Selichot prayers at the Tomb of Patriarchs in Hebron. Photo: Ma’arat HaMachpela management.

With all of the talk about the Temple Mount, it’s sometimes easy to forget that some Muslims believe that every Jewish holy site should be exclusively Islamic.

Think about that. These Muslims do not want to allow the Jews — whom they claim to respect — to have a single holy site of their own. They have attempted to steal every one — from major Jewish shrines, to relatively minor ones.

Monday’s Palestine Today had a story about how Jews “broke into” the Tomb of the Patriarchs. Here’s the autotranslated headline (the picture caption of “Tomb of the Patriarchs” is from Google, but it really translates to “Ibrahimi Mosque”):

The story says that, “according to Maariv, the settlers performed a Talmudic ritual inside the Ibrahimi Mosque and left the area this morning.”

The “Talmudic ritual,” of course, is praying. But that doesn’t sound quite as sinister, does it?

Muslims always prevented Jews from visiting this site when it was under Muslim rule. This was true even though Arab leaders know quite well that Isaac, Jacob and their wives are interred there. They also know that these figures have nothing to do with Islamic history, besides the Koran claiming them as “prophets.”

This wholesale theft of an entire history seems a bit more serious than Israelis claiming that the falafel as a “national” dish. But there are more articles about how Israel’s supposed “cultural appropriation” than this Muslim theft.