UNESCO experts: Hebron heritage request too focused on Muslim history, ignores Jewish history

"UNESCO experts have warned the Palestinian Authority that it has overly focused on Hebron's Muslim history at the exclusion of the Judeo-Christian heritage in its request that the West Bank's city's 'Old Town' be inscribed on the 'World Heritage in Danger' list.

The failure to make a full case for inscription as a heritage site, combined with Israel's decision to ban experts from visiting the city, make it difficult to conclude whether an emergency situation exists, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) said in an 11-page report it submitted over the weekend.

The 21-member World Heritage Committee is expected to vote on the inscription of Hebron's Old Town and the Cave of the Patriarchs to the 'State of Palestine' this Friday in Krakow, Poland, during its annual meeting, which began on Sunday.

The PA's written proposal had focused on Hebron's 'Old Town' history from the Mamluk period of 1250 and onward, which includes the Tomb of the Patriarchs, whose Herodian structure houses both Jewish sanctuaries of worship and the Ibrahimi Mosque.

'A further weakness is the definition of the property as a Mamluk town, as this excludes the extremely important time depth of Hebron, a town whose history can be extended back at least a thousand years before the Mamluk period and possibly much longer,' ICOMOS said.

'Although it is stated that the nominated property is thought to be one of the oldest cities continuously inhabited in the world, the emphasis of the nomination is on a small period of that history in the form of the Mamluk town, apart from the earlier structures of the Al-Ibrahimi Mosque/The Cave of Patriarchs.

'This means that the association of Hebron with Jewish and early Christian societies is given little recognition, and Tell Rumeida [an area of Biblical Hebron] and other sites are excluded from the boundaries,' the report continued..."