Hebron: You murdered them and thereby inherit them?! Is this called a status quo?!”

 I [the Lubavitcher Rebbe] sent a representative to the Government of Israel to ask them:

“How is it possible that you are actually giving Hebron to the Arabs?”

Ancient Jewish Hebron

They replied to me: that “This is not the case, that there are 240 families that were permitted to live there”. 

I asked again: “But even to these 240 families were given a permit only to live outside of the borders of Hebron not in Hebron”. They answered me: “What do you mean? The location they were permitted to settle is only 10 minutes from the Cave of Machpela.”

I asked them: “What do you mean only 10 minutes? A distance of just one minute can be across of the borders of Eretz Israel! Even such a short journey is outside of Hebron!” I do not know how they can enact a law that forbids Jewish People from living in Hebron. How can a Jewish government ratify giving Hebron to the Arabs?! 

Moreover: The Mayor of Hebron (Sheikh Jabari) is an Arab who took part in the pogrom in 1929 against the Jews. We know clearly that either he or his brother or father took part in the pogrom against the Jewish People! There are photographs from that period which prove that he, the Mayor of Hebron was involved with the murders. And the Mayor, not only does he not hide this fact but even prides himself that it was he who evicted the Jews from Hebron. These very same Arabs! Not Arabs from Egypt, but these very Arabs who murdered Jews in 1929 – they are giving Hebron to them!? 

What do the government representatives answer me? “We have here a situation of “status quo”– Hebron has been in the hands of the Arabs already for 30 years.”

What kind of status quo do we have here?! This situation is one of “You murdered them and thereby inherit them?! Is this called a status quo?!” 

Public talk Shabat Parshat Noach, 1971