Tag Archives: Jerusalem

Tolerance at the Temple Mount

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The Temple Mount in Jerusalem has become the focus of much debate both between religions (Islam and Judaism) and between different segments within a religion (Judaism). At its core, the debate is whether the most fervent believers continue to dictate the religious practices of everyone at the Temple Mount, or whether there is a place for a pluralistic approach to prayer.

 The Temple Mount

The Temple Mount is a 35 acre platform built by the Jewish King Herod over 2000 years ago. The platform held the second Temple, built around 515BCE until it was destroyed by the Romans in 70CE. The site of the two Temples (the first one lasted from around 954BCE to 586BCE), is considered Judaism’s holiest spot. It is now occupied by the Dome of the Rock, a gilded shrine built by Caliph Abd al-Malik in 691, and later richly adorned in 1561 by Suleiman I into the building we recognize now.

Al Aqsa is the only mosque on the Temple Mount. It is considered the third most holy site in Islam. It was built in its current configuration in 754CE, and sits on the far southern edge of the platform, in an area that did not exist until Herod expanded the platform southward 800 years earlier.

 Jews and the Temple Mount

In 1948, five Arab armies invaded Israel in an attempt to destroy the nascent Jewish State. Jordan seized Judea and Samaria and much of eastern Jerusalem including the Old City which contained the Temple Mount. The Jordanians then expelled all Jews from the territory it conquered (including the Old City) and the area later became known as the “West Bank”.

In 1967, the Jordanians and Palestinians attacked Israel again and lost all of the West Bank including the eastern part of Jerusalem. Rather than take full control of the Temple Mount, the Israelis handed religious control of the Temple Mount compound to the Waqf- the Islamic religious order run from Jordan, and assumed security control. The Jordanians continued to prohibit Jews from worshiping anywhere on the Temple Mount, even in areas far removed from the Al Aqsa Mosque, such as areas Muslim families used for picnics and football.

Many Jews are unhappy about the ban on Jews worshiping at their holiest spot on earth. People such as Rabbi Yehuda Glick made many arguments to Israeli authorities to loosen the anti-Jewish restrictions. For those efforts, he was shot in October 2014 by Palestinian Arabs after acting-President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, incited his followers to “defend Al Alqsa by whatever means possible”, even though Jews who visited the Temple Mount never entered, nor attempted to enter, the mosque.

Liberal media outfits branded the Jews who sought the right to pray “right-wing extremists”. The New York Times referred to Glick and others as “agitators”. The “agitators” calls for equal prayer rights were considered outlandish. The opening paragraphs of a 10/30/14 New York Times article:

“An Israeli-American agitator who has pushed for more Jewish access and rights
at a hotly contested religious site in Jerusalem was shot and seriously wounded Wednesday night by an unidentified assailant in an apparent assassination attempt.

The shooting of the activist, Yehuda Glick, compounded fears of further violence
in the increasingly polarized holy city, where tensions are already high over fears
of a new Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.”

Glick was not alone in seeking greater religious rights for people in Jerusalem.

 Women of the Wall

The “Western Wall” or the “Kotel” is part of the western retaining wall that Herod built to increase the size of Temple Mount. For many centuries, the Kotel was one of the areas closest to Judaism’s holiest site, which Jews could access. While several other spots on the retaining wall were closer to the site of the Jewish Temples, they were either very small, hard to access or considered unsafe. As such, the Western Wall achieved the status of Judaism’s holiest site because Jews could practically use the site for prayers.

After Israel reunited Jerusalem in 1967, it demolished the buildings in front of the Kotel and made a large plaza where thousands of Jews could pray. It gave religious control of the plaza to the Orthodox rabbinate to oversee religious activities. Those rabbis have restricted prayers to only be in the orthodox tradition.

In 1988, a group of feminist Jewish women who objected to the restrictions of the Orthodox rabbinate, formed a group seeking the right to pray at the Kotel in a manner of their own choosing. The Women of the Wall (WOW) were predominantly “progressive” orthodox women that believed that women wearing a tallit, tefillin and using a Torah were “kosher” actions under orthodoxy, if they prayed only with other women. However, the Orthodox rabbis use a more traditional approach to prayer and have established laws which prohibit those women from praying in their desired fashion at the Kotel.

In October 2014, WOW brought a miniature Torah to the Kotel and held a bat mitzvah on the women’s side of the plaza. The rabbis did not attack the women but stated that they will seek to prevent women from holding such services in the future.

Liberal media such as the New York Times did not refer to these women who broke the law and challenged the religious status quo as “right-wing extremists” or “agitators” but “advocates”. The opening paragraphs of the 10/25/14 article stated:

“Members of a group advocating equal prayer rights for women at the Western Wall,
one of Judaism’s holiest sites, held its first full bat mitzvah there Friday,
fooling the strict male Orthodox overseers by sneaking in a miniature Torah scroll
that was read with a magnifying glass for the ceremony.

The action by the group, Women of the Wall, signaled a new phase of activity
after years of legal and religious struggles that have reverberated
among progressive Jews around the world.”

The battles for pluralism at Jerusalem’s holy sites by the activists were the same. The actions of both Glick and WOW were non-violent. However the reactions to their activities were polar opposites:

  • the Palestinian authorities incited violence on the Temple Mount; the rabbinate called for stricter law enforcement at the Kotel
  • the world demanded that Israel maintain the status quo of barring all Jewish prayer at their holiest site; the world was silent on how Jewish denominations pray at the Kotel
  • Liberal media described the Temple Mount religious activists as “right wing extremists”; the media lauded the “activity” of “progressive Jews” seeking “equality”
  • Rabbi Glick was shot four times at point blank range and the acting Palestinian leader called the shooter a martyr destined for heaven; the Women of the Wall celebrated the bat mitzvah peacefully and decorum at the Kotel was maintained
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly told the Muslim world that he would maintain the anti-Jewish “status quo” edicts on the Temple Mount; the Jewish State is examining enacting new laws and new spaces along the Kotel for other religious denominations

Does liberal support of activism end when it elicits violence? Should Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani woman who defied Taliban law to not attend school, be described as an “agitator”? The world embraced Malala and awarded her the Nobel Peace Prize in the same month as the Glick shooting and WOW bat mitzvah. Will “progressives” and “liberals” rally to Rabbi Glick and advance the cause for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount? What do you think?

Sources:

Abbas call to defend al aqsa mosque: http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=12915

CAMERA on the Temple Mount: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=4&x_article=1404

Women of the Wall: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/WOW.html

Women of the wall use torah for bat mitzvah: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/world/middleeast/women-hold-western-wall-bat-mitzvah-in-jerusalem.html?_r=0

Shooting of Rabbi Glick: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/world/middleeast/right-wing-israeli-activist-shot-jerusalem.html

Malala Nobel prize: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2014/yousafzai-facts.html

Related First One Through articles:

“Extremist” or “Courageous”

The United Nations and Holy Sites in the Holy Land

The Arguments over Jerusalem

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The Battle for Jerusalem

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The Battle for Jerusalem was been waged for many years.

In October 2014, the acting Palestinian Authority President Abbas took umbrage at Jews moving into homes they purchased in Silwan- an area that was originally settled by Jews.  Abbas called for hard labor and life imprisonment (or death) for any Arab that sold land to a Jew. There was no reaction from the world to Abbas’s racist edict.

The October comments from Abbas continued with a call to prohibit any Jew from praying on the Temple Mount. He then insisted that no Jews should be allowed to live anywhere east of the 1949 Armistice lines, including in heavily populated Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

The stated rationale for the comments to try to mask the anti-Semitism was that such moves “threaten a two state solution”. That is absurd.

A two state solution can exist very easily- it just would not have a new Palestine with everything that Abbas would like.  Specifically, Jerusalem.

The Israelis have already split the “Holy Basin” proposed in the 1947 UN Partition Plan by giving the Palestinians Bethlehem.  The other half of the basin, Jerusalem, would remain Israeli.  Keeping Jerusalem as the united capital of Israel in no way threatens the viability of a new Palestinian State.

Here is the music video (The Who) that reviews the tired and flawed arguments Palestinian supporters used in fighting the development of E1, east of Jerusalem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIXimxfeuS8

Sources:

Laws of Silwan: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/real-and-imagined-laws-of-living-in-silwan/

Abbas call for “hard labor” if sell land to Jews: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Abbas-adds-hard-labor-to-punishment-for-Palestinians-who-sell-land-to-hostile-countries-379350

Abbas, the racist, calling Israel racist: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/abbas-knows-racism/

Abbas call for banning Jews on Temple Mount: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4581262,00.html

Abbas against Jews in eastern Jerusalem: http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-calls-for-emergency-un-security-council-meeting-on-jerusalem/

Short Palestinian control of Jerusalem: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/east-jerusalem-the-0-5-molehill/

Obama complicit in agreeing to Abbas racism: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/10/02/obama-supports-anti-semitic-palestinian-agenda-of-jew-free-state/

Real and Imagined Laws of Living in Silwan

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The New York Times deliberately misrepresented opinion as law to disparage Israel, and omitted actual Palestinian laws to hide Arab racism. As such, the paper fully embraced anti-Semitism and the principle of segregation if it prohibits Jews from living in predominantly Arab neighborhoods.

In an article on October 16, 2014 called “A House-by-House Struggle for Control of a Jerusalem Neighborhood”, the NYT’s Isabel Kershner had an opening paragraph that could have been taken from Mein Kampf in describing secretive, cheating and stealing Jews:

“In the dark of night, under the protection of Israeli security forces, Jewish settlers took possession of some 25 housing units in six locations around the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem… Many of the properties had been rented out, but they were strangely empty when the settlers arrived… Through a multimillion-dollar series of complex and shadowy transactions spanning several years,
Elad engineered the largest private settlement initiative in decades.”

[By way of comparison, here is a quote from Hitler’s Mein Kampf: “they (Jews) try to cheat the whole world with their tricks; they are lazy, but with their pretended ‘silent’ work they create the appearance of an enormous and equally laborious activity; in short, they are cheats, characters of political profiteering, who hate the honest work of others. Just as such a folkish moth always appeals to the darkness of the silence, one can bet a thousand to one that under its cover he does not produce, but only steals steals from the fruits of the labor of others”] 

The article goes on to describe and suggest that it is illegal for Jews to buy homes in the eastern part of Jerusalem. That suggestion is both untrue and racist. Here are the facts:

  • Silwan was established by Yemenite Jews in 1881. It was one of the first developments outside the city walls of Jerusalem, while the area was part of the Ottoman Empire.
  • Jews have been an established majority in Jerusalem since the 1860s.
  • The Ottomans did not impose any limits on where Jews could live.
  • When Britain took over Palestine as part of the League of Nations Palestine Mandate in 1922, the mandate specifically stated (Article 15) that no one should be barred from living in the area because of their religion.
  • The Palestinians rioted in 1936-9, killing hundreds of Jews, and effectively lobbied the British to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine. But even under those new anti-Jewish rules, there was no prohibition of Jews living in the eastern part of Jerusalem.
  • Jerusalem and Bethlehem were designated to be an international “Holy Basin” according to the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan, and was to be neither part of Israel or Palestine. Both Arab and Jew were free to live anywhere in the Basin.
  • Silwan, and much of the eastern half of Jerusalem was forcibly cleansed of Jews when the Palestinians and Jordanians initiated a war against the Jewish State in 1948, and the Jordanians illegally annexed the eastern half of the city. The Jordanians and Palestinians barred any Jews from even visiting the eastern half of the city.
  • The Jordanians granted Palestinian Arabs citizenship and denied giving any citizenship to Jews in the lands they forcibly conquered (including eastern Jerusalem), making it illegal for Jews to own land there.
  • The Jordanians and Palestinians launched another attack on Israel in 1967, only to lose the eastern half of Jerusalem in that war.

These facts were completely ignored. The only information discussed about the settling of Silwan described: “territory that Israel conquered from Jordan in the 1967 war and then annexed, in a move that was never internationally recognized. Most of the world considers the area illegally occupied by Israel”

The suggestion that Israel’s annexation (as a result of a defensive war) is considered illegal by “most of the world” and therefore means that Jews are forbidden to live there is completely misleading and untrue.

  • The Israeli territory of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) is administered by Israel. Israel approves housing for both Arabs and Jews there, and in the eastern part of Jerusalem which they annexed.
  • International law against the forcible transfer of a population has nothing to do with individual rights of buying and living in a property of their own choosing.

The NYT article successfully: 1) described Jews the way Hitler did; 2) gave no background of the long and legal history of the Jews living in the eastern part of Jerusalem; 3) implied illegal activity of Jews buying and moving into their homes when such action is legal.

What the Times article deliberately failed to describe was the actual illegal activity – according to the Palestinian Authority – for any Arab to sell land to a Jew.

Palestinian law bans the selling of land to a Jew, punishable by death. Not only was that law not mentioned in this or any NYT article, Kershner deliberately hid this racist Palestinian law in the article with a false narrative: “At a stormy meeting of about 100 [Palestinian] residents and activists in a children’s playground soon afterward, participants denounced the [real estate] brokers and called for them to be publicly named and cast out of their clans. The Palestinian Authority has no jurisdiction in Jerusalem, but there is a history of vigilante justice: In the 1990s, some local land dealers accused of selling property to Jews were kidnapped and killed.”

First, note how the article called Jews “settlers” and Arabs are called “residents”. Both parties are residents and neighbors in the same block. Is the New York Times so against coexistence that each party needs a distinct label?

Second, the article correctly points out that the Palestinian Authority has no jurisdiction in the area, but it describes the actions of “residents and activists” of “vigilante justice” making the actions appear random, unauthorized and opposed by the “moderate” Palestinian Authority. The fact is that property sales are considered a capital offense and Palestinian courts have handed out death sentences for the sale of land to Jews.

The New York Times’ illusion of Jews taking property by force in the dark of the night is outrageous. The secretive nature of the purchase was to protect the Arabs that sold the property from being killed by fellow Arabs according to Palestinian law.

The purchase of apartments by individual Jews in their holiest and capital city in a neighborhood founded by Jews is completely legal. The fact that they had to act discretely in their purchases because of racist Palestinian laws is a travesty that should anger the world – about Palestinians, not the Israelis.

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Sources:

NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/world/middleeast/a-house-by-house-struggle-for-control-of-a-jerusalem-neighborhood.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

Yeminite Jews in Silwan: http://www.meforum.org/3281/silwan

1922 League of Nations Mandate: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp

1939 White Paper: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/brwh1939.asp

Jordan’s nationality law (article 3) excluding Jews: http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b4ea13.html

FirstOneThrough on the 800,000 Arabs moving to Palestine during the British Mandate: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/07/03/whos-new-everybody/

Abbas on Jew-free Palestine: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/07/30/abbas-arabs-in-israel-no-jews-in-palestine-peace-process/

Short history of Palestinians+Jordanians controlling Jerusalem: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/east-jerusalem-the-0-5-molehill/

PA Land Law: http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/PA-affirms-death-penalty-for-land-sales-to-Israelis

Jordan attacking Israel 1967 according to King Hussein: http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/his_periods3.html

Palestinian courts handing death sentence for land sale to Jews: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2009/04/2009429105147715724.html

Mein Kampf: https://archive.org/stream/meinkampf035176mbp/meinkampf035176mbp_djvu.txt

The anthem of Israel is Jerusalem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wulmUGVG3jA

Obama endorsing Jew-free state: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/10/02/obama-supports-anti-semitic-palestinian-agenda-of-jew-free-state/

 

The United Nations “Provocation”

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On October 13 2014, the UN Secretary General parroted Palestinian propaganda perfectly with “provocations”.

Using the term “provocation” does many things: it puts all of the blame completely on the person doing the provocation, and it implies that everything would be peaceful if the initiating party were not being belligerent.

The Palestinians deliberately voted for war when they elected Hamas to 58% of the government in 2006. They have made their preference for war and Hamas clear in poll after poll since that time, the latest being August 2014 which showed Hamas winning 61% of the vote. Just because the world prevents new Palestinian elections from occurring and leaves a straw-man in Abbas to act as president for six years after his term ran out, does not change that fundamental reality. The Palestinian war is eight years running with Israel responding three times (Cast Lead; Pillar of Defense; Protective Edge).

UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon described the Israeli “provocation” of Jews moving into homes in the eastern part of Jerusalem. As detailed in the FirstOneThrough article below, the idea that there should be Jew-free zones is: blatantly anti-Semitic; was only instituted by the Palestinians and Jordanians from 1949-1967; and is against international law (including from the prior incarnation of the UN itself, the League of Nations), in the Palestine Mandate which forbade barring anyone from living in Palestine solely due to their religion.

Palestinians (and Jordanians) have used the term “provocations” often regarding Israeli action in Jerusalem. Some of those “provocations” have included actions such as:

  • Rebuilding a synagogue that the Jordanians destroyed
  • Building an exit for tourists at an archaeological site
  • Visiting the holiest site for Jews during regular visiting hours (and not going near Muslim sites)

A political music video on “provocations” with music by The Clash (Rock the Cashbah):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3fKXyxKixE

The rebuilt Hurva Synagogue (the original dates back 250 years)

Sources:

UN Secretary on “provocation” (start at 10:10): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckX3Ut-r_Mw

Abbas, the straw man for 6 years: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/the-disappointing-46-anniversary/

The illegality and racism of suggesting a Jew-free region in Palestine: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/10/02/obama-supports-anti-semitic-palestinian-agenda-of-jew-free-state/

 

 

 

Obama supports Anti-Semitic Palestinian Agenda of Jew-Free State

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US President Obama again made his opinion clear that he supports Acting-President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas’ calls for creating a Jew-free country.

President Obama told visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in October 2014, that the US is against both Jews building new homes and against Jews moving into existing homes in areas that Abbas wants to keep Jew-free.

The Obama administration comments were in response to two events: planned construction of 2600 new homes in Givat Hamatos and six Jewish families moving into homes they purchased in the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Silwan. Both neighborhoods are in the eastern part of Jerusalem.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said “The US condemns the recent occupation of residential buildings in the neighborhood of Silwan by people whose agenda provokes tensions.” Note this Obama condemnation was not about building a new town in a remote region of the West Bank; this was about Jews buying and moving into existing houses in Jerusalem.  The reason?  Because it makes the Arabs angry.

Abbas has been on record that he doesn’t want any Jewish presence in a future Palestinian country.  He wants Israel to keep Jews out of potential Palestinian land now so he won’t have to evict them or pay them compensation to leave later (similar to the compensation he expects Israel to pay to Arabs who left property in 1948). In July 2013, Abbas said “In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands.”

Blatantly anti-Semitic statements from Palestinian leadership which call for banning Jews from the region is not new. In the Arab riots of 1936-9, Arabs effectively convinced the British to limit Jewish immigration to only 75,000 over the 1940-5 years, at the end of which time, Jews would be banned from moving to the country altogether. The Arabs and British took this action during the Holocaust in Europe, aiding in the murder of thousands of innocents who could have found refuge in their homeland, which the League of Nations had mandated 17 years earlier to be “national home for the Jewish people”. While the Jews were being killed in Europe, hundreds of thousands of Arabs from around the Middle East moved into Palestine.

Liberals could perhaps try to forgive Obama’s ignorance regarding Jews in the region – maybe he doesn’t know that:

  • Jews have consistently been a majority in Jerusalem since the 1860s- 100 years before the 1967 war;
  • Jews were always allowed to live throughout the land- including under the Ottomans for 500 years and then under the British Mandate;
  • Yemenite Jews were the original settlers of Silwan, back in 1882;
  • The League of Nations Palestine Mandate (1922) specifically stated that no one should be barred from living in the land due to religion: Article 15: “No person shall be excluded from Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief”;
  • The Palestinians and Jordanians started both the 1948 and 1967 wars which gave Israel half (in 1948) and then all of Jerusalem;
  • The Palestinians and Jordanians evicted all of the Jews from the eastern half of the city in 1949, barred the Jews from visiting the holy sites and are attempting to recreate that Jew-free environment in that part of the city today;
  • Jerusalem was never intended to be Jew-free or a Palestinian city according to the 1947 UN Partition Plan;
  • Israel already gave the Palestinians half of the “Holy Basin” when it gave control of Bethlehem to the Palestinian Authority;
  • In the more macro story:
    • Jews have lived in Jerusalem for over 3000 years – 1600 years before Islam brought the Arabs to Jerusalem;
    • Jerusalem is the holiest city for only one religion – Judaism;
    • Only one people – Jews – ever made Jerusalem its capital in its 4000 year history;
    • The identity of Israel is Jerusalem; it is the only country to have a national anthem ABOUT its capital

Beyond a willful ignorance of the long and deep history of the Jews in all of Jerusalem, how could the first African-American president of the United States advocate creating Jew-free zones, knowing first-hand about racism? Would Obama stand for a housing policy that barred blacks from living in Washington, DC?

How can the US support the Arabs’ racist suggestion that would bar Jews from living in Jerusalem?

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Sources:

Obama criticizing Netanyahu on new Jerusalem homes: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-02/obama-netanyahu-talks-clouded-as-u-s-slams-settlements.html

http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-israel-ties-in-crisis-over-east-jerusalem-building-plans/

Obama criticizing Jews living in Silwan: http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-israel-ties-in-crisis-over-east-jerusalem-building-plans/

Abbas on Jew-free Palestine: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/07/30/abbas-arabs-in-israel-no-jews-in-palestine-peace-process/

1922 League of Nations Mandate: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp

1939 White Paper: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/brwh1939.asp

Yeminite Jews in Silwan: http://www.meforum.org/3281/silwan

 

Related First One Through articles:

800,000 Arabs moving to Palestine during the British Mandate:

The anthem of Israel is Jerusalem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wulmUGVG3jA

Short history of Palestinians+Jordanians controlling Jerusalem

The Arguments over Jerusalem

Reading Roduren: “Unrest by Palestinians”

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On September 18, 2014, NY Times journalist Jodi Rudoren wrote yet another article light on history and description (regarding Palestinian violence and Jewish history) entitled “Unrest by Palestinians Surges in a Jerusalem Neighborhood“.

The article mentioned an “Israeli-owned gas station that was looted by masked youths who broke a pump and smashed windows.” What Roduren failed to mention was that the Arab riot included dozens of youths and adults who repeatedly threw firebombs at the gas pumps in an effort to ignite them and blow up the entire station.

Roduren described “a hill near where Jesus is said to have sat under a carob tree”. There was no nod to Samuel the Prophet or dozens of Jewish leaders who lived and preached in the area.

In yet another egregious example of understating Arab violence, Roduren wrote that Palestinians were arrested for “throwing rocks and other actions.” Those “other actions” included Arabs throwing Molotov cocktails at Jewish homes. An uninformed reader might think they were simply making “crude gestures toward Israeli soldiers” as Roduren wrote in the preceding paragraph.

According to the article, the start of the “tensions” arose from “the abductions and murders of three Israeli teenagers, followed by the gruesome abduction and murder of a Palestinian teenager, Muhammad Abu Khdeir, from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat on July 2, by Jewish extremists.” Note that the Israeli teenagers were not mentioned by name whereas the Palestinian boy was. There was no adjective for the murder of the Israelis, but the Palestinian murder was described as “gruesome”. There was no blame on Palestinians for the murder of three Israelis, but the sole Palestinian boy was killed by “Jewish extremists.” (FYI, when the New York Times reported on the arrest of the murderer of the Israeli teens, the man was simply mentioned by name and was not described as an Arab, a Muslim or an extremist.)

Roduren ignores a lot of highly relevant history in describing “East Jerusalem”. She writes that “Palestinians claim it as their future capital. Israel captured it from Jordan, along with the West Bank, in 1967, and later annexed some 27 square miles.” Neglected from this quick overview was that “Palestinians” were Jordanians in 1967, as they had Jordanian citizenship since 1950. It was the Jordanians (and Palestinians) who attacked Israel first in 1967, and Israel responded in self-defense. To state that “Israel captured it from Jordan”, ignores the reality that the Palestinians, together with the Jordanians, launched the attack on Israel.  Additionally, by beginning the overview of Jerusalem in 1967, ignores that:

  1. Jerusalem has had a Jewish majority since the 1860s;
  2. Arabs initiated attacks and killed Jews throughout Jerusalem well before Israel was even created including in 1920; 1929; 1936-9
  3. Jerusalem was never intended to be a Palestinian city according to the UN plan in 1947;
  4. the Jordanians and other Arab nations attacked Israel in 1948;
  5. the Jordanians illegally seized and annexed the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1949;
  6. the Palestinians became Jordanians in 1950, and were complicit in expelling all of the Jews from the eastern part of Jerusalem and barring their entry to the city and Jewish holy sites;
  7. the Jordanians (together with the Palestinians) initiated the attack on Israel in 1967.

The fact the Jordan gave up all claim to Jerusalem in 1988, and Israel gave control to half of the Holy Basin as described by the UN – Bethlehem – 20 years ago is ignored.

When Roduren described “300,000 of Jerusalem’s 830,000 residents are Palestinians. They are not citizens,” she deliberately misrepresented that they were offered Israeli citizenship, but declined.

Regarding the Temple Mount, Roduren refers to it by its Muslim name, the “Al Aqsa compound in the Old City has long been the site of sporadic clashes between Muslim and Jewish worshipers”. Other than denying the Jewish name of the holiest site in Judaism, the “long” history of conflict dates back well before 1967 when Muslim men attacked and killed Jews. Further, it is untrue to paint it as a mutual clash between parties – it was Jews who were repeatedly attacked by Arabs, not the other way around.

In describing the “nearly 100 attacks on the light rail system”, no party is mentioned in the violence, even though all of the attackers were Arabs. Instead, Roduren wrote that “Palestinians report attempted kidnappings, aggression and racist taunts by Jews.”

Roduren repeated her long-running narrative of painting the Arabs as indigenous and Jews as recent settlers. In the article, she refers to an Arab community leader “whose family dates back 800 years,” (she presents this as fact, not something the man simply claims). The fact is that the area discussed barely had any people living there: in 1922, the census reported a grand total of 333 persons in the neighborhood (and also reported that Jews were the majority, making up 54% of all of Jerusalem). Consider that during the British Mandate, over 800,000 Arabs from the Middle East moved to Palestine – hardly making the Arabs indigenous. By ignoring Jewish ties (as in only reporting Jesus’s history and calling the Temple Mount only by a Muslim name), Roduren tries to distance Jews from being the actual indigenous people of the region.

Maybe one day, the New York Times will finally print the undisputed fact that Jews have been the majority in Jerusalem for 100 years before the Six Day War. Perhaps the paper will finally call out the Palestinians when they instigate the violence. Yeah, right.

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Sources:

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Masked-Arabs-throw-rocks-bottles-of-paint-at-Jewish-school-bus-on-Mt-of-Olives-375967

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4571547,00.html

Murder of Israeli teenagers arrested: http://online.wsj.com/articles/israel-makes-first-arrest-in-teens-murder-case-1407315912

NY Times coverage of arrest of Palestinian who killed Israeli teenagers: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/world/middleeast/israeli-arrest-made-public-in-abduction-of-3-youths.html?_r=0

From Jordanian king’s own site about launching offensive against Israel in 1967: http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/his_periods3.html

1922 census: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isawiya#cite_note-Census1922-7

FirstOneThrough on East Jerusalem history: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/east-jerusalem-the-0-5-molehill/

800,000+ Arabs moved to Israel under the British Mandate: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/07/03/whos-new-everybody/

1920 riots in Jerusalem against the Jews: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Nebi_Musa_riots

Palestinian Xenophobia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQS1XVQR-Xc

Demographics of Jerusalem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerusalem

“East Jerusalem” – the 0.5% Molehill

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The Middle East is not short on drama. Things in the region are magnified by perfect faith and distorted by perceived foresight. The people in the land are The People of The Land. Their collective perspective has long ago been blurred by reading texts about ethereal matters too closely.

To wit, Arabs have stated a quest for a new country with a capital city they call “East Jerusalem”. The small matter that seems to escape them is that it doesn’t exist.

Jerusalem was founded 4000 years ago. In the city’s turbulent history, it reached religious heights and was vanquished many times. Still, in all but 19 of those 4000 years, it remained a single united city.

In 1947, the United Nations considered expanding the borders of the city and put forth a plan to create a “Holy Basin” which was to include Greater Jerusalem and Greater Bethlehem. The proposed entity would have housed the significant religious sites of the three monotheistic religions and been under international control. The Arabs rejected the proposal and five Arab armies attacked the new State of Israel in 1948 with the stated objective of destroying the country completely.

At the end of that war, the Jordanians seized and unilaterally annexed the eastern part of the Jerusalem and renamed it “East Jerusalem”. The joyful Jordanians gave the Palestinian Arabs Jordanian citizenship, but evicted all Jews from their “East Jerusalem”.

So the spiritual center of Judaism was stolen by the Jordanians. From 1949 to 1967, (0.5% of the city’s existence), the Jordanians banned Jews from the eastern part of Jerusalem.

In 1967, the Jordanians (which included Arabs from Palestine who were granted Jordanian citizenship) attacked Israel again, and lost the eastern half of the city. Israel dismantled the barbed wire that split the city and reunited Jerusalem. “East Jerusalem” existed no more.

In 1995, in an effort to establish peace in the region, Israel handed control of Bethlehem to the Palestinian Authority, thereby giving half of the “Holy Basin” to the Arabs.  The “Holy Basin” sat divided, but not Jerusalem.

Remarkably, despite the short dark blip in history 46 years ago, and current control of Bethlehem, the Arabs contend that East Jerusalem still exists and always existed. Should it surprise anyone that when it comes to Jerusalem, people would try to turn a 0.5% molehill into owning the Temple Mount?

The history of united + divided Jerusalem

The history of united + divided Jerusalem

When were Jews barred from living in Judea & Samaria?

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Jews have lived in Judea and Samaria for 3000+ years, except for windows of time when they were barred by the Romans, during the Crusades, and most recently, when the Jordanians attacked Israel and illegally annexed the area.  The Ottomans had no limit on Jews living there. The British also allowed Jews to live in the area.

No one denies that Israel administers the land and approves housing for Jews and non-Jews today. How could Israel only approve housing permits for non-Jews and deny the ability of Jews to live there?  How can people not condemn Abbas for suggesting Jews should be barred from the land?

 

The anthem of Israel is JERUSALEM

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There is only one country in the world whose anthem is all about its capital: Israel’s 2000 year hope is to be a free people in their Jewish homeland of Zion and JERUSALEM.

 

Jerusalem, and a review of the sad state of divided capitals in the world

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Divided capital cities are a sad result of wars.  No capitals get divided as a result of peace; they are unstable models.

-divided cities make up less than 1/1000th of 1% of all cities in the world
-divided cities are almost all less than 50,000 people
-most divided cities are split by a natural boundary like a river
>> none of that is true for Jerusalem

The only rationale of dividing Jerusalem is that Palestinian Arabs have asked for it as a capital, which is the same as Israel asking for it.

Three of the divided capitals in recent years – Beirut, Berlin and Jerusalem – have been reunited.  The last city – Nicosia, Cyprus – is still under negotiation to be reunited.