An American Zionist leader is calling on the Biden administration to take action in response to Palestinian Arab violence against Jewish worshippers at the Tomb of Joseph, in Shechem (Nablus).
Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists carried out multiple bomb attacks on August 30 against Israeli security forces guarding the route used by Jewish worshippers visiting the burial site of that biblical patriarch. At least four Israelis were wounded. A spokesman for the terrorists said, “Our land is forbidden to you, and Joseph’s Tomb is your tomb,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
Stephen M. Flatow, president of the Religious Zionists of America (RZA), has filed an official complaint with the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, asking it to intervene “in support of religious freedom at the Tomb of Joseph.”
In a letter to the commissioners, the RZA president noted that this week’s attack was “just the latest in a series of terrorist assaults on Jewish worshippers at the Tomb of Joseph and the security personnel guarding them.
“The Oslo Accords, in which the United States is deeply invested, guarantee free Jewish access to the Tomb of Joseph,” the RZA president pointed out. “And the Palestinian Authority’s security force, which the US has armed and trained, is required to ensure that access. Yet the PA continues to stand idly by as terrorists interfere with Jewish religious freedom.”
Flatow asked the US Commission on International Religious Freedom to urge the Biden administration to use its $600 million in annual aid to the Palestinian Arabs as leverage to compel the PA to fulfill its Oslo obligations regarding religious freedom at the Tomb of Joseph.
“If Jewish worshippers at a religious site anywhere else in the world were subjected to this kind of violence, there would be international outrage,” the RZA president said. “Why is the world silent when Jewish worshippers are attacked at the Tomb of Joseph?”
