The Lethality of De-Judaizing Jerusalem

jrAs an example of what the insightful commentator Melanie Phillips referred to as a “dialogue of the demented” in her book The World Turned Upside Down, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is continuing a long tradition of attempting to de-Judaize Jerusalem by expressing his mendacious notion that, as he put it, “Jerusalem has a special flavor and taste not only in our hearts, but also in the hearts of all Arabs and Muslims and Christians,” and “Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Palestinian state and without it there will be no state.” The same scholar of history who wrote a doctoral dissertation that questioned the extent and truthfulness of the Holocaust was now making his own historical claim that there had never been a Jewish presence and history in the world’s holiest city.

In recent weeks, Abbas has been at it again, adding new layers of rhetoric to his tactical campaign to de-Judaize Jerusalem, in general, and to the Temple Mount, specifically. In an October PA TV broadcast, Abbas made the breathtakingly absurd claim that Jews not only had no historic claim to the Temple Mount, but they also should never even be allowed to have their presence known at that location. “The settlers have arrived . . . ,” he said. “This is our Sanctuary, our Al-Aqsa and our Church [of the Holy Sepulchre]. They have no right to enter it . . . [or] right to defile it. We must prevent them . . . .”

Only in an alternate, Orwellian universe could only one group of people on earth—Jews—be enjoined from praying on the single site most holy to their faith, and, moreover, be told that their presence there is not only provocative but is repugnant and befouls the very ground on which those of another faith—Muslims—have staked a triumphalist religious claim and now wish gather and pray.

This attempt to airbrush out a Jewish presence from Jerusalem—in fact, all of historic Palestine—is not a new message for Abbas, of course. In 2000 he expressed similar contempt for the idea that a Jewish temple had ever existed on the Temple Mount and that, even if it had existed, the offenses committed by Israel against the Palestinians negated any claim Jews might have enjoyed, absent their perfidy. “Anyone who wants to forget the past [i.e., the Israelis] cannot come and claim that the [Jewish] temple is situated beneath the Haram,” Abbas absurdly asserted in an article in Kul Al-Arab, an Israeli Arabic-language weekly newspaper. “ . . . But even if it is so, we do not accept it, because it is not logical for someone who wants a practical peace.”

Judging by the October 30th statement by U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki, forgetting the past is something in which the John Kerry’s office is also complicit. “We’re extremely concerned by escalating tensions across Jerusalem and particularly surrounding the Haram al-Sharif, Temple Mount,” Psaki said, pointedly, and dangerously, referring to the Temple Mount by its Arab name first and thereby fortifying, and seeming to lend equal weight to, the Palestinian’s spurious claim to spiritual and territorial rights to the site, and to the wider area described now as East Jerusalem.

“It is actually critical that all sides exercise restraint, refrain from provocative actions and rhetoric and preserve the status quo,” she added, suggesting that Jews not be allowed to pray on the Mount and that the status quo prohibiting Jews from praying on the site be ordered to continue so as to not incite Muslim sensibilities.

But in characterizing East Jerusalem —or any part of Jerusalem, for that matter —as territory that Israel “occupies” but over which it enjoys no sovereignty, Abbas (and U.S. State Department, too) is misreading, once again, the content and purpose of 1967′s U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 that suggested an Israeli withdrawal “from territories [not all territories]” it acquired in the Six-Day War. Critics of Israeli policy who either willfully misread or deliberately obscure the resolution’s purpose say that the Jewish State is in violation of 242 by continuing to occupy the West Bank and Jerusalem, including what is spuriously now referred to as “Arab” East Jerusalem.  But the drafters of Resolution 242 were very precise in creating the statute’s language, and they never considered Jerusalem to have been occupied by Israel after the Six-Day War.  Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Arthur Goldberg, one of the resolution’s authors, made this very clear when he wrote some years later that “Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem, and this omission was deliberate[.] . . . At no time in [my] many speeches [before the U.N.] did I refer to East Jerusalem as occupied territory.”

But the true danger of the Palestinian thinking about Jerusalem—and, indeed, about all of the Palestine that they covet, including Israel itself—was revealed in Yasser Arafat’s own view that he expressed in a July 2000 edition of al-Hayat al-Jadida when he threatened that “They can occupy us by force, because we are weaker now, but in two years, ten years, or one hundred years, there will be someone who will liberate Jerusalem [from them].”

“Liberating” Jerusalem, of course, does not mean transforming it into a pluralistic, open city where members of three major faiths can live freely and practice their religions openly. Liberating Jerusalem for the Palestinians would be more in keeping with the type of liberation that Transjordan’s Arab League effected when they burned and looted the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem in 1948; expelled and killed its hapless Jewish population; destroyed some 58 synagogues, many hundreds of years old; unearthed gravestones from the history-laden Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives and used them for latrine pavers; and barred any Jew from praying at the Western Wall or entering the Temple Mount.

But false irredentist claims, Islamic supremacism which compels Jews and Christians to live in dhimmitude under Muslim control, and an evident cultural and theological disregard for other faiths— while troubling in the battle over sovereignty in Jerusalem—are not, according to Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, the most dangerous aspects of a diplomatic capitulation which would allow the Palestinians to claim a shared Jerusalem. In his engaging book, The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City, Gold pointed to a far more troubling aspect: in their desire to accede to Arab requests for a presence and religious sovereignty in Jerusalem, the State Department, EU, UN member states, and Islamic apologists in the Middle East and worldwide may actually ignite jihadist impulses they seek to dampen with their well-intentioned, but defective, diplomacy.

Why? Because, as Gold explained, “In the world of apocalyptic speculation, Jerusalem has many other associations—it is the place where the messianic Mahdi [the redeemer of Islam] is to establish his capital. For that reason, some argue that it also should become the seat of the new caliphate that most Islamic groups—from the Muslim Brotherhood to al-Qaeda—seek to establish.”

When Yasser Arafat in July 2000 gave expression to the eventual “liberation” of Jerusalem as a sacred and unending ambition for the Palestinian cause, he defined it as a recapture of what had been, and should be, in his view, Muslim land, just as the eventual extirpation of Israel and the reclamation of all of historic Palestine would accomplish. The establishment of the Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem is the first important step in the long-term strategy to rid the Levant of Jews and reestablish the House of Islam in Palestine. “Jerusalem’s recapture is seen by some as one of the signs that ‘the Hour’ and the end of times are about to occur,” Gold suggested. “And most importantly, because of these associations, it is the launching pad for a new global jihad powered by the conviction that this time the war will unfold according to a pre-planned religious script, and hence must succeed.”

So far from creating a political situation in which both parties—Israelis and the Palestinians—feel they have sought and received equal benefits, such negotiations and final agreements would have precisely the opposite effect: destabilizing the region and creating, not the oft-hoped for Israel and Palestine “living side by side in peace,” but an incendiary cauldron about to explode into an annihilatory, jihadist rage. Those in the West who are urging Israel “to redivide Jerusalem by relinquishing its holy sites,” Dore cautioned, “may well believe that they are lowering the flames of radical Islamic rage, but in fact they will only be turning up those flames to heights that have not been seen before.” If the State Department and other Western diplomats are intent on mollifying the Arab street by pressuring Israel to divide Jerusalem as a peace offering to the Palestinians, it may well be setting into motion the exact opposite result—a jihadist, apocalyptic movement invigorated by the misguided diplomacy of the West that, once more, asks Israel to sacrifice its security and nationhood so that Islamists can realize their own imperial and theological ambitions at the Jewish state’s expense.

Richard L. Cravatts, PhD, president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, is the author of Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel & Jews.

  • Bert

    The enemies of Israel are unwavering in their hostility and they never rest. However it is the Jewish establishment that remains timid and groveling and ever fearful to merely speak out boldly for Jewish rights. The Jewish establishment is so often missing in action that one one even notices their absence.

    • Ken Kelso

      Another great article.
      Dr Mordechai Kedar details how Israel can defeat Fatah terrorists led by Abbas. This is a must read.

      http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/16009#.VHiH4THF-Xb
      Op-Ed: In This Struggle, Israel Can Prevail
      Israel can withstand and overcome the current wave of violence, which is just another chapter in the struggle against Arab and Islamist hatred. But to do so, there are concrete steps that Israel should take – now.
      Dr. Mordechai Kedar
      November 20, 2014

      During these difficult days of increasing terror, the most urgent question is: What can we do in order to cope optimally with the growing terrorist violence in Israel, knowing that behind the scenes there are several players who are expending intense efforts to bring about an explosion.

      Leading the pack is Hamas, whose goal is to become the undisputed leader of the Palestinian Arabs at the expense of the Palestinian Authority – and, for good measure, giving Sisi something to remember.

      Supporting Hamas is a coalition composed of Qatar and Turkey, with unlimited sources of funds.

      The PLO, at the same time, is trying to hold on to first place and cannot allow itself to appear less extreme than Hamas, for fear it will be accused of cooperating with Israel. This is the origin of the two-faced behavior of the PA: on the one hand, it presents a cooperative face to Israel and on the other hand, it stabs Israel in the back, through incitement and education, on the street and in international forums.

      Qatar bases its standing in the Arab world and the West by pouring oil on the fire, exactly as it does with Islamic State. Hypocritically, in the usual Qatari fashion, it funds Islamic state while, as part of the Western coalition, it expresses support for those who fight it.

      Behind the scenes of the growing terror Israel faces stands Islamic State, the model for successful battles against the enemies of Islam: massacre the enemy, act with extreme violence and use fast vehicles that give the impression of Jihad’s sweeping, advancing victory. The murderers who entered the Jerusalem Synagogue did not bring long butcher’s cleavers for nothing.

      The answer:

      The time for politically correct euphemisms is over and the unpleasant truth must be told as it is.First of all, Israel must say emphatically: the Palestinian Authority established on the basis of the Oslo Accords is an enemy entity, an enemy whose goal is establishing an Arab state in place of Israel, not alongside Israel, but on its ruins. That is the reason the Oslo Accords were violated so blatantly and thoroughly by the other side, resulting in them being declared null and void..

      In addition, Israel must cease funding the PA on the basis of economic agreements derived from the Oslo Accords. There is no other country that funds an enemy entity, and there is no reason for Israel to be the only country that acts in such a delusional manner.

      The government of Israel must condemn those among us who were instrumental in giving us the “New Middle East”, even those who once held posts of high honor.

      2. Israel must announce as clearly as possible that Jerusalem is not a subject in any negotiations with anyone. It was never the capital of any entity connected to the Arab or Islamic world and was never ruled by a king, sultan, emir or caliph, so that there is no historical or legal basis for demanding that it be the capital of any state other than Israel.

      3. Israel has to remind the entire world that Judea, Samaria and Eastern Jerusalem were areas occupied by Jordan for 19 years, from May 1948 until June 1967. Had the Arab world felt it was just and necessary, it could have established a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital then, without anyone in the world disputing it. The Arabs refrained from doing that for the 7000 days in which Jordan had control of the area and therefore have no right to demand from Israel what they did not demand from themselves.

      5. Israel must immediately shut down all the PA institutions in Jerusalem and any governmental entity that is not that of the state of Israel. Sovereignty cannot be shared or compromised on, because he who compromises with regard to his sovereignty loses it.

      6.The police must issue a restraining order against all Islamic Movement activists, first and foremost to Sheikh Raad Salah and his deputy Sheikh Kamal el Khatib. After that, the possibility of issuing an order forbidding them to leave Um El Fahem and Kafr Kana should be considered.

      7. Israel must immediately shut down all the Hamas TV stations broadcasting in Judea and Samaria.

      8. Israel must keep the bodies of all dead terrorists who committed terror attacks. To all events, Israel must forbid their burial in Jerusalem, especially not in the vicinity of the Temple Mount, because burial in that spot is an expression of pride in the shahid and encourages more terror.

      9. Israel must announce that it is building a new neighborhood, a new settlement or at least a new building in Jerusalem or Judea and Samaria in memory of every terror victim. Let the terrorists discover that terror makes the Jewish People’s connection to its land stronger.

      10. Israel must change the way it views Europe. This continent is gradually turning into an Islamist area, and European politicians are becoming more and more dependent on the Muslim voter.They have to take stands dictated to them by the voters in their electoral district, and these brought their visceral hatred of Jews and Israel with them from their countries of origin. I do not see this pattern changing, so that for Israel, relying on Europe is a waste of effort at best and under normal circumstances, like entering hostile territory.

      11. Israelis have to internalize the fact that their neighbors do not want them in the Middle East, and that Tel Aviv and Ramat Hasharon as seen as “settlements” just as Eli, Shilo and Neve Daniel are. The entire Peace industry is just froth topping the waves of the stormy waters of the Middle East. It succeeded in blinding us to the point where we did not accept the reality of the situation and it managed to neutralize the will of some of us to fight for our land and freedom, but it had no absolutely no effect on our neighbors.

      12. Israel must develop a psychological mindset that prepares it for a multi-pronged struggle, because many of the countries in the world are against the existence of the state of Israel and will do anything to weaken its security, economic stability and legitimacy.

      Israel must publicly condemn people, such as Martyn Indyk, who accept funding from countries like Qatar which uses its money to influence political stands vis a vis Israel.

      13. Israel’s justice system must internalize the fact that we are struggling for our survival. We cannot relate to enemies of the state as if they are deserving of mercy at the hands of our country’s legal system. The legal system was not intended to make the state vulnerable but to base it on law and order so that it can continue to function during difficult times.

      14. The people of Israel must trust in G-d and in themselves, they must be prepared to fight for their existence. This struggle is infinitely more important than what the Knesset and the media have been stressing – VAT on purchasing an apartment or any internal political struggle. Ministers and MK’s must rise above narrow party considerations and begin to lead the Jewish people in its struggle to keep its land, state and liberty.

      • Ken Kelso

        http://www.wnd.com/2014/11/dershowitz-rips-obama-on-synagogue-slaughter/#eGdb8uvBdFvmZIPG.99
        ‘Imagine if an Israeli soldier walked into a mosque and murdered 4 imams at prayer’
        Alan Dershowitz
        11/19/14

        Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz is unloading on President Obama’s “moral equivalence” in the wake of Tuesday’s shocking terrorist attacks at a Jerusalem synagogue that left five people dead, three of whom were Americans.

        The acclaimed defense attorney also accuses Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of inciting the bloodshed.

        On Tuesday, terrorists stormed the synagogue in the Har Nof neighborhood in West Jerusalem. Using axes, knives and guns, the terrorists savagely interrupted morning prayers, killing three rabbis, another worshiper and a police officer. Police eventually killed the two terrorists.

        In his statement, President Obama condemned the attacks and said the deaths of three Americans meant shared grief between the U.S. and Israel. However, he was quick to urge all sides to renounce violence.

        “Tragically, this is not the first loss of life that we have seen in recent months. Too many Israelis have died. Too many Palestinians have died,” said Obama, who urged both sides to work together to “lower tensions.”

        Dershowitz said that was exactly the wrong thing to say.

        “It was moral equivalence. It was the wrong statement. It had all the wrong tone. It had all the wrong content. At this point in time, you unilaterally condemn only the Palestinian Authority and Hamas for incentivizing and inciting this kind of thing. You don’t bring it together with how many Palestinians may have died because they were being used as human shields,” he said, noting that the terrorist groups are fine with the U.S. and others in the world equating their actions with those of Israel.

        “Hamas is happy with moral equivalence,” Dershowitz said. “It gives them a kind of legitimacy that they don’t deserve, the kind of legitimacy that Bishop (Desmond) Tutu and Jimmy Carter had given them, but I would expect more of our president.”

        President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were quick to point to point out that Abbas condemned the attack. Dershowitz said that condemnation came after great pressure from the U.S. and that Abbas deserves the lion’s share of the blame for the attacks themselves.

        “Abbas is largely responsible for this,” he said. “He talked about Jews ‘infecting’ the Temple Mount. He called for Muslims to protect the Temple Mount. He basically incited this. Did he intend it? Probably not, but his words carry very great power.”

        Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Alan Dershowitz:

        While the denunciation of the attacks by Abbas may have been grudging, Dershowitz pointed out that Hamas and Palestinians in the street made it clear they enthusiastically support such barbarism.

        “After this horrible, horrible massacre, immediately there was dancing in the streets in Gaza, in Ramallah, in Bethlehem and Nablus and celebration of these murders,” he said.

        “Although the great tragedy occurred in the synagogue, the most important events occurred before – the incitement – and after – the glee. How did the world respond? Spain unilaterally voted in parliament to recognize the Palestinian State without asking them even to stop terrorism,” Dershowitz said.

        However, he said the most common reaction worldwide was indifference.

        “United Nations? Silence. Most of the Arab states? Silence,” he said. “We’re not seeing condemnation. We’re not seeing outrage from many of the European leaders.”

        Dershowitz praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for forcefully denouncing the attacks but also for imploring Israeli citizens not to seek vengeance on their own. The international response to the murders was so tepid that Netanyahu implored world leaders to speak out. Dershowitz said if the roles were reversed, it would be a much different story.

        “Can you imagine if an Israeli soldier had walked into a mosque and had murdered four imams at prayer? The entire world would be aflame about this,” he said. “We see very little condemnation (about Tuesday’s terrorist attacks). You see the usual ritual, formalistic condemnation, but you don’t see the kind of outrage that one would expect. And you don’t see the kind of outrage that one gets when Israel builds an extra bathroom or living room somewhere on the West Bank.”

        The Middle East has long been viewed in the West as a problem that cannot be solved. Dershowitz said the Palestinians are undertaking a strategy to make sure it never does.

        “The Palestinians are trying to turn this into a religious dispute, not a political dispute,” he said. “Political disputes can be resolved by compromise, but if you think your god has told you not to allow Jews to have a nation-state of their own … it’s very hard to compromise with that situation.”

        Dershowitz said what’s worse than grisly acts of terrorism is the fact that it’s working to turn world opinion to the side of the Palestinians and others.

        “Why are the Palestinians so popular today on academic campuses, at the U.N. and in European capitals?” he asked. “Because they have used terrorism over and over and over again. Nobody’s heard of the Kurds because they haven’t used terrorism to a great extent. The Kurds, there are much more of them and they are much more worthy of a state than the Palestinians and the Tibetans. But they’re getting nowhere because terrorism works, and it brings groups to the attention of the world. If we don’t stop terrorism in the Middle East, it’s coming to a theater near you because it’s an effective tactic today, unfortunately.”

        World opinion has long tilted heavily against Israel, even when American presidents have vigorously defended it. Dershowitz admitted the U.S. can only do so much to reverse that, but he said there’s one thing the Obama administration can do in the coming days to prevent terrorists from scoring a major victory.

        “They have to make a good deal with Iran or no deal,” he said. “You can’t make a bad deal with Iran. Iran is the greatest exporter of terrorism in the world. They’re dancing in the streets, too. If you think it’s bad to have a few terrorists with axes and guns and knives walk into a synagogue, just wait until terrorists begin to have nuclear weapons. That will happen if Iran has a decent deal that will allow it to become a threshold nuclear state.”

    • JTQ

      Holy crap, batman – talk about satire, calling the Jewish establishment “timid” for crying out loud. That’s the best oxymoron, spoken by a moron, this decade.

  • Larry Larkin

    Jerusalem is never mentioned in the qoran, and was never mentioned as the site of the “furthest mosque” until well into the period of the Crusades, some 500 years after the pedo supposedly made his trip.
    In the periods that Jerusalem has been under muslim control, from when the took it from the Byzantines until the Crusades, and then after the destruction of the Kingdom of Jerusalem until 1917 it was pretty much ignored by the muslim world.
    There were no pilgrims to it and the mosques, even al aqsa, were allowed to fall into disrepair and even ruin.
    The British were the ones who restored the buildings on the Temple Mount in the 1920s. Prior to that they had been treated in much the same way as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and many of the Jewish synagoges, as stables for donkeys and mules.

    • carpe diem 36

      like everything else invented by the “religion” of Isalm the facts are just not there – Jerusalem has no traces of Muhamed or Isalm or moslems, but has museums full of antiques showing a long history of Jews being the only people who lived and created in that city, from the Western Wall to the newly discovered tunnels and all the archeological findings. The facts are stronger than what Abbas is pronouncing.

  • Ken Kelso

    Great article Richard.

    Doesn’t Kerry know the Palestinians want to destroy all Jewish history in Jerusalem.

    http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=5490
    PA TV: Western Wall area to be turned into Arab housing neighborhood.
    Palestinian Authority TV:
    Western Wall area to be turned into Arab housing neighborhood -Jewish presence in Jerusalem will be erased from history.
    Aug. 17, 2011
    —————————————————–
    http://www.timesofisrael.com/pa-official-jews-have-no-right-to-western-wall/
    PA officials: Jews have ‘no right to pray’ at Western Wall.
    Judge Tayseer Al-Tamimi says Al-Aqsa Mosque, including Jewish holy site, is Islamic and belongs to Muslims alone.
    TIMES OF ISRAEL.
    March 27, 2014.

    • JTQ

      Ya just GOTTA learn to write, jagoff. Nobody can read your screed when every other word has a damned error.

      • carpe diem 36

        who is jagoff???

    • carpe diem 36

      “Doesn’t Kerry know the Palestinians want to destroy all Jewish history in Jerusalem.” Kerry knows nothing of real history and is as clearly unti Israel as the PA. He knows only one thing: He wants the Nobel Peace Prize!! he is willing to sell his mother for this prize let alone destroy Israel for it.

  • carpe diem 36

    Just because Abbas is talking does not mean the facts are not there. Abbas said a lot of different things that have no basis in either history or truth. So he talks and no one who knows the facts needs to listen. Lies are just lies. He will not make his case to a world who knows the real facts.

  • iluvisrael

    The koranimals don’t give a rat’s behind about the faux palestinians, nor do most want a state for these unwanted beasts. It just burns them that the Jews have their own miraculous and thriving sovereign state. Her eternal capital: Jerusalem.

  • sydchaden

    This is absurd!
    Israel’s policies concerning the Temple Mount have been very magnanimous, with respect to Muslim access and even control, but, with what result? Islamic clerics have continued to preach “death to the Jews”, and Muslims have continued to attack Israel, and to declare their intent to destroy Israel. And so, clearly, something else must be done.

    Israel should implant explosives around the Al Aqsa Mosque and declare that the next Muslim attack on Israel will bring the destruction of the Mosque. That idea may shock some, but I am not suggesting that Israel should decide to destroy the Mosque. Rather, I am suggesting that Israel should force the Muslim leaders to choose between continuing violence against Israel, or,
    continuing to have their Mosque. My suggestion will put the future of the
    Mosque squarely in the hands of the Mullahs who incite the Muslim violence
    toward Israel. They can issue Fatwas, prohibiting any attacks on Israel, or,
    they can see their Mosque destroyed. They can decide against terrorism and have their Mosque, or they can continue terrorism, and lose it.

    If the strategy is successful, Israel will enjoy a respite from attacks. And, if the strategy is not successful, Israel will be no worse off than it is now, surrounded by Muslim entities that want to destroy it, and criticized by the largely anti-Semitic Western World, which panders to the Muslim World. And, if the strategy is not successful, and the Mosque is destroyed, Israel can clear the site and commence reconstruction of the Jewish Temple.

    The Europeans and Obama would condemn that, since the concern of the Europeans and Obama for their relations with the Muslim World are far greater than their concern for Israel’s practice of Judaism. The silence of the West during the period when Muslims controlled the Temple Mount, and denied Jewish access to Jewish Holy Sites attests to that. If it was a Jewish Temple sitting on the Mount, and the Muslims gained control, they would destroy it and commence construction of a Mosque on the site, as they have done with so many Jewish temples and synagogues in the past.

    Wouldn’t they?