Culture and Sport Minister Miki Zohar and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu called for unity among the people of Israel during a visit to Joseph's Tomb in Nablus on Wednesday night.
Zohar and Eliyahu were joined by Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, MK Zvi Sukkot and the chairman of Hadassah International Moshe Levi.
"We stand at Yosef's grave and draw strength from the eternal roots of the Jewish people," said Dagan during the visit. "Yosef chose unity with his brothers despite everything, and we should learn from Yosef the righteous. There are ideological differences, but let's not raise a hand against his brother."
"There is a minority in the country that tries to divide the people due to an ideological debate, we learn from Yosef the divisive and unifying one that with all hardships he stayed connected to his brothers," added Dagan.
"There is a minority in the country that tries to divide the people due to an ideological debate, we learn from Yosef the divisive and unifying one that with all hardships he stayed connected to his brothers."
Yossi Dagan
Call for free access to Joseph's tomb
Dagan additionally called for the government to ensure freedom of access for Jews to Joseph's Tomb.
Zohar stated that he came to Joseph's Tomb "because we are all witnesses to what is currently happening in the nation of Israel with a great rift, and the righteous Joseph was the one who bridged the rift, among all the tribes of the people of Israel he chose to forgive everything his brothers did to him and saw peace in the people of Israel as the most important and first thing."
"The unity of the people of Israel in the end is our strength as a nation to be strong and to defeat the many enemies that the people of Israel have, unfortunately," added Zohar. "On this occasion I call on all the people of Israel to unify for mutual benefit and mutual guarantee because we have no other country, we have no other country, we have no substitute, therefore the unity among ourselves is the source of our strength."
The culture minister reiterated the call for freedom of access for Jews to Joseph's Tomb, saying "It is sad to see that in order to get here we needed so many military forces to guard us even though this place is the property of the people of Israel, this thing is absurd and we will have to fix it."
Eliyahu recited the "Mi Shebeirach" prayer for IDF soldiers and stated "Joseph's Tomb is one of the most important places for the heritage of the people of Israel, to come here is to benefit and connect to the deepest roots of our nation. We pray that we will be privileged to reach the day when the Israeli flag will return to be flown here in this place with full security for the lives of worshipers."
During the visit, armed clashes broke out between Israeli forces and Palestinians in the area, with three Palestinians injured amid the clashes.