Tag Archives: Jerusalem

The Gates of the Temple Mount

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Jerusalem is a city of gates. Stone thresholds worn smooth by centuries of feet. Arches that promise passage, and others that deny it.

Nowhere is this more literal—and more symbolic—than at the gates to the Temple Mount.

There are many gates along its walls. Some are sealed, some are ceremonial, and some are active. But in practice, Muslims ascend and descend freely through multiple entrances, while non-Muslims are funneled through a single ramp, tightly controlled, time-limited, and revocable at will.

Group of Muslim women come down from the Jewish Temple Mount at the Cotton Merchants’ Gate (photo: First One Through)

This is not accidental. It is policy.

Muslims enter through gates embedded naturally in the Old City’s fabric—the Cotton Merchants’ Gate among them. There, the walls are alive. Candy shops spill color onto the stones. Children’s clothing hangs in soft defiance of gravity. The scent of sweets mixes with dust and history. Life flows in and out, up and down, as it has for generations.

Jews, by contrast, are stopped.

They are turned away from nearly every gate. Not questioned. Not debated. Simply blocked.

Despite the Temple Mount being the holiest site in Judaism, Jews are told—by police, by signs, by precedent—that they may not enter as worshippers.

A solitary Jew is blocked from ascending the steps to the Jewish Temple Mount, the holiest location in Judaism, because he is a Jew. (photo: First One Through)

They are redirected instead to a single entrance ramp, detached from the Old City’s living arteries. The ramp rises from the edge of the Western Wall plaza, a vast open expanse that functions less like a neighborhood and more like a giant stone parking lot. From there, Jews may ascend only during narrow windows, under escort, forbidden to pray, forbidden to whisper, forbidden even to move their lips in devotion.

Jews are limited to prayer at the Western Wall, a supporting wall to the Temple Mount. The ramp to the Mughrabi Gate (top right) is the only gate of the ten operating gates where Jews can pass onto the Temple Mount, in limited numbers, at limited times. (photo: First One Through)

Jews are told to make do.

Make do with praying to a retaining wall of the Temple Mount.
Make do with history filtered through permission.
Make do with holiness at a distance.

This arrangement is often called the “status quo,” as if it were ancient, neutral, or inevitable. It is none of those things. It is modern. It is enforced. And it rests on a single premise: Islamic supremacy over the site requires Jewish silence at Judaism’s holiest place.

Muslims may ascend and descend at will. Jews may only look up.

The irony is almost unbearable. Judaism sanctified this mountain long before Islam existed. The Temples stood here before the Qur’an was written, before the Dome of the Rock was imagined, before the word “status quo” could be used to freeze injustice in place.

And yet today, Jewish presence itself is treated as a provocation.

Not violence. Not disruption. Presence.

The gates tell the story more honestly than any diplomatic statement ever could. Gates that welcome. Gates that redirect. Gates that close.

It’s a caste system familiar to Black Americans. “For Whites Only” is now “For Muslims Only” for 90% of the gates to the Temple Mount. “Negro Entrance” read “Non-Muslim Entrance” is plastered atop a ramp in the far corner of the Temple Mount. While racial Jim Crow laws ended in the U.S. decades ago, Jews remain subject to open religious discrimination at their holiest location. At the insistence of the United Nations.

In Jerusalem, everyone speaks of coexistence. But coexistence cannot survive when one faith ascends freely and another is barred from its own summit.

What Is A Moon In Jerusalem?

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People assume the moon is a universal constant. A simple shared celestial orb rising and falling across planet Earth.

At first glance, that seems right. The phases of the moon follow the same cycle for everyone. The waxing crescent in New York is the waxing crescent in Nairobi. The full moon bathing Buenos Aires is the same one brightening Beijing.

But the details betray the simplicity.

Because of Earth’s curvature and tilt, the angle of the moon changes depending on where you stand. In the northern hemisphere, the crescent opens to one side; in the southern hemisphere, it opens to the other. Near the equator, the crescent often lies on its back like a cup collecting light. The horizon line shifts the moon’s ascent and descent, making the same moon feel subtly unfamiliar across latitudes.

Phases of the moon in northern and southern hemispheres

So while the moon itself is constant, the human experience of it is not. Geography shapes perception.

Which brings us to a particular location: Jerusalem.

Why did ancient Jewish sages insist that the new month—the very heartbeat of the Jewish calendar—could only be declared there? Why could only witnesses standing in that one city testify that they had seen the first thin sliver of the new moon? It wasn’t because Jerusalem had the sharpest skies or the best astronomical vantage point. Other regions had clearer air, lower humidity, more favorable horizons.

The choice was not scientific. It was cultural.

The sages understood that if the Jewish calendar were anchored anywhere else—in Babylonia, in Alexandria, in Rome—it would become a local calendar. A diaspora calendar, and reflection of exile. Time would belong to the places where Jews merely lived, not the place where they belonged.

And so they declared: the Jewish month begins only where Jewish destiny begins.
In Jerusalem.

The moon in Jerusalem is not visually unique. It does not shine brighter, hang lower, or reveal a different pattern of craters. What is different is what it carries.

Elsewhere, the moon is a mechanism of light in the night. In Jerusalem, it is a messenger and message.

In the city, it rises over stones worn by millennia, over a city that has been destroyed and rebuilt and prayed toward more times than any other on earth. Outside of Jerusalem, generations of Jews looked to that moon to mark the days of their wandering. Prisoners in Soviet cells whispered its phases in the dark. Families in medieval Europe and North Africa opened their windows each month hoping for a sliver that someone in Jerusalem might already have seen.

For them, the new moon was a signal: Somewhere, in the city we lost, time is still ours.

The moon is the same everywhere, but meaning is not. For Jews, the appearance of the moon in Jerusalem was the moment when wanderers and exiles, merchants and mystics, shepherds and scholars all re-entered the same story, no matter how far they lived from its setting, regardless of their own particular vision of the moon.

The world sees a reflection of the sun’s light in the moon. Jews see a reflection of their unique common heritage, and permanent tie to Jerusalem.

Children of a Lesser God, on the Temple Mount

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Mark Medoff titled his play Children of a Lesser God to expose the way society infantilized the deaf, treating them as incomplete people. The phrase still burns because it names the humiliation: being allowed to exist but denied equal dignity.

That is precisely the status of Jews on the Temple Mount. The holiest place in Judaism, the very ground of the First and Second Temples, the site of the binding of Isaac. Yet Jews are barred from uttering a prayer there. Visitors, reluctantly and barely; worshipers, never. The “status quo” enforced by the Jordanian Waqf with United Nations’ support dictates that Jews must keep their mouths shut.

It is a civic cruelty disguised as compromise. Jews are told they may stand in the place of their ancestors, but only as tourists in a museum, not as children before God. Muslims pray freely on the Mount by the millions, but Jews are gagged at their own holiest site. That is not neutrality — it is Islamic Imperialism.

The excuses are familiar: security, stability, avoiding unrest. But those words simply sanctify discrimination as pragmatism. As every Jew is expelled for moving lips in silent prayer, the world is reminded: some children are still treated as children of a “lesser” god.

At the very moment Jews prayed in synagogues over Rosh Hashanah 5786 in September 2025, reading the story of Abraham binding Isaac on the Temple Mount and repeatedly praying for a complete Jerusalem, the Islamic world – from as far away as Pakistan and Indonesia – made demands of the United States that it would ensure that Israel maintains the “status quo” on the Mount. The despicable continued humiliation of Jews was essential for them even under the guise of stopping the Hamas war. Even above “humanitarian aid to Gaza.”

Islamic world makes demands on the United States to stop the war – and Jews attempting to pray at their holiest location

International diplomacy has institutionalized the humiliation of Jews. The so-called status quo is nothing but a permanent statement of inequality.

Medoff’s play forced audiences to confront a society that silenced the deaf. The Temple Mount forces us to confront a world that silences Jews. While both are intolerable, the latter is demanded at the anti-Jewish United Nations.

Ki Tavo: From Wandering to Rooted

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When the Torah commands the farmer to bring his first fruits, it does not let him talk about his soil or his labor. Instead, the ritual begins: “My father was a wandering Aramean…” (Deuteronomy 26:5) The commentators note that gratitude is not complete without memory. To thank God for the harvest, one must first recall that the Jewish story began in exile and slavery. Only against that backdrop does the basket of figs become miraculous.

Later in the same parsha (Deuteronomy 28:4), the Torah turns to blessings and curses. If Israel listens to God, “Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your soil, and the fruit of your livestock.” If not, those very fruits will wither. Here too, fruit is not agricultural output — it is covenantal currency.

Put together, the two passages form a cycle. The first fruits ceremony roots gratitude in memory: remember that you were once landless and fruitless. The blessings and curses tie the future of fertility to obedience: remember that your continued abundance is not guaranteed.

And notice where this all happens: Jerusalem. The farmer did not simply thank God in his vineyard or whisper gratitude in his kitchen. He carried his produce up to the city, presented it at the Temple, and declared his history publicly. Jerusalem was not just a capital; it was the beating heart of Jewish memory and faith. The fruits gained meaning when they were placed before God in the city chosen for His name.

The Old City of Jerusalem including the Jewish Temple Mount

This is why the prophets, the rabbis, and Jewish history itself encircle Jerusalem. The city is not peripheral to Judaism — it is central. It is where private labor becomes national testimony, where agriculture becomes covenant, where the wandering Jew becomes rooted in a people’s eternal home.

To this very day, Jews sing at their wedding the verses of Psalms 137:5-6: “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither; let my tongue stick to my palate if I cease to think of you, if I do not keep Jerusalem in memory even at my happiest hour.” Jerusalem is bound in memory, that same memory that reminds us of our history, our promise, our obligations.

Today, too, the Jewish people encircle Jerusalem. Jews bring their “first fruits” to the city not only in the form of produce, but through aliyah, prayer, innovation, and sovereignty. Just as in ancient days, the city transforms personal blessings into collective covenant.

And yet, the world still questions that rootedness. Governments refuse to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Diplomats condemn the building of homes in areas like E1 — the very corridor that links Jerusalem to the rest of the land, enabling Jews from north, south, east, and west to come to their eternal city.

Ki Tavo reminds us that Jerusalem cannot be negotiable. To encircle it, to build in it and around it, is not a matter of politics but of foundational principle. Without Jerusalem at the center, our fruits risk becoming mere produce, and the people risk becoming wanderers once more.

Parshat Re’eh and E1: Gathering the Nation Around Jerusalem Then and Now

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Parshat Re’eh commands the Jewish people:

“Three times a year all your males shall appear before Hashem your God in the place He will choose—on the Festival of Matzot [Pesach], on the Festival of Weeks [Shavuot], and on the Festival of Booths. [Sukkot]” (Deuteronomy 16:16).

At a time when the tribes of Israel were destined to live across a wide and varied land—from the Galilee to the Negev, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan Valley and beyond—this commandment ensured that all Jews, regardless of tribe or geography, would remain bound to a single center: the place “He will choose:” Jerusalem.

Then: One City for One People

The pilgrimage festivals were not simply religious obligations; they were national glue.

  • Unity in Diversity: Each tribe had its own territory, customs, and leadership. But Jerusalem reminded them that they were not twelve separate entities—they were one nation.
  • Physical Connection: The journey itself—families traveling for days from north, south, east, and west, THREE TIMES A YEAR—kept every Jew intimately connected to the city at the nation’s core.
  • Spiritual Focus: No matter how far they lived, Jews oriented their lives toward Jerusalem.

Without this ritual of convergence, the tribes might have drifted apart, their shared purpose diluted by distance and difference.

Now: Re-Centering Around Jerusalem

Fast forward over three millennia. Jerusalem is once again the capital of a sovereign Jewish state. But the modern challenge is becoming increasingly less about tribal dispersion, with Jews in the holy land making up a plurality of Jews – it is geopolitical pressure and strategic vulnerability.

Recent government plans to develop the area known as E1, just east of Jerusalem, have sparked international controversy. Critics claim the project is “obstructive to peace.” It’s an absurd claim. Supporters see it differently: as an essential step to connect Jewish communities around the capital, ensuring that Jerusalem remains safe and accessible and central to Jews from north, south, east, and west.

The parallels to Re’eh are striking:

  • Geographic Cohesion: Just as ancient pilgrimage routes tied the tribes together, modern infrastructure links surrounding communities to Jerusalem.
  • National Identity: Building around Jerusalem reinforces its role not just as a city, but as the beating heart of Jewish life.
  • Defying Fragmentation: Where outside forces seek to carve up and isolate Jerusalem, development ensures continuity and connection.

Jerusalem: The Eternal Center

Parshat Re’eh’s vision was never merely about geography—it was about survival through unity. When Jews journeyed to Jerusalem three times a year, they reaffirmed their covenant and their peoplehood. One God, one people.

Today, as Israel strengthens the areas around Jerusalem, it is engaged in the same mission: to keep the Jewish people close to their capital, secure in their homeland, and united across generations.

Then as now, Jerusalem is not just a place—it is the center of a people.

The Old City of Jerusalem including the Jewish Temple Mount on the holiday of Sukkot

Resolution Recognizing The Jewish Temples Stood On The Temple Mount in Jerusalem

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In an ongoing insult to Jews around the world, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said at the 32nd Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Central Council meeting on April 23, 2025 that the two Jewish “Temples were in Yemen.”

PA President Abbas claiming the Jewish Temples were in Yemen, April 23, 2025

Abbas falsified history in an attempt to deny Jews any rights or privileges at their holiest location. The fact that it was an insult to over 2 billion Christians who believe that Jesus was in Jerusalem and not Sanaa was a slight he was willing to make to claim the site as purely Islamic.

The United Nations adopted the same position. In a 1949 map of the holy places in Jerusalem, the Temple Mount was marked as only holy to Muslims, while the Western Wall was marked as holy to both Muslims and Jews.

1949 UN map of Jerusalem’s holy places

The United States should therefore adopt a resolution called “Status of the Temple Mount,” similar to the twisted United Nations resolutions called “Status of Jerusalem,” to correct the wrong. Its passage in Congress will serve as a template for other countries to adopt before being submitted to the United Nations General Assembly.

Key phrases should be included in the resolution, to combat the disgraceful UN remarks about Jewish rights:

  • The United States abhors the “aggressive and dangerous” comments made by the president of the Palestinian Authority which “could inflame tensions and lead to a religious war that has no boundaries.”
  • Comments made by the PA president “serve the forces of extremism around the world.”
  • Incendiary remarks that deny Jews their heritage and history “do absolutely nothing to improve the lives of Palestinian Arabs,” and simply “push back the Middle East peace process.”
  • “The Temple Mount built by King Herod two thousand years ago has been and will always be the holiest location of Judaism.”

On December 9, 2021, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) expressed his disgust with a December 3 UN General Assembly resolution about Jerusalem saying “The recent vote by the United Nations disavowing Jewish historical ties and exclusivity to the Temple Mount—the holiest and most sacred Temple in Judaism—is an outrageous act of religious persecution. This is a transparent effort, supported by 129 nations but opposed by the United States, to rewrite history, cleanse the holy area of its religious ties to the Jewish faith and deny that Israel has roots to the Middle East…. The Jewish Temple, located in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City, is holy ground to Jews and it belongs solely to their faith.  I object to any effort to ethnically cleanse the Jewish people from their sole historic claim to this land and temple.”

It is time for U.S. Congress to endorse a resolution to correct the shameful religious persecution and ethnic cleansing of Jews, by passing the “Status of the Temple Mount” resolution.

ACTION ITEM

Write Paul Gosar (if you are in his district), your representatives in Congress and the White House (comments@whitehouse.gov) to clearly stand by historic truth and correct the ongoing slander and religious persecution of Jews. “In light of the ongoing antisemitic insults by the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations, please pass a resolution which clearly states that the Jewish Temples stood on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem and that the site has been the holiest site for Jews for 3,000 years. https://primarybowman.com/2025/04/29/resolution-recognizing-the-jewish-temples-stood-on-the-temple-mount-in-jerusalem/“

Related articles:

More Muslims Visit The Jewish Temple Mount / Al Aqsa Mosque On Single Day Than All Jews Over The Past Year (March 2025)

At The Story Of Chanukah, There Was No Temple Mount… (December 2024)

The United States Is “Morally, Historically, and Politically Wrong” About Jewish Prayer on Temple Mount (October 2023)

Dividing The Temple Mount Into Jewish And Muslim Sections (June 2023)

The Inalienable Right of Jews to Pray on The Temple Mount (November 2021)

Dignity for Israel: Jewish Prayer on the Temple Mount (May 2017)

The Waqf and the Temple Mount (April 2015)

“Frightening” Jerusalem Passover Visits For Radical Muslims: 1 Evangelical and 180 Jews

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Mike Huckabee, the new U.S. Ambassador to Israel, landed in the holy land to assume his new role and immediately went to the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple Mount. It is the holiest site where Jews can pray today, so he used the opportunity to address Jews in a call for peace.

Huckabee carried a small paper note from U.S. President Donald Trump praying for peace, which Huckabee inserted into a small crack in the ancient wall. He told those gathered that he and the president prayed that all the hostages violently taken by Gazans would be released to their families soon.

Mike Huckabee speaking at Western Wall about the “Judeo-Christian understanding that every life has worth and value.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that Huckabee’s appointment as ambassador to Israel will “undermine the rights and safety of Muslim and Christian Palestinians, including American citizens living in or traveling to the region.” Somehow, a man devoted to peace for everyone – including Jews – and freedom for everyone – including hostages – is a threat to radical Muslim groups like CAIR and the Islamic Waqf.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, wearing a hostage support yellow ribbon pin, places a note into the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple Mount, during Passover 2025

On the same day, Israel increased the number of Jewish visitors onto the Temple Mount to 180 at a time to accommodate demand. These were the largest sized groups according to the Islamic Waqf coming to “al Aqsa Mosque.” Aouni Bazbaz, head of international affairs for the waqf told Middle East Eye that the scene was “frightening” and portended Jews seeking to divide the holy compound into Jewish and Muslim sections like the Cave of the Jewish Matriarchs and Patriarchs in Hebron.

To put the 180-person Jewish group in context, during Ramadan last month, Israel banned Jews visiting the site while 90,000 Muslims visited for prayers without putting anyone into a “group” for security. No one in Israel called the massive number of Muslim visitors “frightening.”

To add insult to the waqf’s smear, Bazbaz said Israel’s allowing both Jews and Muslims to pray in Hebron was “apartheid” and likely to happen in Jerusalem.

Islamic extremists want a purely Muslim holy land in the Jewish homeland, without basic human rights like prayer for non-Muslims. Dignity for other faiths is labeled “apartheid” in slurs likely to be adopted by the United Nations and “human rights” groups.

Related articles:

More Muslims Visit The Jewish Temple Mount / Al Aqsa Mosque On Single Day Than All Jews Over The Past Year (March 2025)

Palestinians Use Jewish Temple Mount To Incite Riot On International Al Quds Day (April 2024)

While Over A Million Muslims Visit Al Aqsa Mosque Over Ramadan, Hamas Claims Palestinians Banned And Calls For Global Jihad (May 2023)

Replacing the Jordanian Waqf on The Temple Mount (July 2020)

The Waqf and the Temple Mount (April 2015)

Take Action To End “East Jerusalem”

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The New York Times is accelerating its attempt to redefine facts and U.S. policy, especially in regards to the State of Israel.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than attempts to educate its readers that “East Jerusalem,” is an actual city, even though it existed for only 18 years in its 4,000 year history from 1949-1967 because of war.

The Times wrote “East Jerusalem” no less than SIX times in an article on March 7 about a Hamas leader’s release from prison. Using the phrase repeatedly was meant to grant another victory to Hamas, in its “Al Aqsa Flood” war.

At the fifth mention of “East Jerusalem,” the Times wrote that “Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 war in a move not recognized by most of the international community.” So what? Most of the “international community” considers homosexuality a disgusting offense and crime, yet the Times doesn’t append such comments when discussing the gay community.

The United States recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and only Israel. When President Donald Trump issued his statement of official recognition, he specifically referred to holy sites in the Old City of eastern Jerusalem saying “Jerusalem is not just the heart of three great religions, but it is now also the heart of one of the most successful democracies in the world. Over the past seven decades, the Israeli people have built a country where Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and people of all faiths are free to live and worship according to their conscience and according to their beliefs. Jerusalem is today, and must remain, a place where Jews pray at the Western Wall, where Christians walk the Stations of the Cross, and where Muslims worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

Jerusalem has been reunited under Israel for decades and the U.S. embassy in Israel straddles the area that was considered “no man’s land” during those horrible years of 1949 to 1967. It is time to be explicit that the United States recognizes the unified city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and does not recognize any place called “East Jerusalem.”

Location of new U.S. embassy to Israel

The Trump administration can cement such understanding with blessing Israel’s expansion of Jerusalem eastward in an area known as “E1.”

ACTION ITEM

Write the White House comments@whitehouse.gov to clearly state that the U.S. recognizes all of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and endorse construction of homes in E1.

Write The New York Times CORRECTION editors corrections@nytimes.com to stop calling a place “East Jerusalem” or to similarly change policy for all historically divided capitals referencing East and West Berlin as well as East and West Beirut and in its articles.

related articles:

Next Paradigm Shift In Israel-Palestinian Conflict (January 2025)

NY Times Manufactures “Palestinian East Jerusalem” Narrative (April 2021)

Trump’s “eastern Jerusalem” and Biden’s “East Jerusalem” (May 2020)

Abbas’s Harmful East Jerusalem Fantasy (September 2018)

The Arguments over Jerusalem (May 2015)

The Democrats’ Slide on Israel (July 2014)

Jerusalem, and a review of the sad state of divided capitals in the world (May 2014)

Van Hollen Is Grossly Ignorant About Zionism And The Indignity Of UNSC 2334

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Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) aged 66, questioned a young Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), aged 40, during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee vetting process for the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. It’s a short five-minute video and worth watching the entire exchange.

At 1:07, Van Hollen pointed his questions to adhering to UN Security Council resolutions and tied it to the Israeli-Arab conflict. Van Hollen said “long term peace must include security, self-determination and dignity for Israelis and Palestinian alike,” and added that “we should stand up and protect universal human rights and self-determination for all people, including both Israelis and Palestinians.”

He questioned Stefanik’s contention that Jews have a “Biblical right” to the land of Israel, and concluded his remarks at 4:59 by mansplaining that “when it comes to this very difficult issue [Jews living and praying in the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem], if the president is going to succeed at bringing peace and stability to the Middle East, we’re going to have to look at the UN Security Council resolutions – not just the ones on Lebanon, which we should enforce – but other UN Security Council resolutions [implying UNSC 2334], and it’s going to be very difficult to achieve that if you continue to hold the view that you just expressed [that Jews have a right to live and pray in Jerusalem and the West Bank], which is a view that was not held by the founders of the State of Israel who were secular Zionists, not religious Zionists.”

Some education is in order for this senator who airs his ignorance and Palestinian Arabs’ false propaganda so publicly:

  • David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and secular Zionist said to the British authorities in January 1937 before the Peel Commission which discussed limiting Jews to certain areas of Palestine that “Our right to the Land of Israel does not stem from the Mandate and the Balfour Declaration. It precedes those. The Bible is our mandate… I can state in the name of the Jewish People: The Bible is our mandate, the Bible that was written by us in our Hebrew language, and in this land itself, is our mandate. Our historical right has existed since our beginnings as the Jewish People, and the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate recognize and confirm that right.” The secular Zionist Ben Gurion explicitly tied the right of Jews in the land to the Bible.
  • Ben Gurion referenced the original Hebrew language of the Bible, which became and remains the official language of the Jewish State, the only country which speaks in the biblical tongue.
  • When Ben Gurion read Israel’s Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948 which he helped draft, the first lines were “ERETZ-ISRAEL [(Hebrew) – The Land of Israel] was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.” The “land of Israel” encompasses the entire Jewish Promised Land, not new borders concocted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1947.
David Ben Gurion declaring the State of Israel on May 14, 1948

Further, Van Hollen fails to comprehend that his various statements do not complement each other but CONTRADICT each other. One cannot adhere to every UN Security Council resolution and simultaneously respect the dignity and human rights of Jews.

UNSC 2334, which passed in the waning days of the Obama administration, tramples on basic human rights and dignity of Jews by denying their right to live and pray in their holiest location in the Old City of Jerusalem.

There is NO “inalienable right” for Palestinians to have a state, only self determination, and there IS an “inalienable right” for Jews to pray on the Jewish Temple Mount. Yet the United Nations and Van Hollen pretend otherwise.

If the basic parameters of Palestinian dignity is to deny Jewish dignity, then there is no scenario in which there is “dignity for Israelis and Palestinians alike” which Van Hollen ignores.

The United Nations is deeply broken and amoral, yet Senator Van Hollen seeks to prop it up as something holy, a pagan temple amongst the socialist-jihadi alliance. Rep. Elise Stefanik intends to act like the Jewish patriarch Abraham when she enters the United Nations, who shattered the false idols in his father’s store. She is poised to enter that dark chamber and shed light on its systemic depravity.

Representative Elise Stefanik at her Senate confirmation hearing. (Photo: Tom Brenner for The New York Times)

Abraham’s actions 3,700 years ago launched monotheism. Perhaps the end of the United Nations’ sacred cows will usher in a period when Jews and Judaism will be openly and widely recognized on the Temple Mount and throughout Jerusalem.

ACTION ITEM

Contact Sen. Van Hollen’s office and let him know what you think of his comments. Feel free to send this article. DC phone: (202) 224-4654. Contact your representatives as well.

Related articles:

NO Country Has A Right To Exist. Israel SHOULD Exist (January 2024)

The Green Line Through Jerusalem (May 2020)

Tolerance at the Temple Mount (November 2014)

Next Paradigm Shift In Israel-Palestinian Conflict

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President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to unleash “hell” on the U.S.-designated Palestinian terrorist group Hamas if it does not immediately release all of the hostages it took from Israel. These pages have talked about possible actions which include labeling the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority and Hamas-affiliated UNRWA as terrorist groups, stripping tax-exempt status for organizations which support them, and banning Hamas-mouthpiece Al Jazeera from U.S. government briefings.

On the heels of such actions in the international arena, Hamas’s normalization of mass-scale atrocities and rank antisemitic genocidal aspirations must be forever quashed in the holy land. Therefore, the United States should greenlight Israel’s development of the area known as “E1” just east of Jerusalem, all the way until the town of Ma’ale Adumim.

No country in the world places its capital city on a border as it makes the nerve center of a country vulnerable to attack. This is especially true for the Jewish State which is surrounded by countries intent on destroying it.

The region has gone through many paradigm shifts since the end of the Ottoman Empire. The October 7, 2023 massacre by thousands of Palestinian Arab terrorists, the support for the terrorists, their aims, and their continued insistence on perpetuating the war by not surrendering the hostages is another reminder that the end of the conflict will require the decimation of the terrorists and guardrails against an ability to accomplish their objectives.

The “Al Aqsa Flood’ in which the genocidal jihadists sought to ethnically cleanse Jews from their holiest city could be extinguished with the building of homes throughout E1, protecting Jerusalem from malevolent actors.

Jerusalem as seen from Hebrew University (photo: First One Through)