November 21, 2011

JERUSALEM (CNS) — Palestinians are hopeful that UNESCO will recognize
the city of Bethlehem as the first Palestinian World Heritage Site, but
Franciscans in charge of the city’s holy places say they do not want
them included in the classification.

“We don’t want the (UNESCO) recognition for the holy places,” said a
Franciscan source who asked not to be named. “We fear it could lead to
nationalization of the shrines. The shrines are not tourist places, but
are places of prayer and worship.”

The custos of the Holy Land, Franciscan Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa,
told the Italian bishops’ news agency, SIR, that the Greek Orthodox and
Armenian patriarchates had joined him in asking the Palestinian
Authority to exclude the Church of the Nativity in the application for
the UNESCO World Heritage Site classification.

He said the church could be included later “when the situation, including the political situation, will be quieter.”

“We don’t have any problem with proclaiming the city of Bethlehem as a
UNESCO heritage site. We are not too enthusiastic about the Nativity. It
is an initiative that makes it harder for us to run (the church),
because, under UNESCO rules, the board in charge of running a place for
the U.N. agency is the government, not the owner of a site,” Father
Pizzaballa was quoted as saying. He added that he feared “the holy
places might be used for political reasons.”

“Right now, we do not want to become, on one hand, the keepers of places
run by governments and, on the other hand, to be exploited for issues
in which the holy places must not be involved,” he said.

The Franciscans are the Catholic partner in maintaining the Status Quo, a
19th-century agreement that regulates jurisdiction of and access to key
Christian sites in the Holy Land for Catholic, Orthodox and other
Christian communities.

The Franciscan source said adding UNESCO to an already complex situation would only make it more complicated.

If the World Heritage Site status is accepted, “you have to run it by
their (UNESCO’s) rules,” something the Franciscan Custody — and
probably other churches — would object to, said the source.

However, Palestinian Minister of Tourism Khouloud Daibes Abu Dayyeh said
the nomination file asking for recognition of the city of Bethlehem as a
World Heritage Site was signed and submitted to UNESCO last year, and
it included the Church of the Nativity.

“We will be working in coordination with the churches when it comes to
the technical details of the implication of Bethlehem being included as a
World Heritage Site,” said Daibes Abu Dayyeh, who is Christian.

She said now that the Palestinians have membership in UNESCO, their
application can be considered at the June UNESCO meeting in St.
Petersburg, Russia. She said she is confident that the city will become
the first Palestinian site to be recognized as a World Heritage site.

“We’ve been waiting for this for a long time. We are very excited and
very proud. We are ready for this moment,” she said. “I think we have
prepared (an excellent) nomination file with the Church of the Nativity
and the city of Bethlehem. It fulfills the requirements … it is a
unique site.”

She noted that the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls had been accepted
as a World Heritage site in 2007 as proposed by the Jordanians — who
occupied East Jerusalem until the 1967 war but remain as the guardian of
Muslim holy sites in the city.

Daibes Abu Dayyeh said the recognition by UNESCO was valuable “in order
to raise awareness of the importance of cultural heritage as a shaper of
cultural identity.”

She said the Palestinians had been training architects, urban planners
and others for the past decade in preparation for the day when they
would join UNESCO. She also said the Palestinian Authority has worked
closely with UNESCO in terms of educational, cultural and scientific
projects, including in Gaza. With full membership, Palestinians would
have access to more programming and more funding, she said.

Daibes Abu Dayyeh said the Palestinians had 20 other sites they hoped to
be named World Heritage Sites, including Jericho as the oldest city in
the world; the city of Hebron, which is of religious significance for
Muslims, Jews and Christians; the Qumran Caves in the Judean Desert; and
a Religious Roots Holy Land Nativity Trail.

However, as with most things in the Holy Land, there are potential political complications.

Hebron is the largest West Bank city, with about 165,000 Palestinians,
but it is also home to more than 500 Jewish settlers, and a large
majority of the city is under direct Israeli control. The Qumran Caves
– where the famous Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered — are located in a
disputed area now under Israeli control.

Israeli archaeologist Yonathan Mizrahi said heritage is a very powerful tool in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“In the end, the heritage sites have thousands of years of heritage in
all different layers,” said Mizrahi, who works with an organization that
focuses on the role of archaeology in Israeli society and in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “The thing that is important to remember
is that these are ‘World Heritage’ sites and should be for the benefit
for everybody. It should be beyond politics. We are not speaking of
Jewish, Christian or Muslim sites. We are speaking of culture.”