Peace Now wants Hebron events canceled
Date: April 13, 1995
Publication: Jerusalem Post
Author: HERB KEINON

PEACE Now is trying to prevent a number of events organized by the Jewish settlement of Hebron from taking place on Tuesday, claiming they are an act of provocation.

Posters have gone up around Jerusalem calling upon people to go to Hebron on Tuesday, the third intermediate day of Pessah, to pray at the Machpela Cave and tour its Jewish sites. A cornerstone laying ceremony for a new apartment building in the Avraham Avinu complex is also planned that day. The posters say the plans were coordinated with the IDF.

In a letter to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Peace Now wrote that "deployment of large IDF forces in an area of friction to give patronage to events that are nothing but a provocation of the Arabs, is unnecessary during any period, but even more so during this period. We request that you do everything that is needed to cancel these events and prevent unnecessary danger to human life."

But David Wilder, assistant director of the Hebron Fund, said: "Hebron and the Machpela Cave have been a central tourism point since 1967, especially during the intermediate days of Pessah, and there is no reason why people should be prevented from coming to Hebron today."

The Machpela Cave, which is divided between a section for Jews and one for Moslems, will be open exclusively to Jews on Monday and Tuesday, the first time this has been the case since it was reopened November 7.

The IDF spokesman said the army has not yet decided whether to allow the planned events.

HERB KEINON, Peace Now wants Hebron events canceled. , Jerusalem Post, 04-13-1995.