{"id":4432,"date":"2009-05-06T15:45:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-06T12:45:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2024-12-14T19:05:57","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T17:05:57","slug":"epalestine-israeli-minister-blocks-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/2009\/05\/epalestine-israeli-minister-blocks-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli minister blocks zone deal for Church sites"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israeli minister blocks zone deal for Church sites  <\/strong><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Mon May 4, 2009 6:27pm BST  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

By Dan Williams  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s interior minister has blocked a proposal to declare six Christian heritage sites exempt from land appropriations by the Jewish state ahead of a visit by Pope Benedict, Israeli officials said on Monday.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Unresolved zoning rights at the Vatican-owned shrines, including the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth and the Church of the Multiplication on the Sea of Galilee, have impeded relations that Israel and the Holy See established in 1993.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Keen to crown Benedict’s May 11-14 tour with a breakthrough, an Israeli inter-agency committee drafted a deal making the sites off-limits to state land seizures, which non-Jewish minorities often complain disproportionately target their turf.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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"It is very relevant because we wanted the pope to be able to unveil a deal when he comes," an Israeli official familiar with the deliberations said. "The Catholic world has long seen this outstanding issue as a sign of poor faith on our part."  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Yet when called upon this week to sign off on the proposal, Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who heads a powerful ultra-Orthodox Jewish party in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-leaning coalition government, refused.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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"This matter is under the minister’s authority, and he is not prepared to sacrifice Israeli sovereignty, even if it is only symbolic," Yishai’s spokesman Roi Rachmanovitch said.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Further complicating the dispute is the fact the one of the sites under discussion, the Garden of Gethsemane, is in Arab East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognised internationally.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Palestinians want to set up a capital for their future state in East Jerusalem and would likely resent any Vatican overtures that appeared to confer recognition on Israeli controls.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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"All we are seeking are safeguards that they (sites) will not be taken away in the future," an informed Catholic Church source in Rome said.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Yishai’s decision could be overruled in a vote by the Israeli cabinet, political sources said. Netanyahu’s office had no immediate word on whether such a vote was planned.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Israeli officials have described Benedict’s visit as a chance to dispel tensions over the Vatican’s handling of a Holocaust-denying bishop and its attendance at a U.N. racism conference where Iran’s president railed against Zionism.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Having seen tourism plummet over a Palestinian revolt that erupted in 2000, Israel also hopes the pope will usher in more pilgrimages from the billion-strong Catholic world.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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(Additional reporting by Philip Pullella in Rome, Editing by Janet Lawrence)  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Israeli minister blocks zone deal for Church sites  Mon May 4, 2009 6:27pm BST  By Dan Williams  JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s interior minister has blocked a proposal to declare six Christian heritage sites exempt from land appropriations by the Jewish state ahead of a visit by Pope Benedict, Israeli officials said on Monday.  Unresolved zoning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[936],"class_list":["post-4432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"authors":[{"term_id":936,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"sambahour","display_name":"Sam Bahour","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bca109c333bf6d8ae807746dd512adde46265d37c923f6cd0fc4aab437f8e9aa?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"1","first_name":"Sam","last_name":"Bahour","user_url":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour","job_title":"","description":"

Sam Bahour<\/strong> is a Palestinian-American business consultant, writer, and commentator based in Al-Bireh\/Ramallah, Palestine. He is the principal of Applied Information Management (AIM)<\/a>, a consultancy specializing in business development and startup advisory services.<\/p>\r\n

Bahour played a foundational role in establishing two of Palestine\u2019s publicly traded companies: the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL) and the Arab Palestinian Shopping Centers (APSC). He co-founded Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy (A4VPE), of which he is now an emeritus member, and served as an independent director on the board of Arab Islamic Bank P.L.C. from 2004 to 2025. He currently serves on the board of Just Vision<\/a> and The Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS)<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

He frequently gives talks to delegations visiting Palestine on the subjects of Palestine\u2019s political economy, Palestinian Politics 101, and a general orientation to the state of affairs under Israeli military occupation.<\/p>\r\n

A prolific writer on Palestinian affairs, Bahour has been published in major international outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, Haaretz, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera America, Le Monde diplomatique, Al-Monitor, +972 Magazine, The Hill, and Arab News. He has appeared as a commentator on NPR, CNN, BBC, and other broadcast media.<\/p>\r\n

Bahour is the co-editor of Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians<\/a><\/em> (Olive Branch Press, 1993) and was profiled in the bestselling anthology Kingdom of Olives and Ash<\/a><\/em>, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, in a chapter authored by Chabon titled \u201cThe Tallest Man in Ramallah<\/a>.\u201d He holds an Associate\u2019s and Bachelor\u2019s degree in Computer Technology from Youngstown State University, and a Kellogg-Recanati International Executive MBA \u2014 a joint program of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Recanati Business School at Tel Aviv University.<\/p>\r\n

He tweets at @SamBahour<\/a>, blogs at www.epalestine.ps<\/a>, and may be reached at sbahour[AT]gmail[DOT]com.<\/p>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4432"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=4432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}