One Jerusalem Jerusalem OneJ www.onejerusalem.orgwww
Its fate affects not only Israelis, but also diaspora Jews
like myself. The fact that I do not live in Jerusalem
is secondary; Jerusalem lives
within me. Forever inherent in my Jewishness, it is at the center of my
commitments and my dreams. Jerusalem ,
for me, is above politics. Mentioned more than 600 times in the Bible, Jerusalem ,
anchored in Jewish tradition, is the national landmark of that tradition. It
represents our collective soul. It is Jerusalem
that binds one Jew to another. There is not a prayer more beautiful or
nostalgic than the one which evokes the splendor of its past and the shattering
and enduring memory of its destruction. The Jewish soul carries within it the
wound and the love of a city whose keys are protected by its memory. Each time
I revisit the city, it is always for the first time. What I feel and experience
there I feel nowhere else. I return to the house of my ancestors; King David
and Jeremiah await me there....To compromise on territory might seem, under
certain conditions, imperative or at least politically expedient. But to
compromise on history is impossible. – Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate New York
Times, January 24, 2001
This study-guide is dedicated to the generous support One
Jerusalem has received from Ronald S. Lauder and Natan Sharansky. These two
friends have been with us from the beginning and we continue to grow in
influence because of their dedication to the cause of a united Jerusalem .
Along the way, many people have been part of our movement; I
want to mention a group of stalwarts:
Jeff Helmreich for writing and revising Jerusalem :
Israel ’s
Eternal Capital, and Aron Raskas for improving a splendid text. Chaya Herskovic
for overseeing and managing this project, and Avigail Horowitz for its creative
and captivating design. Yechiel Leiter who organized the historic
400,000-person rally in Jerusalem .
Dore Gold, Steven Schneier, David Goder, and Barbara Comeau, for all that they
do every single day.
Ira and Ingeborg Rennert, whose generosity at critical times
allowed One Jerusalem to take on one more essential project.
Jeanine Kemm for helping us through the often-difficult
early times. Vera Golovensky, Ron Dermer, and Roman Polonsky for being part of
the team, heart and soul. Aaron Gutfreund, Michael Weinstein, and the team at Practical Computing for rebuilding and upgrading our website and believing in
the cause.
Allen Roth, President - One Jerusalem
Executive Summary
Introduction
The Jewish Presence in the City
International Recognition
The Arab Invasions
The Rebirth of Jerusalem
The Legal Status of Jerusalem
Religious Freedom
Disclaiming Jewish History
Israeli Sovereignty Over a United Jerusalem
Benefits the City
A History of Arab Hostility
Frequently Asked Questions
Suggested Reading
Notes
The Jews are the
only community that has continuously sought to maintain a presence in Jerusalem
ever since King David made it their capital 3,000 years ago. At every point in
the city’s history, Jews either lived in Jerusalem
or died trying to. Even during the perilous times of Roman expulsion, Jews
continued to attempt to return to Jerusalem .
• By the beginning of
the twentieth century, Jews numbered 45,000 of Jerusalem ’s
65,000 residents.
• International law,
from the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations ,
has recognized the “historic rights” of the Jewish people to Jerusalem .
• Ancient documents
and artifacts confirm Jerusalem as
the ancient Israelite capital where the Holy
Temple Jerusalem refer to
it as the site of the Temple of Solomon
• Jerusalem
has never been a capital for anyone other than the Jewish people.
• Since June 1967,
for the first time in 2,000 years, people of every religion are legally allowed
to worship freely at all of Jerusalem 's
holy sites. Jews can now pray at the Western Wall and erect
Executive Summary
synagogues without periodic violence, vandalism, and arson;
Christians, Armenians, and Muslims enjoy more freedom than ever before.
• The deep Israeli
and Jewish attachment to Jerusalem
was emphasized by the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin who said in 1995: “If
they told us that the price of peace is giving up on a united Jerusalem
under Israeli sovereignty, my reply would be ‘let’s do without peace.’”
•
Executive Summary
• A divided Jerusalem
has always been a violent Jerusalem .
As the Palestinian Authority gained footholds in Jerusalem
and surrounding neighborhoods, these soon became bases for Palestinian gunmen
to snipe at Israeli civilians and for terror cells to grow and launch
operations against nearby Israelis.
• The most recent
Palestinian campaign of violence, aimed at weakening the Jewish commitment to
Jerusalem, has had the opposite effect, stimulating a large groundswell of
grass-roots support, mobilized to make sure Jerusalem is never divided.
If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let
my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I do not set Jerusalem
Some 25 centuries ago, the Jewish community made this
extraordinary promise: never to forget Jerusalem .
Even as Babylonian tyrants forcibly removed them from their sacred capital,
massacring many and exiling more, decreeing that never again would they return,
the Jewish people collectively vowed that they would keep Jerusalem
with them.
Lest the Jewish community forget, they pledged to lock the
city in their memories, invoke it in their prayers, rediscover it in their
studies, and hold it in their hopes. They would chant “Next Year in Jerusalem ”
and they would pray for the city’s peace (Psalm 122). And one day, no matter
the obstacles or the odds, they would return.
More extraordinary than the promise was the fact that the
Jewish people kept it. Theirs was perhaps the only example in history of a
people vividly recalling a place upon which many had never laid eyes, a place
that thousands of Jews perished simply trying to glimpse. Jerusalem
sustained Diaspora Jewry, its mere memory keeping Jews from despair in the face
of torture and oppression, and from assimilation in the wake of dispersement.
Simply stated, the Jewish people’s relationship to Jerusalem
is one that transcends time, space, and other physical constraints. The
attachment remains constant in the psyche, spirit, and practices of the Jewish
people wherever they may be. The twelfth century Jewish scholar and poet, Rabbi
Yehudah HaLevi, perhaps most poignantly expressed this concept in his lament
that “my heart is in the East, even as I remain mired in the West.”
No other community shared this attachment to the city. It is
perhaps for this reason that even prominent non-Jewish observers of the Zionist
return could scarcely deny Jerusalem ’s
central place in Jewish identity. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
said: “Let the Jews have Jerusalem ,
it was they who made it famous.” Or, as Sari Nusseibeh, the Palestinian
Authority’s former Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, stated: “I would be blind to disclaim
the Jewish connection to Jerusalem .”1
Introduction
Perhaps less known, even to many identifying Jews today, is
that some Jews fulfilled this promise more immediately, returning to Jerusalem
under the pain of death or imprisonment in order to restore and continue the
Jewish presence there. In fact, Jews are the only community that has
continuously returned to Jerusalem
ever since King David established it as their capital three millennia ago. In
every period in history, over the past three millennia, Jews either dwelled in Jerusalem
or died trying to.
The Jewish Presence in the City
Three thousand years ago, the Jewish people established Jerusalem
as the geographical center of the Jewish nation and the spiritual locus of its
heritage. Resting on a mountaintop at the heart of the ancient Kingdom
of Israel Judea
and the northern tribes, the site of this mystical city had long been
preordained. As it was surrounded by the people of Israel ,
so it was ensconced in their liturgy and faith. This was the site where Abraham
had come to sacrifice his son Isaac; the “House of G-d” discovered by Jacob;
and the “Good Mountain
That changed when King David, early in his reign,
established Jerusalem as the
capital of Israel .
He brought the Ark of the Covenant to reside in its walls. His son, King
Solomon, soon erected the Holy Temple Jerusalem as the permanent
resting place of the Ark and the
embodiment of holiness on earth.
From that point on, Jerusalem
remained the eternal capital and heritage of the people of Israel .
Even when Jews were forcibly removed into exile from the ancient Land
of Israel Jerusalem .
Three times each day observant Jews turn toward the Temple
Mount Temples
centuries ago. (It is said that Napoleon Bonaparte arrived in Jerusalem
on the 9th of Av to find the local Jews in mourning. He left the region with a
newfound respect for the Jewish nation, impressed that such a genuine
outpouring of grief was for the Temples
destroyed thousands of years earlier.) Throughout the year, religious Jews
saying grace after a meal or a snack recite a prayer for the restoration of Jerusalem .
Even in the midst of a wedding ceremony, Jewish tradition prescribes that the
groom break a glass – during this moment of great personal joy – to serve as a
reminder of the destruction of Jerusalem .
Thus, never does Jewish life stray far from the memory of the holy city.
Following each exile, the Jewish people moved to reestablish
their presence in Jerusalem
whenever and wherever physically possible. Twice Jewish leaders returned from
exile and reestablished Jerusalem
as their capital, once under Roman rule and later under the Byzantines. Each
time they were ultimately expelled by governors determined to erase the Jewish
connection to the city and thereby quell any potential incursion. The Roman
Emperor Hadrian forbade Jews to live in Jerusalem ,
renaming the city Aelia Capitolina. He even went so far as to rename the entire
Holy Land “Syria-Palestina,” later shortened to “Palestine,” in a declared
attempt to eradicate the Jewish identity of the land.
But the attempt failed. Long after the Roman
Empire ’s demise, through the Dark Ages and medieval times, the
Jewish people remained true to their land, as Jerusalem
remained the center of their faith. Through the centuries of exile, Jews risked
their lives to return to their capital.
By contrast, no other faith or ethnic group has ever claimed
the city as its capital. Islam, which for a time maintained a dominant presence
in the city, placed higher priority on Mecca
and Medina . Christianity favored Caesarea ,
whenever its faithful dominated the Holy Land .
During the Byzantine era, Christian rulers sought to
maintain and enforce the Roman edict forbidding Jews from living in the city.
Jews were allowed to enter but once a year, on the 9th of Av, to commemorate
the destruction of their Holy Temples. In the few instances in which they tried
to remain longer, scores of Jews were murdered by Byzantine soldiers and
neighbors.
In 614 CE, Jews played a substantial part in the Persian
invasion of Jerusalem “as a nation
with its own stake in the victory, since they regarded the war as a struggle
for national liberation.”2 When the Persians defeated the Byzantines, Jews
reestablished a community in Jerusalem ,
erecting synagogues and restoring ancient neighborhoods. Their return was
short-lived, however. The new Jewish community was massacred by the resurgent
Byzantine Emperor Heraclitus in 622 CE.
Nevertheless, Jews remained determined to return. In the
wake of the Muslim conquest in 638 by the Caliph Umar al-Khattab, who was one
of the first four Orthodox caliphs, Jews were once again allowed back into the
city. They established two “Jewish Quarters,” one directly north of the Temple
Mount Temple Mount
Jews were largely tolerated and even protected during the
subsequent Umayyad period, though they were kept in separate quarters and
repeatedly taxed. Umayyad rulers were far more concerned with undermining the
dominance of their rivals in the holiest Muslim
cities of Mecca
and Medina . As a result, they
launched a campaign to establish Jerusalem
as a center for Islam: In 691, Caliph Abd al-Malik of the Umayyad dynasty
constructed the Dome of the Rock on the site of the Jewish Temple, a shrine
designed to compete with the grand structures of Arabia .
In 715, the Umayyads constructed a mosque near the shrine, known as the Al Aqsa
Mosque.
The Jewish communities were allowed to live in peace during
the period, and were even granted some control of areas near the Temple
Mount Baghdad .
The new rulers were somewhat less sympathetic to the Jews, and the community
endured some intermittent persecution during that time. Still, the Jewish
community remained intact and Jews continued to settle in Jerusalem ,
particularly with the simultaneous decline of the Babylonian center of the
Jewish diaspora.
In 863, the rabbinic seminary known as Yeshivat Eretz Israel
moved from Tiberias to Jerusalem
and became the central Judaic decisor for the entire Middle East
region. Indeed, as the Gaonic period of diaspora Jewry began to unfold, Jerusalem
remained home to a Gaon – the religious leader – right up until the rabbinic
reign of Evyatar Ben Eliahu Hacohen in 1112. The Jews continued to reside in
the two “Jewish quarters,” despite the periodic persecution of the Crusades.3
Jewish religious life in Jerusalem
was rejuvenated in 1267 when the noted Spanish Jewish scholar and biblical
commentator Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (1194-1270), or Nachmanides, immigrated to Israel .
He settled in Jerusalem and founded
a synagogue on Mount Zion
A major wave of Jewish resettlement in Jerusalem
came in the wake of the Spanish Inquisition. Fleeing the massacres, torture,
and forced conversions of Europe , Jews flowed into Jerusalem
and established new synagogues and institutions of leadership. The community
remained intact through the 1500s, as described by the legendary Jewish
chronicler Joseph HaCohen. It continued to grow through the 1600s, when a new
community was established by the rabbi and leader known as Yehuda HaChasid. In
the 1700s, waves of Sephardic Jews settled in the city under the leadership of
Rabbi Gedaliah of Siematycze.
By 1855, the Jewish quarter had become so overcrowded that
it could no longer sustain the thriving Jewish population. Sir Moses Montefiore
bought a plot of land across from Mount
Zion
Yet all of this Jewish activity in Jerusalem
paled in comparison to the influx of the late 1800s, as a new grassroots
movement mobilized and brought to life the long-held dream of a massive return
to Zion , the symbolic name of
Jerusalem (and which also signified the entire Land of Israel). When thousands
of Jews immigrated in what became known as the Hibbat Zion (Lovers of Zion)
movement in the 1880s, the Jewish community once again became the single
largest community in the city of Jerusalem .
In 1864, the Jewish majority in the city numbered 8,000
(together with 4,500 Muslims and 2,500 Christians), according to British
records. Fifty years later, Jews numbered 45,000 out of a total population of
65,000. Finally permitted to live in relative peace, the Jewish people had once
again become the dominant population in their ancient capital.
The Jewish majority persisted in Jerusalem
right up until Israel ’s
War of Independence in 1948, when surrounding Arab armies invaded the Holy
Land and, as the Babylonians, Romans, and Byzantines before them,
forced Jews from their homes and a community from its city.
14
International Recognition
The League of Nations subsequently
affirmed the commitment set forth in the Balfour Declaration when it issued its
Mandate for Palestine . The League,
the source of international legitimacy eventually succeeded by the United
Nations, recognized “the historic connection of the Jewish people with Palestine ”
and called for “the establishment in Palestine
of a national home for the Jewish people.” It is noteworthy that the League did
not exclude Jerusalem or any other
area of Mandatory Palestine from its recognition of Jewish rights to the land.
Indeed, of all the areas in the Mandate territory, Jerusalem
boasted the largest and most dominant Jewish presence at the time of the
declaration. The United Nations inherited this legal designation from the
League of Nations.7 Then, on November
29, 1947 , the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (“The Partition
Plan”), which called for a Jewish state, encompassing primarily the Jewish
population along the coast, to exist alongside an Arab state in Palestine .
The Partition Plan declared Jerusalem
a temporary “corpus separatum,” a separate entity, whose ultimate status would
be voted upon by its residents. At that time, the Jews were the majority in the
city. The Partition Plan, then, would have led to Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem
by majority vote.
The Arab Invasions
The surrounding Arab countries were determined to strangle
the nascent Jewish state in its cradle and prevent the Jewish majority of Jerusalem
from reaffirming its claim to the city. The Arab states rejected Resolution 181
in word and deed, sending armies to overturn its provisions by expelling the
Jewish population from Jerusalem
and Palestine and driving them
“into the sea.” The UN Protective Force, stationed in Jerusalem
as part of Resolution 181, stood idle and allowed the Arab invaders to charge
into the city. While the Arab armies failed to destroy the Jewish state, they
besieged and attacked the Jews of Jerusalem in the spring of 1948.
Abdullah el-Tel, commander of Transjordan ’s
Arab Legion in Jerusalem , reported
in May 1948 that the “Jewish Quarter has been destroyed,” making “the return of
the Jews to this place impossible.” Indeed, el-Tel considered this “defeat of
the Jews to be the most serious blow to have befallen them, particularly in
terms of their morale, since they were cut off from the Western Wall and the
Jewish Quarter for the first time in 15 generations.
Immediately upon their occupation of the Jewish Quarter, the
Arabs indiscriminately blew up synagogues, rabbinical schools, and other
buildings. Remaining synagogues and other holy sites were used as stables and
garbage dumps. John Phillips, a Life Magazine photographer-reporter
accompanying the Arab Legion, documented the destruction of the Jewish Quarter
in the June 7 and 28, 1948, issues of the magazine. Phillips observed that on May 28, 1948 , “Palestinian hangers-on
burst in and reduced [the Jewish Quarter] to smoking ruin after the beaten Jews
gave in.” He noted that “[h]ad any Jew decided to remain in the Old
City
Throughout the nineteen years of Jordanian occupation, the
Jewish Quarter of the Old City
Jews were barred from the entire Old
City Temple Mount
They were left only to gaze, across the morose no-man’s
land, past Jordanian snipers, at their beloved city. They could do no more than
pray: "Next year in Jerusalem ."
The Rebirth of Jerusalem
The unification of Jerusalem
was quickly followed by the restoration of the Old
City Jerusalem
for ages. Newly built and painstakingly restored synagogues, rabbinical
schools, community centers, private homes, and public squares now grace the area,
overflowing with visitors and tourists.
The remainder of the “new city ”
of Jerusalem has now also been
transformed into a spectacular, thriving urban center. The panorama of the city
is marked with tall hotels and office buildings, its streets replete with
shops, cafes, synagogues, and schools, all of which merge into a golden
building-scape that shimmers against the backdrop of the Judean hills. Tourists
of all faiths continue to flock to Jerusalem
– drawn by its history, character, and beauty.
The Legal Status of Jerusalem
The war launched by the Arab states in 1948 ended with the
armistice agreement of 1949. The newly established armistice lines were to
become a point of reference for many who envisioned the putative boundaries of
the Jewish state, as the blueprint of the Partition Plan receded into history.
The 1949 map, at odds with Resolution 181, served as the new basis for the UN’s
official induction of Israel
as a member-state.
In 1967, Arab armies again massed on Israel ’s
border with the declared aim of destroying the entire Jewish state, and Israel
fought a defensive war to repel the imminent Arab invasion. In Jerusalem ,
the conflict mirrored the larger war: the Jordanians ignored Israeli warnings
to refrain from initiating hostilities, and fired the first shots at Israeli
targets. Israeli forces fought back, eventually seizing the Old
City Temple
Mount Israel
captured the Old City Jerusalem
(and the West Bank and Gaza
as well) in self-defense, its rights are recognizable under international law
and its presence remains legal.
In November 1967, the United Nations Security Council passed
Resolution 242, calling for territorial compromise involving some, unspecified
amount of land seized by Israel in 1967 in exchange for “secure and recognized
boundaries” and a “just and lasting peace.” Significantly, Resolution 242 does
not require that Israel
withdraw from Jerusalem or any
other specific territory; the text merely calls for some of the territory held
by Israel to be
compromised in return for the establishment of secure and recognized
boundaries. Israel
has already withdrawn from a majority of the territory that it occupied in
1967, having ceded the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt
under the Camp David accords and having turned over
significant areas of the West Bank and Gaza
to Palestinian Authority control. Regretfully, Israel
has yet to enjoy “secure and recognized boundaries” or to see a “just and
lasting peace.” Israel ’s
presence in Jerusalem , however,
remains lawful under United Nations Security Council Resolution 242.8
It is important to note that the earliest legal instruments
of the twentieth century relating to Jerusalem
– the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate – did not purport
to grant Jews a new right to reconnect with their homeland. They recognized the
“historic” right of the Jewish people to that land. Those rights, in other
words, were understood as historically enshrined, predating any legal review of
them. Indeed, the most fundamental rights ever cited in international law –
such as the right of a country to its sovereign territory or the right to
defend against invasion – are recognized as natural and pre-existing. The UN
Charter can merely recognize and affirm them; it cannot grant these rights.
Similarly, no nation’s right to its capital is subject to affirmation or
approval by the United Nations or its parent organizations. They are rights
that belong exclusively to the subject nation, and are not conditional on the
approval or ratification of any other nations.
The Jewish people decided millennia ago to establish Jerusalem
as their capital. They continue to effect that choice to this day. No nation or
legal authority may deny that choice.
For most of the past 2,000 years, freedom of worship in Jerusalem
has been severely limited. Access to holy sites was parceled out
hierarchically, subject to the benevolence or whim of the authorities then in
power. Roman rulers and their Byzantine successors forbade Jewish residence in
the city. Ottoman rulers and later local Muslim governing authorities forbade
Jews from bringing Torah scrolls and other prayer artifacts to the Western
Wall. When Jews tried to bring a Torah to the Wall in 1929, neighboring Arabs
rioted and murdered dozens of Jews.
Under Jordanian rule (19481967), Jews were marched out of
the Old City
By contrast, when Israel
established sovereignty over Jerusalem
in June 1967, all of the city’s holy sites became freely and equally accessible
to worshippers of all faiths for the first time in centuries. Indeed, within
days following Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War, the Israeli Knesset enacted
the Protection of Holy Places Law of 1967, which to this day provides that:
“The Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation
and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the
different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard
to those places.”
Under the protection of Israeli law, the Christian presence
in Jerusalem has undergone a
rebirth: a new Armenian sanctuary was erected in Jerusalem
and has become an architectural and theological landmark. A Mormon temple was
built on the slopes of Mount Scopus Temple
Mount Old
City Temple ,
Judaism’s holiest place on Earth, and establish synagogues in the Old
City
Disclaiming Jewish History
Over recent decades, Palestinian opponents of Israel
have sought in many ways to undermine and deny the Jewish connection to Jerusalem .
When the ClintonArafat-Barak negotiations at Camp David
approached a climax – with the very real possibility that a negotiated
settlement would be reached, including plans for Palestinian administration
over parts of Jerusalem – Yasser
Arafat suddenly lashed out at Jewish claims. He stated at one press conference:
“The Temple didn’t exist in Jerusalem ,
it existed in Nablus .”9 On another
occasion, both he and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), denied that the
Western Wall was a Jewish holy site, referring to it instead as the site of
el-Buraq (the place where, according to Islamic folklore – not the Koran –
Mohammed was believed to have hitched his steed). On another occasion, Arafat
announced: “The ruins of the Temple
don’t exist! Our studies show that they are actually Greek and Roman ruins.”10
President Clinton’s liaison to the Middle East
peace process, Ambassador Dennis Ross, recounted how Clinton
lost his patience with Arafat when the Palestinian leader – presented with an
offer of everything the Palestinians demanded at Oslo ,
including a divided Jerusalem and a
Palestinian state – responded by challenging Israel ’s
claim to the Western Wall. It was at that point, Ross later said, that the Clinton
team knew the peace process was over.
Tragically, the official web site of the Palestinian
Authority’s Ministry of Information continues this line, asserting that “all
historic studies and archeological excavations have failed to find any proof”
for the “claim” that the Western Wall is part of the Jewish Temple.
These claims are most astonishing, given the obvious
scientific, archeological, and historical evidence that they ignore. The Jewish
presence in Jerusalem , and that of
the ancient Temple , is attested to
not only by the continued memory of the Jewish people, but by independently
assessed archeological evidence as well. The MMT scroll (Miqsas Ma’aseh Torah)
found in the Dead Sea caves of Qumran and dating back to
the period of antiquity refers in breathtaking detail to the structure and
rituals surrounding the ancient Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.11 Engravings found
as far away as Gamla in the Golan Heights, dating back to early antiquity,
affirm the Jewish presence in Jerusalem and the site of the Temple. The
celebrated Aramaic stele discovered at Tel Dan refers repeatedly to the “House
of David.” All of this, of course, merely adds to testimony established by the
very structures visible in the city today.
Archeological remains of the eighth century BCE Judean
monarchy provide tangible evidence of that Jewish community, which thrived in Jerusalem
at the time of King David and the First
Temple Tower
of David
The Western Wall – perhaps the most recognizable Jewish site
in Jerusalem – is an authentic
remnant of the Second Temple 2,000-yearold
Temple Second
Temple
More surprising is that earlier Muslim authorities
acknowledged the Jewish link to Jerusalem ,
including the Holy Temple Temple , stating:
“This site is one of the oldest in the world. Its sanctity dates from the
earliest time. Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple
is beyond dispute.”
Indeed, Jerusalem ’s
original Muslim name was Medinat Bayt al-Maqdis, which means “the city of the
holy house,” a direct translation of the Hebrew phrase for the site of the Holy
Temple Jerusalem
(though the Koran itself conspicuously never mentions Jerusalem ).12
The word maqdis resembles mikdash, the Hebrew term for “holy site.” The Arabic
name gradually became abbreviated to al-Quds, a derivation of the Hebrew
kaddosh, still rooted in the original reference to the holy house, or the Temple .
It was only in recent decades, when Jerusalem ’s
legal status became politically and diplomatically contested, that the Jewish
roots of the city and the site of the ancient Temple
were openly challenged by prominent members of the Palestinian Arab community.
26
Israeli Sovereignty Over a United Jerusalem
The Israeli attachment to a united Jerusalem
goes beyond the 3,000year bond between the city and the Jewish nation, beyond
legal rights and a Jewish majority and those who were forcibly expelled in
1948. Jerusalem , as a place and a
symbol, has been the hope that sustained the Jewish people throughout centuries
of persecution.
There has never been a time in the history of the Jewish
Diaspora when Jews did not risk their lives to return to Jerusalem
or at least longingly pray: “Next Year in Jerusalem .”
The late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin reflected the deep
Jewish attachment to Jerusalem when
he said in 1995: “If they told us that the price of peace is giving up on a
united Jerusalem under Israeli
sovereignty, my reply would be, ‘let’s do without peace.’”
On another occasion, Rabin explained the meaning of Jerusalem
for him and for Israel :
“My Jerusalem is the focus of the
Jewish people’s yearnings, the city of its visions, the cradle of its prayers.
It is the dream of the return to Zion .
It is the name millions murmur, even on their deathbed. It is the place where
eyes are raised and prayers are uttered....In Israel, we all agree on one
issue: the wholeness of Jerusalem ,
the continuation of its existence as capital of the State of Israel. There are
no two Jerusalems. There is only one Jerusalem .
For us, Jerusalem is not subject to
compromise, and there is no peace without Jerusalem .
Jerusalem , which was destroyed
eight times, where for years we had no access to the remnants of our Temple ,
was ours, is ours, and will be ours – forever.”
For Israelis like Rabin, the attachment runs so deep that it
defies explanation. To a more detached observer, however, several important
factors explain the importance of Israeli sovereignty over a united Jerusalem .
But the arguments for dividing Jerusalem
underscore a more fundamental, recent dynamic: The demand for Israel
to relinquish part of its sovereignty, despite the legitimacy and prevalence of
its rights and the munificence with which it has governed, is driven by
opposition to the Jewish presence in Israel
altogether.
28
A History of Arab Hostility
Throughout the twentieth century, Jerusalem ’s
Arab rulers and invaders openly opposed a Jewish presence anywhere in the city.
They never joined the international community, even partially, in recognizing
the legitimacy of Jewish and Israeli claims to Jerusalem
or to any part of Israel .
As a result, any Arab presence in Jerusalem
that bordered on Jewish holy sites has been openly hostile to Jews, attacking
the Jewish community with violence and threats. This was true when the Jews
were a peaceful majority throughout the first half of the twentieth century;
they were massacred in the 1920s, and finally were besieged and cut off in 1948
during the Arab attempt to expel the Jews from all of Jerusalem
and Israel .
Unfortunately, this Palestinian stance persists today. The
autonomous Muslim administration of the Temple
Mount Israel
after 1967, has used the site to preach hatred against the Jewish “infidels,”
with the imam regularly invoking anti-Semitic themes in his weekly sermons.
Muslim religious leaders have provoked violent attacks on
Jews praying at the Western Wall continually throughout recent decades.
The Waqf – the Administration for Muslim Religious
Endowments on the Temple Mount Second Temple Temple period, including a
half dozen underground passageways, to pave the way for what they called new
mosques and emergency exits. Searchers combing the discarded rubble have
discovered Hasmonean engravings and pottery dating back to the eighth century
BCE.
In recent years, Palestinian localities near Jerusalem
have been used to launch attacks on neighboring Jewish communities. The Jewish
Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo remained for months under constant attack from
snipers shooting from nearby Beit Jala, until the Israeli army was ordered to
enter that area.
From the early years of the Oslo Accords, when the
Palestinian Authority's presence in Jerusalem
gradually increased, the city became the site of bloody anti-Jewish massacres.
On February 25, 1996 , a
Palestinian suicide bomber dispatched by Hamas blew up a No. 18 bus near Jerusalem ’s
central bus station, killing 26 passengers. On March 25 of that year, another
No. 18 bus bomber exploded in downtown Jerusalem
on Jaffa Road , murdering 19
passengers. Since the Oslo Accords were signed in September 1993, terrorists
have killed more than 1,300 people in terrorist attacks like these, with many
more attempted. Every one of these attacks was carried out by Palestinians who
were openly armed and trained in areas under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction
The PA, for its part, has refused to confront the institutions, factories, and
training camps under its jurisdiction that ordered, armed, and enabled these
homicidal missions; indeed, the PA oversaw the establishment of a shrine to one
such massacre, “celebrating” the bombing of a Jerusalem pizzeria. Arafat
himself beseeched publicly: “May Allah give me the honor of being one of the
martyrs for holy Jerusalem .”13
Israeli military investigations also unearthed checks he had signed to the
families of homicide bombers.
After the Café Hillel bombing in Jerusalem
in September 2003, in which seven civilians were murdered and 50 injured,
Arafat told a large Palestinian audience: “Our people will not capitulate and
will not kneel down until one of our boys or one of our girls raises the
Palestinian flag over the domes and churches of Jerusalem .”
The crowd chanted in response: “To Jerusalem
we are marching, martyrs in the millions.”14
At the Camp David talks in the summer
of 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak proposed to place Jerusalem
on the
negotiating negotiating table, something no previous Israeli
government had considered. He offered direct Palestinian control in the city,
including full administration of Palestinian neighborhoods and even
administrative control over the holiest Jewish site, the Temple
Mount Old
City
Early on, some Palestinian commentators – including the
Palestinian poet Mohammed Darwish – pointed to the supposed “weakness” of the
Zionists, expressing the belief that more violence and “martyrdom” would drive
Israelis from their holy sites in the city. They echoed the sentiments of an
increasingly popular Osama Bin Laden, arguing, “the Westerner loves life and
will cower in battle.”15
Instead, Jewish resolve to hold on to their ancient capital
resurfaced with renewed vigor and momentum. In the winter of 2001, at the
height of the violence, nearly 400,000 people gathered outside the walls of Jerusalem ’s
Old City Babylon ,
never to forget Jerusalem . To that
ancient vow they added a renewed commitment never to relinquish their capital
again. Natan Sharansky, who said the dream of Jerusalem
sustained him through years of imprisonment in the Soviet Gulag, declared that Jerusalem
“belongs to the Jewish people, and to history, not to any single one of us...we
have no right to part with it.”
Just as a divided Jerusalem
has historically given rise to violence, so the image of a truly united Jerusalem
has evoked the dream of peace. Every week, as Jews welcome the Sabbath, they
pray for peace to return to the sacred city: “Peace be within thy walls and
prosperity within thy palaces” (Psalm 122). At other times they revisit the
ancient prophecy: “At that time they shall call Jerusalem
the throne...and all the nations shall be gathered unto it” (Jeremiah 3-17).
Amen. And so may it be.
Question: How old is the Jewish connection to Jerusalem ?
Answer: More than 3,000 years. Jews have always sought to return to Jerusalem
when they were not forcibly prevented from doing so.
Question: Isn’t Jerusalem
also holy to Christians and Muslims? Answer: Both Muslims and Christians have
holy sites in Jerusalem , but only
Jews see it as their sole spiritual capital. For Muslims, Mecca
and Medina , and for Christians, Rome
or Canterbury , play similar roles.
Question: Did the 1947 Partition Plan call for dividing Jerusalem ?
Answer: No. It called for separating Jerusalem
from the rest of Palestine , and
having its residents eventually vote on the city’s final legal status. In the
interim, it was to have an international administration. At the time, the
largest community in Jerusalem was
Jewish, so the resolution, which was rejected by the Arab states, would have
effectively established Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem .
Question: Did UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338,
the “peace process” resolutions, call for dividing Jerusalem
after 1967?
Answer: No. The resolutions do not even mention Jerusalem
at all. They call for negotiating on some territory captured by Israel
in the war (for example, the Sinai Peninsula ), in the
context of reaching “secure and recognized” boundaries in the region. All
states involved in the conflict (Syria ,
Jordan , Egypt ,
and Israel ) are
called upon to recognize each other’s sovereignty and boundaries. This has not
yet happened.
Question: Is Jerusalem
worth sacrificing for peace? Answer: The
choice has never existed. Dividing Jerusalem
is historically and politically more likely to lead to violence and war than
keeping it united. Those Palestinians for whom Jerusalem
is a sticking point tend to be those who oppose Israel ’s
existence unconditionally.
Question: Can the
Jewish connection to Jerusalem be
proven? Answer: Yes. The Old City Jerusalem .
Additional archeological evidence throughout Israel ,
from the caves of Qumran to the Golan Heights ,
refer directly to ancient Jewish Jerusalem. No serious archeologist or
historian, anywhere in the world, doubts the connection.
Question: Did the
issue of Jerusalem destroy the Camp
David negotiations? Answer:
No. Yasser Arafat refused to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
regardless of what Israel
offered. The violence that erupted as the negotiations fell apart was
pre-planned months earlier, a fact confirmed by Palestinian Information
Minister Imad al-Faluji and PA Justice Minister Freih Abu Middein in 2000.
Question: Did Ariel
Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount U.S.
government investigation led by Sen. George Mitchell concluded in 2001 that Sharon ’s
visit was not the cause.
Question: Why do
Palestinians refer to Jerusalem as
“al-Quds”? Answer: It is a derivation
from the Arabic phrase Bayt al-Maqdis, which means “the holy house,” an early
Muslim reference to the ancient Jewish Temple. The word maqdis became quds,
which, like the Hebrew kadosh, means “holy.”
Question: Is Palestinian anti-Jewish violence in Jerusalem
aimed at removing Israeli sovereignty? Answer:
Anti-Jewish violence in Jerusalem
predates the question of Israeli sovereignty. In the 1920s, the Grand Mufti of
Jerusalem, Faisal alHusseini, instigated bloody riots against Jews praying in Jerusalem ,
massacring Jewish worshipers and residents, burning synagogues, and destroying
Jewish institutions. He later officially embraced Hitler and Nazism.
Question: Do the Oslo Accords of 1993 call for negotiating
on Jerusalem ? Answer: The Oslo Accords referred to Jerusalem ,
refugees, and the legal status of Palestinian communities as matters to be
settled in the last stage of the negotiations over the permanent status of the
disputed West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, the Oslo
framework broke down with the Palestinian violence in 2000 when Yasser Arafat
refused to compromise with Israel
on anything and launched a war of terror attacks on Israeli civilians.
Question: Does Israel
plan to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque and other Muslim holy sites to make way for
their Temple ? Answer: Never. Israel
has codified its commitment to religious freedom and equality for all
worshipers in Jerusalem . In fact,
Muslims and Christians are freer under Israeli sovereignty than at any time in Jerusalem ’s
history, and will remain so. When a tiny band of extremists devised a plot
against one of the Muslim shrines some 15 years ago, the Israeli government
arrested and prosecuted them.
Question: How much of today’s Jerusalem
was part of ancient Jewish Jerusalem? Answer:
Jews lived throughout the Old City David ,
now a neighborhood just beyond the Old
City Mount of Olives . Until
1948, the Jewish Quarter in the Old City
Eliyahu Tal, Whose Jerusalem ?
(Jerusalem: International Forum for a United Jerusalem, 1994).
Martin Gilbert, Jerusalem
in the Twentieth Century (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996).
Dan Bahat, ed., Twenty Centuries of Jewish Life in the Holy
Land (Jerusalem: Israel Economist, 1976).
Dan Bahat and Shalom Sabar, Jerusalem :
Stone and Spirit: 3000 Years of History and Art (New York: Rizzoli
International Publications, 1998).
Suggested Reading
Eliyahu Tal, Whose Jerusalem ?
(Jerusalem: International Forum for a United Jerusalem, 1994).
Martin Gilbert, Jerusalem
in the Twentieth Century (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996).
Dan Bahat, ed., Twenty Centuries of Jewish Life in the Holy
Land (Jerusalem: Israel Economist, 1976).
Dan Bahat and Shalom Sabar, Jerusalem :
Stone and Spirit: 3000 Years of History and Art (New York: Rizzoli
International Publications, 1998).
Mitchell G. Bard, Myths and Facts: A Guide to the
Arab-Israeli Conflict (Washington , D.C. Enterprise ,
2002).
H.H. Ben Sasson, A History of the Jewish People (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1985).
Yehuda Blum, The Juridical Status of Jerusalem
(Jerusalem: Leonard Davis Institute, 1974).
Erich H. Cline, Jerusalem
Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel
(Ann Arbor : University
of Michigan
Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, O Jerusalem !
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972).
Department of Jewish Zionist Education, Jewish Agency for Israel ;
http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/places/jer.html.
Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel
(New York : John Wiley & Sons,
2003).
Dore Gold, Jerusalem
in International Diplomacy (Jerusalem :
Jerusalem Center
Dore Gold, Tower
of Babbel New York :
Crown Forum, 2004).
Martin Gilbert, Jerusalem :
Illustrated History Atlas (Jerusalem: Steimatsky Publishers, 1994).
Chaim Herzog, Who Stands Accused? Israel
Answers Its Critics (New York: Random House, 1978).
Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (New York: Harper and
Row, 1987).
Bernard Lewis, Semites and Antisemites: An Inquiry into
Conflict and Prejudice (New York: Norton & Co., 1999).
Michael Oren, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of
the Modern Middle East (New York :
Oxford University
Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the
Fight for Middle East Peace (New
York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004).
Stephen Schwebel, “What Weight to Conquest,” American
Journal of International Law 64 (1970):346-347.
Shlomo Slonim, Jerusalem
in America ’s
Foreign Policy, 1947-1997 (The Hague: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998).
Leon Uris, Exodus (New York: Bantam, 1983).
Leon Uris and Jill Uris, Jerusalem :
Song of Songs (New York: Bantam Books, 1985).
Justus Weiner, Illegal Construction in Jerusalem :
A Variation on an Alarming Global Phenomenon (Jerusalem :
Jerusalem Center
Robert S. Wistrich, Antisemitism. The Longest Hatred (New
York: Pantheon, 1991).
Notes
1. M itchell G. Bard, Myths and Facts: A Guide to the
Arab-Israeli Conflict (Washington , D.C.
2. H erbert Klein, Temple Beyond Time: Mount
Moriah Temple
to Christian and Islamic Shrines (Malibu: Pangloss Press, 1986).
3. D epartment of Jewish Zionist Education, Jewish Agency
for Israel ;
http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/places/jer.html.
4. E rich H. Cline, Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan
to Modern Israel (Ann Arbor : University
of Michigan Press
5. R uth Kark and Michal Oren-Nordheim, Jerusalem
and Its Environs: Quarters, Neighborhoods, Villages, 1800-1948 (Jerusalem:
Academon, 1995), p. 103.
6. Balfour Declaration.
7. Article 80 of the UN Charter.
8. Y uval Steinitz, Yaakov Amidror, Meir Rosenne, and Dore
Gold, Defensible Borders For a Lasting Peace (Jerusalem :
Jerusalem Center
9. Jerusalem
Post, May 15, 2002 .
10. Maariv, October
11, 1996 .
11. E lisha Qimron and John Strugnell, eds., Qumran
Cave Judean Desert Long Island Jewish World (April 1993),
p. 2.
12. A bdul L. Tibawi, Jerusalem :
Its Place in Islam and Arab History (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies,
1969), cited in Cline, Jerusalem Besieged.
13. L ee Hockstader, “Blast Hits Central Jerusalem,”
Washington Post, January 28, 2003 ,
A1.
14. J ohn Ward Anderson, “Israel Threatens Removal of
Arafat,” Washington Post, September
12, 2003 , p. A19.
15. Quoted in Michael Scheuer, Imperial Hubris (2004).
It is incumbent on us who know the history and the
centrality of Jerusalem in the
lives of the Jewish nation to pass this knowledge along to future generations.
Given recent campaigns to distort the truth about Jerusalem ,
One Jerusalem’s survey of the Nation of Israel’s capital should be a part of
the curriculum of every student and adult. I commend Jerusalem :
Israel ’s
Eternal Capital to all those who want to learn the truth. – Benjamin Netanyahu
Former Prime Minister and Finance Minister
With many European and Third World states
pressing to divide Jerusalem again,
Jerusalem : Israel ’s
Eternal Capital could not have come out at a better time. It not only
establishes that the Jewish people have had the longest historical links to
Jerusalem, but also that only Israel, with its long-standing commitment to
freedom and democracy, can guarantee universal access and security to all the
holy sites of the world’s great faiths. – Ambassador Dore Gold Formerly Israel ’s
permanent representative to the United Nations
2005 Jerusalem Center Jerusalem
One Jerusalem 136 East 39th Street New York, NY 10016
www.onejerusalem.org
Photos: © 1999-2005 Jerusalem Shots - www.jerusalemshots.com
Photos of Western Wall Tunnels courtesy of Western Wall Heritage Foundation
Graphic Design: Avigail Horowitz
ISBN: 965-218-050-5
Printed in Israel
NO JEW HAS THE RIGHT TO GIVE UP
ReplyDelete(Eretz Yisrael) THE LAND OF ISRAEL
By David Ben Gurion
"No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in Israel. No Jew has the authority to do so. No Jewish body has the authority to do so. Not even the entire Jewish People alive today has the right to yield any part of Israel.
It is the right of the Jewish People over the generations, a right that under no conditions can be cancelled. Even if Jews during a specific period proclaim they are relinquishing this right, they have neither the power nor the authority to deny it to future generations. No concession of this type is binding or obligates the Jewish People.
Our right to the country - the entire country - exists as an eternal right, and we shall not yield this historic right until its full and complete redemption is realized."
This quotation of David Ben Gurion made at the Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1937, more than 65 years ago. At the Freeman Center, we quote this profound statement often.
NO JEW HAS THE RIGHT TO GIVE UP
ReplyDelete(Eretz Yisrael) THE LAND OF ISRAEL
By David Ben Gurion
"No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in Israel. No Jew has the authority to do so. No Jewish body has the authority to do so. Not even the entire Jewish People alive today has the right to yield any part of Israel.
It is the right of the Jewish People over the generations, a right that under no conditions can be cancelled. Even if Jews during a specific period proclaim they are relinquishing this right, they have neither the power nor the authority to deny it to future generations. No concession of this type is binding or obligates the Jewish People.
Our right to the country - the entire country - exists as an eternal right, and we shall not yield this historic right until its full and complete redemption is realized."
This quotation of David Ben Gurion made at the Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1937, more than 65 years ago. At the Freeman Center, we quote this profound statement often.