(Left to right: Yishai Fleisher, former Member of Knesset and Hebron resident Orit Strouk, MK Sharren Haskel, and MP Tim Smith at the Tomb of Machpela in Hebron.)

 

Australian Member of Parliament Tim Smith, State Member for Kew, and Member of Knesset Sharren Haskel joined Hebron international spokesperson Yishai Fleisher. They are the latest in a long line of elected officials who have enjoyed visiting Hebron, one of the oldest continuously populated cities in the world.

 

MP Smith, a Victorian Liberal, was visiting Israel with a delegation of Austraian MPs. According to The Australian, the delegation to the Australia Israel UK leadership dialogue held bilateral meetings with senior Israeli ministers to expand trade and economic links. 

 

Also attending the dialogue were former prime minister Tony Abbott, Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten and Opposition defence spokesman Richard Marles, who met in Jerusalem.

 

MK Haskel is a frequent visitor to Hebron often leading delegations from the Likud party.  

 

(Australian MP Tim Smith with Israel Defense Force soldiers at the Hebron Heritage museum in Beit Hadassah. The colorful walls were designed by famous artist and local resident Shmuel Mushnick.)

 

(MK Sharren Haskel and MP Tim Smith in the Hall of Isaac & Rebecca, the largest in the Tomb of Machpela, usually reserved exclusively for Muslim prayers.)

 

(Former MK Orit Strouk and current MK Sharren Haskel introduce visiting MP Tim Smith to the IDF soldiers securing the holy sites in Hebron for the 500,000 visitors that visit annually. Photo taken at the memorial marker for Sarah Imenu, the Biblical Matriarch. Note the vaulted ceilings left over from the Crusader era, and the Arabic writing added during the Mameluke era. The floor is the original from the time of the Second Temple.)

 

(MK Sharren Haskel and MP Tim Smith meet with Jewish youth in Hebron)

 

(MP Tim Smith looks down the small round entrance-way that leads into the underground burial caves. Some say you can feel a breeze blowing up from the caverns. Except for two brief excavations in 1967 and in 1981, no one has entered underground for hundreds of years. This site in the Tomb of Machpela is usually off limits to Jews)

 

(MP Tim Smith and MK Sharren Haskel stand in front of the massive Herodian edifice over the Caves of the Matriarchs & Patriarchs. It is considered the oldest still standing structure still in use for the purpose for which it was built. Note the same Herodian masonry is also found on the Western Wall in Jerusalem.)

 

To visit Hebron:
 
United States contact info:

http://www.hebronfund.org
1760 Ocean Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11230
718-677-6886
info@hebronfund.org

Israeli contact info:
http://en.hebron.org.il/
02-996-5333
office@hebron.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hebronofficial
 
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