The United Nations Educational Organization, UNESCO, declared the Masada National Park a World Heritage Site, in a ceremony held on the Masada, in the presence of UNESCO representative Tamesh Fairdi, Minister of Education Limor Livnet, Minister of Tourism Yitzhak Levy and Minister of the Environment Tzachi Hanegavi
By: Sagi Green, Haaretz (Wala!) *
Photo: Assaf Ch. of Wikipedia
The United Nations Educational Organization, UNESCO, announced this afternoon (Thursday) the Masada National Park as a World Heritage Site, in a ceremony held on the Masada, in the presence of UNESCO representative Tamesh Fairdi, Minister of Education Limor Livnet, Minister of Tourism Yitzhak Levy and Minister of the Environment Tzachi Hangabi.
In 1972, the United Nations adopted the World Heritage Convention, which aims to protect and preserve cultural and natural assets around the world.
159 countries have signed the convention. The registration is intended to ensure international recognition of the importance of the sites, their identification, and their protection and preservation. This has no economic meaning. A few months ago, the old city of Acre was also declared a world heritage site.
The reasons for recognizing Masada as a world heritage site are three, as announced by UNESCO: "being a symbol of the Hebrew monarchy of the end of the Second Temple"; King Herod's palace, which is "an exceptional example of a magnificent villa from the beginning of the Roman Empire"; and "the recent tragic events of the Jewish refugees who occupied the fort, which make it a symbol of both Jewish identity and culture and of an ongoing human struggle between oppression and freedom."
In the last seven years, between 1994 and 2001, the Ministry of Tourism, in cooperation with the Nature and Parks Authority, invested approximately NIS 170 million in renovating the site, improving the access roads for the disabled and establishing a visitor center. The mountain platform became an open museum, and the garden was trained to receive 4,00 visitors a day.
At the ceremony, Minister Levy said that "Masada is a symbol of bravery, recognition of our belonging to the Land of Israel and our right to freedom." Minister Livnat stood on the dilemma of choosing between freedom and death, and said that recognizing the importance of the site would strengthen her legacy, "the fact that Jews lived here and fought for their freedom." Hangabi said: "The message of freedom that came out of here has not stopped, it has been enacted in history and is coming back in our generation as well."
UNESCO representative Fairdi said that the Masada site was included in the list submitted by Israel to the UNESCO committee. "We also know the Israeli value and we have studied it, but our role is to cast the international value in it." Later in the evening, excerpts from the musical "Masada", which will be staged in New York soon, were shown at the foot of the mountain.
* The knowledge website was until the end of 2002 part of the Walla-IOL portal
