Olmert Destroys Synagogue

The Palestinians no longer have to concern themselves with destroying Jewish holy sites in Israel. Israeli PM Olmert is doing the work for them.

"Olmert Government Destroys Synagogue Next to Joseph's Tomb" by Hana Levi Julian for INN:

The Civil Lands Administration destroyed a one-year-old synagogue built on Mount Gerizim near the Samarian city of Shechem on Monday afternoon. The structure was built not far from one of the holiest sites in the Jewish world.

Government officials maintained that the building was erected without a permit, and was not a synagogue.

This is one trait that the cowardly Olmert inherited from his incapacitated predecessor; bravery in the face of Jews and cowardice in the face of Muslims.

Dozens of Breslov Chassidim and other rabbis and students worshipped there daily, learning Torah between the services. The rabbinical students vowed not to give up the site without opposition. “If the synagogue is destroyed, it will be re-built,” vowed one student before the house of worship was razed to the ground.

The structure was built by the students in order to study as close as possible to the burial place in Shechem of the biblical Joseph, son of the Jewish matriarch Rachel and Jewish patriarch Jacob, following its capture and destruction by Palestinian Authority Arab hordes in October 2000. There have been many clandestine pilgrimages by Jews – and some not so clandestine – to the tomb since then.

The Tomb of Joseph, whose sons headed two of the twelve tribes of Israel, was to remain accessible to Jews under the terms of the Oslo Accords signed by Israel with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which represented the PA.

The area around it, including the city of Shechem, was handed over to the PA, then an administrative body whose leaders had promised to protect the site.

But Jewish access to the tomb was blasted away by PLO terrorists in October 2000 a scant few days after the start of the second intifada, which many refer to as the Oslo War.

The PA promise to preserve Joseph’s Tomb and allow Jewish access was violated within two hours after Yusuf’s body was carried away. A flood of PA Arabs entered the compound and razed the synagogue to the ground, burning furniture and holy books as the PA policemen who had vowed to protect the site stood idly by.

Two days later, the dome of the tomb itself was painted “evil eye green” as some people refer to the color, which in Arabic tradition wards off the evil eye. Bulldozers cleared away the remnants of the orgy of violence that had taken place there, transforming the holy Jewish monument into a Muslim religious site.

If you have no self respect, no one will respect you. It's all on Olmert's tab now