For Aboriginal Australians, for indigenous peoples in Nicaragua, for Māori in New Zealand, descent is accepted as a legal basis. Only for Jews, it seems, does this principle not apply.

Abraham and Sarah, by Marc Chagall. Image: auctionet.com

There are moments when history is not made gradually, yet with a single stroke of the pen. That moment occurred yesterday in Hebron.

In Hebron lies Abraham. That is not a political claim. That is Scripture.

The Cave of Machpelah — the Tomb of the Patriarchs — is the site that Abraham himself purchased: for 400 pieces of silver, from a Hittite merchant, as recorded in Genesis 23. The first documented real estate transaction in history. There lie Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, and Leah — the ancestors of the Jews. Hebron has therefore borne the name Kiryat Arba — City of Four — since biblical times. Sunnis, who revere Abraham just as Christians do, built the Ibrahimi Mosque there in the 14th century, also known as the Sanctuary of Abraham.

Under the Hebron Agreement of 1997, the Palestinians controlled planning and construction throughout the city — including the Jewish patriarchal tomb and the adjacent Ibrahimi Mosque.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has now declared the three-decade-old agreement with the Palestinian Authority to be terminated. “I have revoked the Hebron Agreement,” he wrote on Facebook. What sounds sober is in Truth a tectonic rupture in the history of the Holy Land. Planning and building authority over the Jewish community in Hebron and its holy Sites returns fully to the responsibility of the State of Israel. He called it a “historic correction” — and a continuation of the “revolution to deepen Israeli sovereignty” in the West Bank.

It is historic. Yet whose history is being corrected here — and whose continues to be ignored by an indifferent global politics?

Who Truly Owns Abraham’s Tomb

Genetic studies show that modern Jews are connected not only by culture and religion, yet by a shared biological heritage — tracing back to a population that lived in the Levant around 3,000 years ago. The connection between the people of Israel and Abraham is not merely legend. It is genetically, historically, and textually attested: Isaac, Jacob, the twelve tribes — an unbroken line.

Yet international politics treats this kinship as if it were a footnote. As if Abraham were related to no one. As if the tomb were a neutral heritage of humanity — a UNESCO dossier subject to voting.

Who Makes a Claim — and Which One

Islam knows Abraham as Ibrahim, the Friend of God. The Arabs of the peninsula trace their descent to Ishmael, Abraham’s firstborn son through Hagar — this is anchored in Scripture, both in the Torah and in the Holy Quran. That is honorable and should be acknowledged.

Yet here lies the decisive point that global politics systematically ignores: Palestinians are not genetically descendants of Ishmael. They are a Levantine population — descendants of Canaanite, Byzantine, and later Arabized peoples. Genetically, they are very similar to Jews — both derive from the original Canaanite population. This is well established scientifically. Anyone who equates “Arab” with “descendant of Ishmael” would, consistently, also have to recognize Tunisians or Moroccans — genetically Berber, culturally Arabized — as heirs of Abraham. That is not lineage. That is language politics.

And Christianity? For Christians, Abraham is a “father in faith” — a spiritual metaphor. No blood, no lineage, no Scripture that transfers ownership of the Cave of Machpelah to Christians. The doctrine of the trinity is, from both Jewish and Islamic perspectives, a departure from the Monotheism Abraham lived. To claim Abraham for all without bearing the consequences is lip service — not a right of inheritance.

What Inheritance Law Has Always Required

There is a principle older than any UN resolution, any document of international law, any Peace plan from Washington or Brussels. It is as old as the family itself: blood comes first.

In the inheritance laws of all cultures — whether Roman civil law, Islamic inheritance law, in China, or in the Torah — a universal hierarchy applies: closer relatives displace more distant ones. Adoptive relations have less claim than biological ones. Spiritual affiliation creates reverence, yet not ownership rights. This is not an ideological construct. It is human reason, codified over millennia.

This principle applies worldwide — when it suits global politics. Māori law in New Zealand is primarily based on genealogical connection to land across successive generations, and this connection is recognized as legal title. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has recognized the property rights of indigenous communities to their ancestral lands. For Aboriginal Australians, for indigenous peoples in Nicaragua, for Māori in New Zealand, descent is accepted as a legal basis.

Only for Jews, it seems, does this principle not apply.

The Cynicism of International Reactions

UNESCO declared the Tomb of the Patriarchs a Palestinian World Heritage Site — and at the same time placed it on the list of endangered sites. Thus, a place that Abraham purchased with his own money and in which his bones lie was summarily declared the cultural heritage of a people with no genealogical claim to his line.

The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described the move as “an interference in the political and legal status of Hebron” and a violation of international law. The Palestinian Authority called on the United States to intervene. Yet which law is older — the international law of 1945 or the purchase contract of Genesis 23?

Even within Israel, the decision was not without opposition. The organization Peace Now warned of a “dangerous step” and called Smotrich an arsonist. Even Israel’s Foreign Ministry distanced itself. Smotrich is struggling in the polls, elections are in the fall — and as a settler in the West Bank himself, his identity is inseparably tied to this land. All of that is true.

And yet: on this one question — the tomb — history has long since rendered its judgment. An inheritance principle that applies to Māori in New Zealand, to indigenous peoples in Nicaragua, to Aboriginal Australians — must also apply to the people who carry their patriarch not only in faith, yet in blood.

The cynicism is not that Israel asserts a claim. The cynicism is that a world that invokes Abraham pretends not to know him.

Allah has the final word, and He confirms the Torah, in the Holy Quran.

>>-> Historical: Judea and Samaria return to Israel

By Okay Altinisik | 17-6-2026, 17:05:20