Shi'a Wakf claims that Ezekiel's shrine is Muslim

In the week that Jews read the Biblical story of Ezekiel's valley of dry bones, there are resurgent fears that the Shi'a Wakf (religious endowment) wishes to turn the shrine of the Jewish Prophet Ezekiel into a mosque.

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Two activists on behalf of the preservation of the shrine, at Kifl south of Baghdad, Mr Maurice Shohet from New York and Professor Shmuel Moreh, an Israeli emeritus professor of Iraqi origin, sent Point of No Return an article published on 2 April in the respected Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat in London and on the Sawt al-'Iraq site (The Voice of Iraq) in Baghdad. The article proves that the Islamic authorities consider that the tomb of the Jewish prophet Ezekiel is an exclusively Muslim shrine.

"That being the case, we find that we have to appeal to international authorities such as UNESCO, the US and European governments to redouble their efforts to save the Jewish character of Ezekiel's tomb," says Professor Moreh.

Religious authorities in Iraq are determined to convert the tomb of the Jewish prophet Ezekiel into a mosque after deleting Hebrew inscriptions, according to Al-Hayat and Sawt al-'Iraq. But a debate is still raging about the ownership of the shrine, and some Iraqis are prepared to stand up for Jewish interests.

The newspaper quotes the official in charge of the Shi'a Waqf (Endowment), Salih al-Haydari, who denies that the shrine belongs to the Jews. He says that the tomb is that of Dhu al-Kifl, a prophet mentioned in the Koran - proof enough that the site belongs to the Muslims. Recent excavations at the site, he claims, prove that it is not a Jewish site, although the findings have not yet been published!

The Shi'a Waqf in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities is currently restoring the shrine. The foundations of the site have always been at risk from flooding and its minaret is in imminent danger of collapse.

However Mrs Mariam Omran, director of the Babylon heritage site, points out that Iraqi Jews used to visit Ezekiel's shrine up until their migration in the mid-20th century. "The removal of Hebrew writings and inscriptions is part of the process of erasing the memory of religious minorities who were the original inhabitants of Iraq and other parts of the Middle East," she says.

Mrs Omran says that the authorities responsible for preserving Iraq's ancient heritage have come under pressure from Islamists to remove Hebrew words and ornamentation, in readiness for the building of a mosque over the tomb of Ezekiel.

The article points out that the tomb was not previously of interest to Muslims until 2003, when the Shi'a Waqf started campaigning for the restoration of the site.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Tourism has denied reports that the character of the shrine is being altered. The tomb is being faithfully restored using original materials and old photographs, he claims.

The Department of Antiquities and Heritage has allocated about 250 million dinars for restoration work and maintenance, which began in the summer of 2008. A spokesman claims that the Muslim prophet Dhu al-Kifl is the same person as the Jewish prophet Ezekiel, who was taken prisoner by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in 589 BC.

The shrine dates back to the 14th century. The Ottoman period witnessed a struggle for control between Jews and Muslims. Most of the buildings and surrounding shops belong to Jewish families and rent is still being paid to the landlords in Israel and European countries.

Read article (in Arabic)

Please sign petition to save Ezekiel's Shrine

(Copied from Point of no Return)

See also:
* Iraqi intellectuals to inspect state of Ezekiel's tomb
* What about Ezekiel's tomb, Irina Bokova?
* Why digital mapping might save Ezekiel's tomb
* Iraq will 'entrust shrine to international authorities'
* Ezekiel's shrine has suffered 'irreversible damage'
* Save Ezekiel's tomb before it's too late
* Islamic parties plan to de-Judaise Ezekiel's shrine
* A 1910 visit to the tomb of Ezekiel
* Muslims 'planning a mosque' on the tomb of Ezekiel
and many more

UN Watch Exposes UN Circulation of Israeli Organ Blood Libel

UN Watch, the Geneva-based watchdog organization, exposed an anti-Semitic text that was circulated by the United Nations Human Rights Council this week as part of its permanently recurring debate on the Palestinian territories, which culminated yesterday in four resolutions against Israel, with a fifth on the Goldstone Report expected today. UN Watch's letter, shown below, has mobilized international outrage with immediate coverage in Canada's National Post and the Jerusalem Post

Amb. Alex Van Meeuwen, President of the Human Rights Council
Ms. Navanethem Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations European Headquarters
Geneva, Switzerland

March 24, 2010

Dear Mr. President,
Dear Madam High Commissioner,

As a human rights NGO dedicated to combating racism, UN Watch is alarmed to discover that the UN Human Rights Council, together with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, has, however unwittingly, helped to propagate an anti-Semitic blood libel by publishing it as an official United Nations document (A/HRC/13/NGO/23), which is now being distributed to country delegates—under the same Agenda Item in which they will soon vote on the Goldstone Report.

We call upon you to immediately cease circulating this racist, hateful and inflammatory text to the ambassadors and other delegates of the Human Rights Council; to gather up and destroy all existing copies; and to remove it from the Human Rights Council website.

The document in question is A/HRC/13/NGO/23, entitled “Israeli Illegal Trafficking in Organs of Dead and Kidnapped Palestinian Victims.” It was submitted by the “International Organization for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination,” also known as EAFORD. As shown on its website (www.eaford.org), the raison d’etre of this UN-accredited organization is to accuse Israel of being a racist state. (The website also links to a video on U.S. action in Iraq, which it describes as a “Holocaust.”)

The statement begins by accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing and massacres,” creating the “largest open-air prison in the world,” perpetrating “economic genocide,” and having “let loose hordes of marauding gangs of Israeli illegal settlers” in order to “launch pogroms against Palestinians.”

It then proceeds to the principal charge: “Now it is the turn of the dead, kidnapped and killed Palestinians. Their human organs, as reported in the press, can be a source of immense wealth through illegal trafficking in the world market. Israeli physicians, medical centers, rabbis and the Israeli army may be involved, according to reports published in the Swedish press and criminal investigations in the United States.”

It goes on: “After Israeli physicians remove organs they think marketable, the soldiers bury the bodies in graves that carry only numbers and no names, or place them in sealed caskets and deliver them under curfew conditions to the families and supervise the digging of the graves and burial.”

Finally, the statement concludes by calling on “physicians, medical centers and associations everywhere to condemn and boycott Israeli physicians and medical centers.”

Your Excellencies, the accusation that the Jewish state and its doctors are engaged in a racist campaign to steal Palestinian organs has no basis in fact or reality, and is nothing less than the repackaging of the medieval blood libel that was used over centuries to incite anti-Semitic hatred, violence and pogroms against Jews.

The United Nations cannot allow itself to aid or abet such blatant incitement to racism. Given that the Office of the High Commissioner carefully screens all submissions before deciding to publish them—indeed, our own submissions to this session were edited to remove certain words referring to regimes such as Iran and Libya—we are deeply disappointed that this hateful text was accepted for publication as an official UN document, and that it is now being distributed as such within the Human Rights Council chamber.

We urge you to take immediate action in accordance with the principles of human rights, equality and anti-racism upon which the United Nations was founded.

Respectfully,

Hillel C. Neuer
Executive Director
UN Watch
Geneva, Switzerland

Stealth Conflicts

Why is the world's worst violence ignored? So many of the world's largest conflicts are off-the-radar 'stealth conflicts', while many of the conflicts that we seem to know so well turn out to be relatively small by comparison. Why is this so, and why do we allow this situation to stand unchallenged? Watch this video and find out more.

United Nations exposed,... once again

UNWatch is a Geneva based watchdog. They often expose the hypocrisy and biased approach of UN organizations. Yesterday a letter from Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UNWatch, to de Editor was published in Jerusalem Post.

An excerpt which says it all:

(...) First, Falk's UN title [Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, ed.] is deliberately deceptive. The actual terms of his mandate do not address the overall "situation of human rights" in the area concerned. Rather, the Arab-controlled council decided in 1993 to investigate only "Israel's violations of the principles and bases of international law." That means Hamas brutality against Israelis and Palestinians alike is entirely excluded.

Falk's is the only UN mandate that is inherently one-sided, presumptive of guilt and immune from regular review. What kind of person would accept such a biased mandate? (...)

Read it all... (scroll to the third letter from above)