Silent showdow in Nablus
Palestine, Politics, 8/17/1998

A silent showdown is underway between the Palestinian government and Israel over a site in Nablus, which Jewish settlers insist is the tomb of Joseph.

For the fourth day running, Palestinian government police have barred entry to the site by Jewish settlers who said they wanted to enter for prayers. The Palestinian move followed what Palestinian government officials described as a flagrant breach of the signed agreements by Israel when it allowed scores of Jewish youths to stay overnight in the site. It was the commander of the central district in the Israeli army, Major General Moshe Yaalon, who served the settlers with permits to stay overnight following the shooting to death of two settlers last week near Nablus.

After the incident, settlers asked to stay in the site and hold prayers for a full week of mourning. According to the Oslo Agreements, the building where Joseph Tomb is falls within the religious Jewish sites that are within the Palestinian government areas and are as such subject to the sole Palestinian security control. Article 5 of the security appendix of the agreement states that security control over the site in Nablus and the synagogue in Jericho as well as over Jews arriving to them is exclusively of the Palestinian government.

Until recently, buses carrying settlers and others wishing to pray or study in the site would arrive in the morning and leave by the evening. But after the shooting to death of the two settlers from Yitzhar settlement near Nablus last week, Yaalon gave settlers from Yitzhar and Bracha, both considered hotbed for Jewish extremism, a permit to stay overnight.

Israeli military sources voiced discontent with Yaalon's move noting that the "group of Jews who arrive to Joseph Tomb are neither moderate nor reasonable and there are many officers who do not understand why would Yaalon opt for this move. "Labor Party Knesset member Ephraim Sneh, formerly a military commander of the West Bank, said the permit to allow those settlers to stay overnight in Nablus "alters a 15-year-old status quo and will increase chances for confrontation."

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