Temple Forget

If you want one simple word to symbolize all of Jewish history, that would be Jerusalem. (Teddy Kollek, August 11, 1988).

It is hard to believe that we, the Jews, have exhausted our love for Jerusalem. For almost two millennia we swore our allegiance to our greatest city. Three times a day, year after year, century after century we promised to return to our eternal capital. We uttered countless beautiful words about Jerusalem. Myriads of poems and songs were dedicated to her. How many times we have repeated: "If I forget thee O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning ?"

What has happened to us? When did we lose our soul? Our shame cannot be greater. We forgot thee, O Jerusalem! Our "tongues cleaved to the roofs of our mouths" and we are unable to speak in your defense. The enemy is ready to devour you and we are silent.

"I heard a cry, like a woman in labor, a scream like a woman bearing her first child. It was the cry of Jerusalem gasping for breath, stretching out her hand and saying 'I am doomed! They are coming to kill me!'" (Jeremiah 4:31)

They are coming from all over the world. Every one of them dares to say that they have rights to thee, O Jerusalem. And we allow them to pronounce the words that should be an abomination to our ears. On September 15 Martin Indyk, US Ambassador to Israel, said "the solution to the disputes between Israel and the Palestinians in Jerusalem is sharing sovereignty in the city." He said that the "holy city is sacred to Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and it cannot be under the exclusive sovereignty of one side."

It is forgivable for Martin Indyk, an American citizen, who calls Jerusalem a "holy city" not to know that in the 13th century the famous Arab geographer Yakut said that "Mecca is holy to Moslems and Jerusalem to the Jews" (1). However, it is inexcusable for Martin Indyk, the Australian born Jew, even to think that anyone else but the Jews can have sovereign rights to the city. If Indyk strives for "equality" he should first suggest that the cities of Mecca, Medina and Vatican be razed to the ground and then ask the Christians and the Moslems to wait approximately two thousand years. Only then, if they show the same devotion to the city that the Jews have demonstrated for Jerusalem, Indyk will have the right to say that "There is no other solution,? it cannot be the exclusive preserve of one religion."

As a Jew Indyk should know that Jerusalem is the "exclusive preserve" of only one religion - Judaism. While in the Jewish Bible Jerusalem is mentioned on 656 occasions, in the Koran Jerusalem is not mentioned at all. How one can even compare the sanctity of Jerusalem in Judaism with its place in Islam, knowing that Egyptian Sultan el Kamil, in 1229, handing over Jerusalem to Emperor Frederick II of Sicily and Germany said, "I have ceded nothing but churches and houses in ruins"(1).

One does not question the sanctity of Jerusalem for Christians and Moslems. The issue at stake is the place that the city occupies in their religions. Famous Christian historian Reverend James Parkes noted that "if we are to be factual we still must make a distinction" (2). While Jerusalem is the place where these three monotheistic religions meet, "each is there by its own right, but each is not there because Jerusalem is the heart and nerve center of its world-wide community. That applies only to Jewry and Judaism" (2). Since Jerusalem has "nothing significant to nations as such" (2) with the exception of the Jewish people, Parkes concluded,

"That Jerusalem should remain united and within the political sovereignty of Israel is right and proper; for, though both Christendom and Islam venerate it as a holy city, neither religion could claim that it has ever had the place in their thought that it has had for nearly three millennia of Jewry" (2).

And this Jewry today is silent. The silence of the Jews is deafening. One should notice that Martin Indyk called for sharing sovereignty over Jerusalem while at Hebrew Union College, in front of a Jewish audience. But if Barak, Beilin, Ben-Ami and other Israeli leaders do not feel ashamed to forsake Jerusalem, why should an American Jew be any different?

How easily the current Israeli leaders juggle the various proposals that pour in from all over the world, in an attempt to satisfy Arafat's demands. They try to be especially creative in dividing up the holiest place of the Jews - the Temple Mount. Acting Israeli Foreign Minister Ben-Ami's suggestion for Israel to keep "residual sovereignty" over the Temple Mount speaks volumes of our degradation as a people. His idea is to give sovereignty to a third party that will subsequently delegate "the ruling authorities and custodianship over the holy places" (3) to the Palestinian Arabs. As MEMRI indicated this "will absolve Israel from the chore of transferring authorities over part of Temple Mount directly to Arafat." (3).

Another "brilliant" idea is to divide sovereignty over the Temple Mount into "above-ground" and "over-ground." Israel will relinquish its sovereignty over the Temple Mount area but will keep its sovereignty over "the subterranean layers and the Western Wall" (3). It appears that the "galut" mentality has blossomed among the Israeli Jewish leaders. Like their brethren centuries ago, they try to be "invisible" to their neighbors. They hope that the Arabs will leave them alone if no symbol of Jewish sovereignty is displayed on the Temple Mount. They agree to allow the Palestinian flag to fly there and are ready to bury the Jewish flag under the ground.

Although, don't we have enough Jewish flags under the ground? Didn't we wrap up in them enough bodies of heroes who fell defending the Jewish quarter and the Temple Mount? How quickly have we forgotten those who gave their lives for Jerusalem. Maybe we should revive in our memory the events of 1948 when the Jewish heroes, completely cut off from the rest of Jewish Jerusalem, were defending the Jewish quarter of the Old City? Sir Martin Gilbert quoted Dr. Avraham Laufer, an Austrian Jew who headed the medical unit that provided medical services for the besieged Jews.

"I have to admit that men who would have been hospitalized under normal battle conditions were sent back to the front after being bandaged. We did this because we were short of men and because while they were receiving treatment their places were being taken in the posts by the children" (4).

These Jewish children were defending one of the parts of "East Jerusalem" that today the world media unashamedly names "predominantly, historically and traditionally Arab." They were defending the Jerusalem that their fathers, grandfathers and countless generations of great-grandfathers prayed about. Laufer wrote that he will never forget one case, when a handsome boy about twenty years old was brought in.

' "Too long," he said. "The situation at our post is desperate right now. Just put a few drops of something in to kill the pain and bandage it. I'll be back as soon as we have driven them off."

'An hour later they brought him back. His handsome face was blown away by a shell. There was no need to trouble any further about his eye. He was dead'" (4).

Perhaps, today, the shrapnel of the Oslo "peace process" has penetrated our eyes and we do not see the ongoing division of Jerusalem? But why, then, are our Jewish hearts silent, if they are still alive? Did we really forget thee, O Jerusalem?

1. Eliyahu Tal. Whose Jerusalem? Israel, 1994.
2. James Parks. Whose Land? PBooks. Great Britain, 1970.
3. Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), September 13, 2000
4. Martin Gilbert. Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1996.

09/17/00
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Boris Shusteff is an engineer. He is also a research associate with the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies.

MK Uzi Landau has called on PM Ehud Baraq to ask the United States to recall its ambassador in Israel, Martin Indyk, because he called for dividing Jerusalem.

Landau said that Indyk's remarks were made in a ceremony in Jerusalem where the ambassador was awarded a honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College and were published in The Guardian of London. Landau said that an ambassador who calls for dividing the capital of the country he is accredited to cannot go on serving in it.

In a rally in Umm al-Fahm held by the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel on Friday under the banner "Al-Aqsa Mosque is in Danger," deadly statements were issued against what was termed as the Israeli defense establishment's harassment of the movement in the wake of Police Northern District Commander Alik Ron's remarks on the exposure of an organization in Umm al-Fahm that planned to harm state security.

Speakers warned against harming Al-Aqsa Mosque. Shaykh Kamal Khatib, deputy head of the movement and the man considered its ideologist, said: "We will shed blood, not tears, should Al-Aqsa Mosque be harmed."

Israeli HADASH MK's Isam Makhul and Muhammad Barakah, who participated in the rally, sat in the section reserved for the dignitaries. This is seen as the beginning of a new political alliance between the two rival movements. Christian delegates, and representatives of the Islamic Movement from France and the United States, HAMAS, and the PA also attended the rally.

Ra'id Salah, Umm al-Fahm mayor and head of the movement's northern branch, declared: "We are telling the Jews completely outright: You have no right over even one of Al- Aqsa's stones."

Acting Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami said about Salah's comments that the Jews have not the least right over the Western Wall, Ben-Ami says: "He is a complete ignoramus with regard to matters pertaining to Judaism. I hope his knowledge of Islamic matters is bigger."

Hasan Asfur, minister of civil organizations affairs, said today that what is required of Israel is to subscribe to international legitimacy resolutions 242, 338, and 194, which concerns the refugee issue. We do not want to cause any confusions. Meetings were held with the US side there to discuss a way out of the political crisis. However, my personal assessment is that the Israelis are not serious. Israel is waiting for the United States to offer proposals predicated on the Israeli position in the hope of forcing them on the Palestinian side.

We will never accept any Israeli sovereignty over Al-Haram al-Sharif, neither over the building nor over the land on which the building rests. This idea must be erased from the Israeli political thinking. We have called for Palestinian sovereignty over Al-Harm al-Sharif. A proposal that has not thus far been finalized suggests that the Jerusalem Committee oversee Al- Haram al-Sharif, given that there are no Palestinian-Islamic contradictions over holy sites, particularly the Islamic holy sites. We have nothing new to offer in this regard.

Regarding the Al-Buraq Wall, which the Jews call the Wailing Wall, the Israelis were told that the Palestinians do not object to free worship by Jews at this site. But, the Israelis must realize that this is a Palestinian concession. They should not view this as a right. It is a Palestinian concession. This is because the British-Jewish agreement of 1929 gave Jews the right to worship there based on the premise that the Al-Buraq Wall is an Islamic waqf. Consequently, Israel should not view this development as an absolute Jewish right. This issue must be taken into account. When they think of drafting any proposal in this regard, the Americans must take the aforesaid considerations into account.