Take Action To End “East Jerusalem”

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

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

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)

The Bookend of Sheikh Jarrah Eviction?

In May 2021, Israeli courts ruled that Arab squatters would be evicted from homes owned by Israeli Jews in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood north of the Old City of Jerusalem. This action set off a mini war with Hamas in Gaza, and law enforcement never proceeded with the eviction.

There was another property dispute going on at that time in Silwan, just southeast of the Old City, a neighborhood founded by Yemenite Jews in the 1880s. The eviction of the Arabs, the Ghaith family, was similarly postponed and the family appealed the decision in Israeli courts and lost. For the past few weeks they have been advised to vacate the two-story building but refused. December 10 was set as the eviction date, and it happened this morning according to the Palestinian Authority-run media site, Wafa.

Wafa reporting on eviction from Silwan

Wafa reported the story from Gaza, a strange dynamic as the PA has no presence there. Presumably it was done to make the action look like a military takeover by “Israeli colonists, under the protection of the Israeli Occupation Forces.”

The United Nations had weighed in against Israel about the evictions on July 30, 2024 when it said “These [eviction] cases are examples of an ongoing systematic settlers’ campaign and application of a range of laws discriminatorily, to uproot Palestinians from their homes, take over their property and implant Israeli settlers in the heart of Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem.” Israel’s court disagreed and stated it was simply a real estate matter in returning the property to the rightful owners who had been ethnically cleansed from Silwan when Jordan invaded and illegally seized the land in the 1948/9 war.

The May 2021 mini war launched new terrorist groups east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL, “West Bank”) and set local Arabs on a genocidal path to kill Jewish civilians inside Israel. In March 2021, 18% of West Bank Arabs wanted to kill Jewish civilians; it rose to 57% by March 2023, close to the level of Gazan bloodlust.

The failed eviction of Arab squatters from Sheikh Jarrah in May 2021 initiated the soft launch of the massive war engulfing the region. Perhaps the December 2024 actual eviction of squatters from Silwan will mark the beginning of the end to the war.

Al Aqsa Mosque As A Safe Room?

After Iran fired over 180 missiles at Israel, Israel considered how to handle synagogue attendance during the Rosh Hashanah holiday. Synagogue attendance typically swells on the holy days, with even more secular Jews attending services. But most synagogues only have small mamads (safe rooms) to protect people during a shelling attack, so hundreds could be left unprotected during an attack.

The situation is even more dire at one of the largest synagogues in the world – the Western Wall Plaza at the Kotel – where thousands of Jews gather in the Old City of Jerusalem. The large outdoor location has few easily accessible places to hide from missiles.

Perhaps the grey-domed al Aqsa Mosque can be used by thousands of Jews as a safe room from jihadi missiles. The jihadists would presumably try to spare their religious building, making the mosque a potential haven for Jews.

Al Aqsa Mosque from outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls (photo: First One Through)

Hamas termed their barbaric slaughter of Israelis the “al Aqsa Flood.” Perhaps it didn’t imagine that the term would become a prophecy inverted, drawing masses of Jews onto the Temple Mount.

Related articles:

CAIR Thinks Protecting Synagogues Is A Political Stunt And Waste Of Taxpayers Money (September 2024)

Protecting Synagogues Like Abortion Clinics (July 2024)

Palestinian Poll About October 7 Massacre (November 2023)

United Nations Urges ‘Utmost Restraint’ By Israel In Defending Synagogues On High Holidays (September 2023)

Every Picture Tells a Story: Israel Is Scared of Female Iranian Shoppers (February 2021)

Considering Nazis and Radical Islam on the 75th Anniversary of D-Day (June 2019)

The Disproportionate Defenses of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (July 2015)

The Questions For People Chanting “From The River To The Sea…”

Some pro-Palestinian protestors have attempted to market their chants for “Free Palestine” as a call for everyone to live in peace, security and dignity. They claim that they harbor no antisemitic feelings and just want a civil society for everyone.

So here are three questions to test their assertion:

  1. Are they in favor of Jews living throughout the land, including eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza? If Arabs can live everywhere “from the river to the the sea”, a call for mutual humanity would demand that Jews have those same rights. Are they in favor of abolishing United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 in a one-state scenario?
  2. Are they in favor of open Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount? Millions of Muslims get to visit the al Aqsa Compound every year but Jewish visitation is limited. Worse, Jews are not allowed to pray at their holiest site, a glaring denial of their basic human rights. Are they in favor of allowing millions of Jews onto the Temple Mount and to openly pray at their holiest site?
  3. Are they in favor of turning the Dome of the Rock into a Jewish Temple? Muslims have a holy shrine on the al Aqsa Compound – the al Aqsa Mosque. In an effort to achieve common dignity and humanity, Jews should build their Third Holy Temple nearly, at the site of the Dome of The Rock which sits on the location of the prior Jewish temples. Are they in favor of a new Jewish Temple on the Jewish Temple Mount?

If people calling to “Free Palestine” support the rights of Jews to live everywhere, to ascend en masse to the Temple Mount and pray openly at a newly built third Jewish Temple, I concede that they are not antisemitic and can join them in their chant. However, if they deny Jews common rights and dignities in the Jewish holy land, they are revealed as Muslim supremacists out to destroy the only Jewish State.

Related articles:

Stop Calling Them “Pro-Palestinian Protests” (April 2024)

Pros And Cons Of Muslims Considering Jewish Holy Sites As Sacred Also (April 2022)

The Palestinian State I Oppose (April 2018)

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

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity (August 2016)

Visitor Rights on the Temple Mount (October 2015)

Joint Prayer: The Cave of the Patriarchs and the Temple Mount (November 2014)

The United Nations and Holy Sites in the Holy Land (November 2014)

Palestinians Use Jewish Temple Mount To Incite Riot On International Al Quds Day

The Israeli government once again allowed tens of thousand of Muslim Arabs onto the Jewish Temple Mount / al Aqsa Compound during Friday prayers of Ramadan on April 5, 2024. The reported 65,000 Muslims who came to pray dwarfed the 50,000 Jews who visited the site OVER THE ENTIRE YEAR OF 2023, none of whom were allowed to pray at Judaism’s holiest site.

Despite Israel allowing access for tens of thousands of Muslims to pray at the site, eight people were arrested on charges of inciting terrorism to the crowd. According to sources, Arabs were shouting “In spirit and blood we will redeem you al-Aqsa.”

The Israeli police were out in force as many Muslims declared the last Friday of Ramadan to be “International Al Quds Day.”

The police noted that the Arab Muslims were all residents of Israel in a statement which said “these vile instigators and supporters of terrorism are residents of the State of Israel who take advantage of a religious occasion and use a holy place of prayer for incitement and support for terrorism and terrorists.”

Despite the problem arising from ISRAELI Arabs, the Palestinian Authority and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) weighed in.

According to the official PA news site Wafa, the OIC condemned Israel for the situation. OIC claimed that thousands of Muslims were prevented from visiting the site and decried the arrest of worshippers. Wafa added that the OIC “slammed such restrictions and assault as a flagrant violation of international laws and norms and called upon the international community to oblige Israel, the occupying power, to halt all recurrent violations of the freedom of worship and desecration of the holy sites while stressing the need to preserve the longstanding historical and legal status at the mosque.”

The statement is a farce on so many levels.

Firstly, “the need to preserve the longstanding historical and legal status quo” of banning Jewish prayer at Judaism’s holiest site while also demanding “freedom of worship” are in direct conflict. At least, as it relates to Jews.

Secondly, Israel allowed more Muslims to the site on a single morning than all Jews have been able to visit their holiest site during the entire year. Still, the OIC lambasted Israel preventing some Muslim radicals from visiting the site and inciting violence. Freedom to visit and pray must be limited to those who don’t advocate violence, and that includes banning agitators and facilitating the entry of tens of thousands of peaceful Jews onto the holy platform.

Third, the arrests were of Israeli Arabs, not Palestinians. Why did the PA issue statements about an internal matter? Is it because it not only believes that Israel has no rights in Jerusalem and the Temple Mount despite it agreeing to such in the Oslo Accords, but also believes that there are no such things as Israeli Arabs because Israel is illegitimate?

As Jews celebrate Passover, one of the three central holidays in Judaism in which Jews are called to visit the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, one cannot find a single article about Jews visiting their holiest site. The media lockdown is meant to keep tensions down as Israel continues to prosecute its defensive war against the political-terrorist group Hamas.

During Ramadan, Israel allows hundreds of thousands of Muslims onto the Temple Mount for prayers, some who shouted about killing Jews in an attempt to start a global jihad. On Passover, an unknown (but certainly very small) contingent of Jews visit the site and no one hears a single thing lest Muslims become angered.

Such is Islamic privilege: the ability for massive Muslim pilgrimage to the Temple Mount complete with antisemitic chants, while a paltry number of Jews silently visit the site, lest Muslims become upset. There is no equality or dignity for Jews, as made abundantly clear over Ramadan and Passover 2024.

Related articles:

Will People Advocating For Equal Rights In A One State Solution Promote Jewish Prayer And A Jewish Temple On The Temple Mount? (April 2024)

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

Palestinian Propaganda Before The Gruesome Massacre (October 2023)

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

Palestinian Authority Continues To Incite Violence Against Jews On Temple Mount (May 2023)

Today, Only Orthodox Jews Yearn For Prayers On The Temple Mount (December 2022)

Reuters Anti-Jewish Disinformation Campaign About The Temple Mount (April 2022)

Islamic Privilege (March 2022)

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

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

Will People Advocating For Equal Rights In A One State Solution Promote Jewish Prayer And A Jewish Temple On The Temple Mount?

People debate the meaning of the phrase “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free.” Many believe it to be a genocidal chant to destroy the Jewish State of Israel and kill the Jews living there, echoing the stated intentions of the political-terrorist group Hamas. Others have said that it is simply a call for all people to live in the area to be free, in a democratic binational state (although neither Israelis nor Palestinian Arabs want such outcome according to polls).

Perhaps an easy way to decipher whether people yelling “Free Palestine” are pro-Hamas or pro-Palestinian is to ask their opinion about whether all people should have dignity and rights in the land. Specifically, do they support Jews being able to pray openly in mass at their holiest site of the Jewish Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem? Would they further support rebuilding a Jewish Temple on the site?

Currently, Jews are denied the basic human right to pray at their holiest site because radical Islamists like Hamas demand that the site be a purely Islamic site. If the chanters want to disassociate themselves from the genocidal charter, and advocate for mutual dignity and rights, they should add another chant “All over the Temple Mount, Jewish prayer will abound!”

Failure to actively support full Jewish rights throughout the Old City of Jerusalem and especially on the Temple Mount, marks the chanters of “Free Palestine” as backers of a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization and supporting the destruction of an ally. Those people should face the full ramifications of supporting such genocidal killers.

Related articles:

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)

Time for Jordan To Live Up To Its Peace Treaty With Israel And Support Jewish Prayer On The Temple Mount (April 2022)

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

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

The Dark Side of Jerusalem Day: Magnifying the Kotel and Minimizing the Temple Mount (June 2019)

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

It’s the Temple Mount, Not the Western Wall (October 2016)

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity (August 2016)

Active and Reactive Provocations: Charlie Hebdo and the Temple Mount (October 2015)

Visitor Rights on the Temple Mount (October 2015)

Joint Prayer: The Cave of the Patriarchs and the Temple Mount (November 2014)

Tolerance at the Temple Mount (November 2014)

The Big Lie About Al Aqsa Mosque Access Is Really About Jews

The first Friday or Ramadan came to Jerusalem amidst the 2023-4 Hamas War from Gaza. The jihadi-political party which leads the Palestinian army called upon Palestinians to confront Israel and come to the al Aqsa Mosque by the thousands.

Wafa, the official news agency of the Palestinian Authority took the other side of the jihadi extremist coin, and blamed Israel for blocking Muslims from visiting their holy site:

“Israeli occupation forces barred thousands of Palestinian Muslim worshippers from reaching the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem this morning to perform the first Friday prayer of the holy month of Ramadan.

Eyewitnesses reported a significant deployment of Israeli troops around the Qalandiya checkpoint to the north of Jerusalem, the Zeitoun checkpoint to its east, and Bethlehem to its south. Thousands of worshippers were turned back and denied access to the city under the pretext of not having the necessary permits.

The occupation forces also deployed thousands of police officers in the alleys of the Old City of Jerusalem, around the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and at its gates to restrict the entry of worshipers.

This action follows the installation yesterday of iron barriers at the gates of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, specifically at the gates of King Faisal, Al-Ghawanmeh, and Al-Hadid, in an attempt to exert more control over the entry of worshippers and to restrict access and freedom of worship in the holy site.

Of note, the occupation authorities have already been imposing strict restrictions on entry of worshipers to the Old City of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque since the outbreak of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Palestinian people in early October of last year.

Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest place of worship for Muslims around the world after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. It has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967.”

The New York Times picked up on the Hamas and Palestinian Authority propaganda of Muslims going to al Aqsa but being denied access by Israelis.

The Times claimed that “Muslim access to the mosque has long been a point of contention… one of many restrictions endured by Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.” It picked up the theme from an article a few days earlier called “Navigating Israeli Restrictions, Many Palestinians Find It Hard To Reach Al Aqsa.

This is a miseducation and misdirection of the public in the extreme. It is Jews who suffer from restricted access to their holiest site in Judaism.

In the entirety of 2023, only 50,000 Jews got to visit the Jewish Temple Mount. That compares to over 1 million Muslims who came to the site over the single month of Ramadan.

The United Nations supports this discrimination against Jews at the Temple Mount. Tor Wennesland, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, this week calledfor the status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem to be upheld and respected,” meaning barring Jews from praying at their holiest site.

Jews are being banned from visiting their holiest site per the demands of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority which consider any Jew visiting Judaism’s most sacred location to be a form of “provocation.” More Muslims get to visit the al Aqsa/ Temple Mount Compound on a single day of Ramadan than Jews over an entire year.

Yet the press inverts the story that it is Muslims who are “enduring” restrictions when in fact it is the Jews who face UN-endorsed discrimination.

Related articles:

We Normalized Jew-Hatred For Years (December 2023)

Palestinian Propaganda Before The Gruesome Massacre (October 2023)

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

Palestinian Authority Continues To Incite Violence Against Jews On Temple Mount (May 2023)

On Defenses: Provocative and Legal / Unprovocative and Illegal (January 2023)

The New York Times Lies About Ben-Gvir And Muslim Arabs Regarding Temple Mount Visit (January 2023)

Reuters Anti-Jewish Disinformation Campaign About The Temple Mount (April 2022)

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 UN’s Disinterest in Jewish Rights at Jewish Holy Places (September 2015)

The US State Department’s Selective Preference of “Status Quos” (September 2015)

The United Nations and Holy Sites in the Holy Land (November 2014)

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

The antisemites of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan continued their evil ways in condemning Jews visiting their holiest location on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, even during the Jewish pilgrimage holiday of Sukkot. The Jordanian foreign minister “denounced the continuous break-ins by Israeli settlers [meaning Jews] at Al Aqsa Mosque” and “that the 144-dunum Al Aqsa Mosque is solely an Islamic holy site” and is completely off-limits to Jews.

This false narrative was inserted by Muslim and Arab nations into the United Nations which has subsequently used it for decades.

United Nations map showing the 1949 Armistice Lines between Israel and Jordan through Jerusalem and highlighting the “principal holy places”

As seen in the United Nations’ map above, the The Temple Mount (in red dotted lines) is not marked correctly as a Jewish holy site. The “Haram esh-Sharif (Mosque of Omar and Mosque of Aksa” is only listed as a Moslem holy place, a deliberate insult to global Jewry.

The United States has sometimes taken offense at the erasure of Jewish heritage in Jerusalem. In response to a United Nations vote on Jerusalem in December 2021, Ambassador Richard Erdman, Area Advisor for Near Eastern Affairs issued a statement: “I want to highlight one specific issue of serious concern, which is the reference to the holy sites in the Jerusalem text. The text only references “Haram al-Sharif,” rather than “Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount,” which is agreed terminology that recognizes the shared and diverse history of the holy site. The omission of this inclusive terminology is of real and sincere concern. It is morally, historically, and politically wrong for the members of this body to support language that denies both the Jewish and Muslim connections to the Temple Mount and Haram al-Sharif.

Yet despite condemning the lack of LANGUAGE showing Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, the United States supports antisemitic ACTIONS against Jews praying at their holiest site.

On September 28, 2023, Linda Thomas-Greenfield said “I also want to reiterate that the United States firmly supports the preservation of the historic status quo with respect to the holy sites in Jerusalem [banning Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount]. And we oppose actions that depart from the historic status quo, or otherwise disturb the sanctity of these sites. Such action is unacceptable.”

It is a disgrace that the United States can acknowledge the centrality of the Temple Mount to Jews and Judaism, while simultaneously supporting banning Jews from praying at the site. The United States is aligning with antisemites on the wrong side of history, supporting outright discrimination in a Muslim religious war against Jews.

Why is the Biden Administration so determined to spread anger, division and hate? Why is it supporting policies in which Jews are targeted for attack at their holy site? To gain support against the Iranian nuclear weapons program or lowering the price of gas a few cents?

It is past time for decent governments to support an honest telling of history and abolish the inequity Jews continue to face in Jerusalem.

ACTION ITEM

EMail Senator Gillibrand “It is a disgrace that the US can acknowledge the centrality of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for Jews yet support banning Jewish prayer at their holiest site.”

EMail Senator Schumer

Email White House

It is a disgrace that the US can acknowledge the centrality of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for jews yet support banning Jewish prayer at their holiest site.

Related articles:

The US State Department’s Selective Preference of “Status Quos”

Names and Narrative: CNN’s Temple Mount/ Al Aqsa Complex Inversion

Palestinian Authority Continues To Incite Violence Against Jews On Temple Mount

The New York Times Lies About Ben-Gvir And Muslim Arabs Regarding Temple Mount Visit

New York Times Active Reduction of The Jewish Temple Mount

Reuters Anti-Jewish Disinformation Campaign About The Temple Mount

The Inalienable Right of Jews to Pray on The Temple Mount

NY Times Ignores Centrality of the Jewish Temple Mount

The Dark Side of Jerusalem Day: Magnifying the Kotel and Minimizing the Temple Mount

Pope Demanding that Jews Have Rights to Pray on The Temple Mount

Dignity for Israel: Jewish Prayer on the Temple Mount

The World Must Pressure Palestinians On Basic Truths

The UN Talks About Jews Building In Jerusalem On Chanukah