Seeing opportunity under Trump, some settlers hope to take over Tomb of the Patriarchs

Tens of thousands of Jewish worshipers arrived this past weekend at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank’s Hebron for an annual pilgrimage.

They filled the streets and alleys of the Kiryat Arba settlement and the Jewish enclave in Hebron, put up a city of tents and caravans, slept in schools and synagogues, and were hosted by residents.

“Ten teenagers slept on my balcony in sleeping bags, freezing in the cold,” Kiryat Arba Mayor Israel Bramson said.

The occasion marked the Shabbat in which the annual Torah portion recited at synagogues, “Chayei Sarah,” features the story of the biblical Abraham’s purchase of that site to bury his wife, the matriarch Sarah.

Some of the youths who attended the annual pilgrimage tried to attack the head of IDF Central Command, Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, at a nearby intersection, calling him a traitor and blocking his way.

Quite a few ministers came for the Chayei Sarah Shabbat in Hebron, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and National Missions and Settlements Minister Orit Strock, who are residents. Others in attendance included Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu, Health Minister Uriel Busso, Religious Services Minister Michael Malkieli, Minister in the Finance Ministry Ze’ev Elkin and Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel. Gamliel has attended the annual event for the past 15 years.

The talk of the town among the ministers was the possibility of changing the status quo at Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs.

And thus, under the radar and against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, the ceasefire in Lebanon and Donald Trump’s victory in the US elections, a new, volatile reality is being forged in one of the holiest and most sensitive sites in the Middle East.

The Tomb of the Patriarchs, known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque, has known numerous bloody clashes between Jews and Arabs throughout history, the most notorious of which was the massacre committed at the site in 1994 by Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein, in which 29 Muslim worshipers were murdered.

After that incident, a state commission of inquiry headed by former Supreme Court president Meir Shamgar set an arrangement to divide the site between Jews and Arabs.

The main prayer space, known as the Cenotaphs of Isaac and Rebecca, is open only to Muslims for all days of the year except 10 days of holidays when Jews use it, including the Chayei Sarah Shabbat. Jews are allowed to pray in other spaces all year during certain hours of the day — including the main yard and the Cenotaphs of Abraham, Sarah, Jacob and Leah — except on several Muslim holidays. The entire site is located in an area of Hebron where security control is fully Israeli.

“The ministers told us there will be many surprises in the near future,” Bramson, the local council chief, told The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site Zman Yisrael. “They promised significant developments. It’s clear to everyone that the situation at the Tomb of the Patriarchs is absurd. An Arab can pray at the Isaac Hall in the cave, under a roof. Why can’t I pray there? Why am I outside under the open sky and he is inside?

“The Shamgar Commission set arrangements after Goldstein[‘s massacre]. They wanted to get back at the Jews after all that happened,” Bramson contended. “It’s been 30 years. The world is changing.”

According to Jewish tradition, the Tomb of the Patriarchs is considered the property of the Jewish people, after the site was purchased by Abraham. However, the current formal reality is that the Palestinians are the official owners of the site, with the Islamic Waqf controlling it and the Hamas-linked Muslim city council of Hebron sharing authority for the managing of the site.

Now, the ancient traditions are reawakening in Hebron. As the next US administration shapes up to be distinctly pro-Israel, and potentially pro-settlement, the right-wing sees what may be a unique opportunity to take over all the site’s prayer spaces.

MK Avichai Boaron, of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, told The Times of Israel this week that Trump’s reelection as president should be used to nationalize the Tomb of the Patriarchs, which is also known as the Cave of the Patriarchs.

“The situation in the Cave is complex,” he said. “The property rights are held by the Islamic Waqf. Any change there is a big battle — we can’t even build a small elevator in a two-meter space.

“It is time to expropriate the land from the Muslims, and the entire site will be a national heritage site like the Western Wall,” Boaron said. “After the expropriation and the management changes, the place can be transformed into a modern prayer site that will withstand the problems and the overcrowding. This is new and good timing. The [incoming] American administration is supportive, and its senior officials see the Palestinian issue in a different way [from their predecessors].”

Boaron was echoing a stance voiced by Religious Zionism MK Zvi Sukkot, the head of a Knesset subcommittee on West Bank issues, who last week toured the Tomb of the Patriarchs with security officials and said he was committed to taking over the site and changing the reality there.

Sukkot is complaining that Jews can only pray in 35 percent of the site, and is seeking to open it for prayer during all hours of the day. He has made other dramatic suggestions in his committee regarding the logistic management of the site and the status of the Waqf.

The boost felt by right-wing politicians following the US election is extending to other places in the West Bank, and even to the Gaza Strip, where far-right ministers are advocating military rule and a resumption of settlements.

Boaron, Sukkot and others are aiming to realize a vision voiced recently by Smotrich. “The year 2025 will, with God’s help, be the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” the Religious Zionism party head said. A central part of this is the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

Boaron is counting on support from Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, who has indicated support for building a new Jewish temple on the flashpoint Temple Mount in Jerusalem, an even more volatile site that is the holiest site in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam.

“Even I haven’t gone that far,” Boaron said.

Trump’s picks for secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz, respectively, similarly back stances held by Israel’s right wing.

Mike Huckabee, an evangelical selected as the next US ambassador to Israel, supports the biblical promise that hands every part of the Holy Land to the Jewish nation. In an interview with Israel’s Army Radio last week, Huckabee said the incoming administration could support the annexation of the West Bank — which he refers to by its biblical name of Judea and Samaria — though such a decision would be out of his hands.

Incidentally, Huckabee visited Boaron’s home in the West Bank outpost of Amona before it was forcibly evacuated in February 2017, and helped him in his diplomatic struggle against the evacuation.

Despite the eagerness to institute radical changes that may reopen a front with the Palestinians, some in Kiryat Arba are doubting the feasibility of the politicians’ initiatives.

Dr. Noam Arnon, a spokesperson for the Jewish community in Hebron, has been studying the Tomb of the Patriarchs for 30 years. Arnon asserts that the situation is too complicated to initiate an immediate revolution, as demanded by some of his fellow settlers.

“The chance of changing something is small, but it’s worth trying,” he told The Times of Israel. “I don’t fear confrontation with the Palestinians. We live here under the threat of violence, but usually this doesn’t happen in the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

“We need to reach a situation where the Arabs only have control over themselves in the Tomb of the Patriarchs — not over the Jews, so we don’t have to go to them for any minor renovation. If we achieve that, we will have made gains.”

Translated and edited from the original Hebrew on Zman Yisrael.