99&IID=9522
13. Shragai, At the Crossroads, pp. 198-208.
14. Danny Rubinstein, "Bethlehem does not want to be Berlin," Ha'aretz,
February 16, 1996.
15. Shragai, At the Crossroads, p. 216.
16. Ibid., p. 229.
17. Ibid., pp. 235-6.
18. Ibid., p. 242.
19. Supreme Court decision, February 3, 2005.
20. Shragai, At the Crossroads, pp. 230-1.
21. Danny Rubinstein, "The Slave and the Mother," Ha'aretz, October 9, 1996,
and a private conversation with Orientalist Yoni Dehoah-Halevi.
22. Ibid.
23. Shragai, At the Crossroads, pp. 48-52; Miginzei Kedem, Documents and
Sources from the Writings of Pinhas Name, ed. Yitzhak Beck (Yad Yitzhak
Ben-Tzvi, 1977), pp. 30-32 (Teudot u-mekorot tokh kitvei Pinhas, Miginzei
Kedem, Yad Yitzkah Ben-Tzvi, 1977, pp. 30-32).
24. Eli Schiller, The Tomb of Rachel, p. 18.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Yehoshua Porat, "Two Graves, Two Worlds," Ma'ariv, around the same time.
28. Islam adopted the same tactic regarding the Western Wall. Further
information can be found in Dr. Berkowitz' book. He found that until the
eleventh century Muslim scholars disagreed as to where the prophet Muhammad
had tied al-Buraq, his winged horse, after his night ride. Some identified
the place as the southern wall of the Temple Mount, others as the eastern
wall, but none of them suggested any connection to the western wall, sacred
to Judaism, called the Wailing Wall in the diaspora and the Western Wall in
Hebrew. The claim was only made after the "Wall conflict" broke out between
Jews and Muslims before the 1929 riots.
During the riots of 1929, violence broke out in Jerusalem and on the
Temple Mount. From there it spread to neighboring areas and hampered regular
visits to Rachel's Tomb. In 1929 the Wakf demanded control over the tomb,
claiming it was part of the neighboring Muslim cemetery. It also demanded to
renew the old Muslim custom of purifying corpses in the tomb's antechamber
(the structure added by Montefiori in 1841).
29. Shragai, At the Crossroads, p. 233.
30. Al-Hayat al-Jadida, October 8, 2000.
31. Christian sources identified the site as such almost two thousand years
ago. For example, see the New Testament, Matthew 2:18.
* * *

Nadav Shragai is the author of At the Crossroads, the Story of the Tomb of
Rachel (Jerusalem Studies, 2005); The Mount of Contention, the Struggle for
the Temple Mount, Jews and Muslims, Religion and Politics since 1967 (Keter,
1995); and "Jerusalem is Not the Problem, It is the Solution," in Mister
Prime Minister: Jerusalem, ed. Moshe Amirav (Carmel and the Florsheimer
Institute, 2005). He has been writing for the Israeli daily newspaper
Ha'aretz since 1983.