Palestinians to claim Cave of the Patriarchs as World Heritage Site
There are 1,052 UNESCO-listed World Heritage Sites in the world, nine of them Israeli, two of them Palestinian. The registration process and declaration of each site usually takes a number of years, but the PA want to take advantage of a clause in the regulations that allows to fast-track this procedure by claiming the sites are endangered.
The PA claims that the site is in danger of destruction by the “occupying force.” Among other things, they claim that Israel carried out an exceptionally large concrete casting at the site, while Israel claims that it is only a small addition to the site, and that it was coordinated with the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf.
The Heritage Committee has 21 member countries, and its composition is very problematic for Israel: Finland, Poland, Portugal, Croatia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Tunisia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Angola and Tanzania—none of which is among the ten countries that voted for Israel on the UNESCO Executive Committee concerning Israeli conduct in Jerusalem and Gaza.
Each request is accompanied by the opinion of a professional assessment body that makes a recommendation. In the two previous sites inscribed by the PA in 2012 and 2014—the Church of the Nativity and the Battir terraces—the professional body’s recommendation was negative, but the committee voted for its approval following pressure from the Arab-Muslim lobby.
The Israeli delegation to UNESCO, headed by Ambassador Carmel Shama-Hacohen, has already begun making efforts to stop the PA’s plans about a month ago.
