President Shimon Peres attempted to calm tensions Wednesday, a day after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned of a “religious war” over Israel’s decision to place the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb on its heritage sites list.
Speaking to the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry at Jerusalem's Beit Hanassi, Peres stressed that Israel wasn’t interested in "monopolizing" the sites and that it did not need "artificial conflicts" sparked by a "misunderstanding."
He said that Israel respects "every holy place," emphasizing that while it wanted to educate Jews that the sites are holy to them, this certainly did not mean they would be off limits to Muslims.
“We are going to tell our children that it is a holy place for the Jewish people,” he said. “It doesn’t mean Muslims can’t pray there.”
On Monday, Serry sharply criticized the cabinet decision to include the Hebron and Bethlehem sites to the list of historical, religious and cultural sites that would be marked for preservation and restoration.
The Prime Minister’s Office reacted with anger on Tuesday night to Abbas’s warning, with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Nir Hefetz calling the Palestinian campaign “untruthful and hypocritical.”