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.
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.”
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 called “for 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.
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.”
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.
The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutteres is concerned when armed parties might use lethal force. He has frequently urged that ‘utmost restraint’ be exercised by two warring parties like Lebanon and Israel (2021), and when a government confronts unarmed civilians, such as Iran confronting demonstrators (2022) and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan (2021).
In only one situation has the UNSG urged ‘utmost restraint’ when fighting terrorists: Israel fighting Palestinian Arab terrorism, as he did after an Arab terrorist killed seven Jews outside of a synagogue on a Sabbath in Jerusalem (2023).
Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue (photo: FirstOneThrough)
The Palestinian leadership expressed outrage and asked the UN to intervene. U.S. members of Congress Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) said that “more guns lead to more deaths,” with Bowman adding that he would urge the United States to restrict military aid to Israel if armed guards located at synagogues resulted in any Arab deaths over the Jewish holy days.
Josh Earnest, spokesperson for former President Obama noted that Jews in Jerusalem “provoke tensions“, while The New York Times referred to those Jews as “right-wing settlers.” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas decried the entire situation of Israel trying to “Judaize” Jerusalem with “Talmudic rituals.”
Meanwhile, though Israel limited access for Jews to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during Islamic holidays even when it overlapped with Jewish holidays, the Jewish State has not announced any restrictions on Arab movement in Jerusalem during the Jewish holiday season which have no Islamic holidays. Amnesty International declared Israel to be an ‘apartheid‘ regime privileging Jews anyway.
The UN’s Gutteres issued a statement in time for the holidays telling Israel to “exercise restraint and use only proportional force and the duty to minimize damage and injury and respect and preserve human life,” when confronting potential jihadi terrorists at synagogues. That includes only fighting Arab assailants with knives and meat cleavers if those are the weapons the terrorists choose.
The Israeli government opted to quote former Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin over the global concern and threats over Israel defending Jews praying in synagogues during the holidays: “A Jew must learn to defend himself. He must forever be prepared for whenever threat looms…. The world may not necessarily like the fighting Jew, but the world will have to take account of him.”
On September 5, Papua New Guinea became the fifth country to open its embassy to Israel in Jerusalem. It joins the United States, Kosovo, Guatemala and Honduras in moving its diplomatic headquarters from the major Israeli city of Tel Aviv to Israel’s capital. Representatives of three continents now have their embassies to the Jewish State in Judaism’s holist city.
The location is in a high-rise building opposite Jerusalem’s biggest mall, the Azrieli Malcha Mall, located near former mayor of Jerusalem Teddy Kollek Stadium, west of the invisible 1949 Armistice Lines with Jordan.
Jerusalem’s Malcha Mall and Kollek Stadium
The Jordanian Foreign Minister was outraged.
Ambassador Sinan Al-Majali, the official spokesperson for the ministry, issued a statement that condemned the action as a “flagrant and significant violation of international law and international legitimacy resolutions.” He added “that any actions or decisions aiming to alter Jerusalem’s status or its legal position are null and void, holding no legal weight. He reiterated the importance of achieving a just and comprehensive peace as the sole means to attain a two-state solution based on international legitimacy resolutions. This solution should culminate in the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, based on the June 4, 1967 borders.”
Consider these comments coming from Jordan about Jerusalem.
Jordan illegally invaded Israel in 1948
Jordan committed a crime against humanity in ethnically cleansing all Jews from land it seized in 1949, including the Old City of Jerusalem
Jordan illegally annexed eastern Jerusalem and all of the area that became known as the West Bank in 1950, a move not recognized by the entire world other than the United Kingdom and Pakistan
Jordan issued a disgraceful citizenship law in 1954 that specifically excluded Jews
Jordan committed a crime against the basic human rights of Jews to live and pray in Jerusalem while it controlled the Old City
Jordan illegally attacked Israel again in 1967
The Papua New Guinea embassy is located WEST of the 1949 Armistice Lines, which even the Jordanian statement says will be part of Israel
Jordan is a laughing stock, issuing ridiculous and noxious statements that could emerge from a camel’s anus. It is performing a theater of the absurd which highlights its stupidity and hypocrisy. Only fools could be convinced that such inanity whitewashes Jordan’s illegal, belligerent and antisemitic acts.
Such as the Palestinian official news agency, Wafa.
For many years, Palestinian Arab leaders warned Israel against dividing the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem in time and place. That reality may be coming closer.
The Old City of Jerusalem including the Jewish Temple Mount/ Al Aqsa Compound
For centuries, Muslims had prevented Jews from going to their holy places in the Jewish holy land. In both Hebron and Jerusalem, Muslims declared that Jewish holy sites were purely Islamic and denied Jews any rights. That changed after the neighboring Arab states conspired to destroy Israel in June 1967 but lost control of those two holy cities which Jordan had illegally annexed in 1950.
After the 1967 war, Jews were finally able to go into the Cave of the Jewish Matriarchs and Patriarchs, which Muslims call the Ibrahimi Mosque. Israel made the site available to both Jews and Muslims, and in June 2023, opened an elevator to facilitate visitation by handicapped persons in a broad effort of inclusivity.
While Israel took over the Old City of Jerusalem in the same June 1967 Six Day War, it handled the situation very differently, giving administrative control of the Jewish Temple Mount/ Al Aqsa Mosque Compound to the Jordanian Waqf, while Israel maintained security control. Even after eastern Jerusalem, including the site, was officially annexed as part of Israel, the Waqf continued to forbid Jews from praying at their holiest location, even as they allow a small number of Jewish visitors.
In October 2014, a Palestinian attempted to assassinate Rabbi Yehuda Glick because he advocated for peace and equal rights for both Jewish and Muslim prayer on the Temple Mount. In response, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority declared “Israel’s leaders are making a big mistake if they think they can turn back history, to impose a reality, and to divide the al-Aqsa Mosque [into separate prayers times and areas] as they divided the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.”
Rabbi Glick survived the four bullets, and was nominated to the Israeli Knesset in 2016, continuing to advocate for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount. His efforts resulted in few practical changes, however, the number of Jewish visitors to the holy site has steadily increased since that time.
For his part, Mahmoud Abbas continues to warn Israeli leaders about Jewish prayer and dividing the Temple Mount. In April 2022, Jordanian politicians joined in condemning then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet’s non-controversial comments that Jews, Christians and Muslims should all be free to celebrate their holidays (Passover, Easter and Ramadan), which Arab leaders viewed as a precursor to dividing the Temple Mount.
The back-and-forth continues.
In early June 2023, Amit Halevi, a member of Knesset from Likud, put forward an official proposal to divide the religious site between Jews and Muslims, calling for the southern 30% of the compound – which includes the al Aqsa Mosque – to be for Muslims, and the northern 70% – which includes the Dome of the Rock where the Jewish Temples stood – to be for Jews. The political-terrorist group Hamas declared that such proposal was part of an “Israeli religious war launched by the fascist Israeli government… [and] the Al-Aqsa mosque will remain an exclusively Muslim holy site and the Palestinian people will continue to defend the mosque against Israeli partition and Judaization schemes.” Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh voiced concerns about the “order to impose temporal and spatial division in the blessed al Aqsa Mosque. We warn the occupation authorities against taking such a step that would have unpredictable results.”
Most of the media ignored the story, presumably because Halevi is a low level MK without portfolio, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he will uphold the Waqf’s antisemitic “status quo” banning Jewish prayer at the site.
The event may be unreported, but the situation will not remain ignored.
There are competing natural desires which have long brewed in the holy land: for Palestinian Arabs to return into the land of Israel to towns where grandparents had lived; for Jews to pray openly and frequently at their holiest site on the Temple Mount; and to live throughout the area. For years, the United States attempted to keep a lid on those aspirations until President Obama reversed precedent, nodding to Arab migration into Israel (2012), while making it illegal according to international law for Jews to move to the eastern parts of Jerusalem and the holy land (2016), and maintaining the ban on Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.
The “status quo” is not a ban on Jews praying on the Temple Mount but of competing points of tension. The large holes in the holy land dam are readily apparent to everyone. One can ignore them and wait for the fissures to crack open unpredictably, or facilitate the spillway, with some Jews praying openly and discretely at their holiest site.
The holy city of Jerusalem, the capital of Israel held two parades over the past couple of weeks. One was done by the right-wing and the other by the left-wing. Each side claimed the moral high ground and accused the other of acting in bad faith.
Let’s speak about both honestly.
The Flag Parade
On May 18, thousands of Israelis marched through the streets of Jerusalem carrying Israeli flags to mark the reunification of the city at the end of the 1967 Six Day War. The tremendous pride in country and messianic feel of Jews controlling Judaism’s holiest site for the first time in almost two thousand years was palpable at the time, and many tried to recreate that sense of awe 56 years later.
Marchers near Damascus Gate of Old City during Jerusalem Day, 2023
The parade route into the Old City to the Western Wall could have worked its way through the Jewish Quarter but the nationalist spirit of the marchers directed them through the Arab Quarter, essentially re-educating the Arabs about their defeat. While the march was basically peaceful, roughly 2,500 police officers came to maintain order as past years saw scuffles as the Arabs in the Old City resented the march.
The Gay Pride Parade
On June 1, thousands of Israelis marched through the streets in a gay Pride Parade. While such a parade would have happened without controversy in the liberal and secular city of Tel Aviv, the religious beliefs of devout Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem caused friction.
Thousands of police came to protect the marchers as there were attacks in past years. This year’s event proved peaceful and uneventful.
Some Truths
The Flag and Pride Parades were both legal and unnecessarily provocative. The right wing Jewish nationalists did not need to go through the Arab Quarter and the left wing secular Jews did not need to march through religious sections of the country. Each sought to drive home their own point that they are free and able to hold such events, and enjoyed rubbing the spectators’ noses in the fact.
The left-wing media only focused on the right-wing in both cases. CNN described a “contentious flag march” in which a” number of Palestinian shopkeepers told CNN before the event that they would close their shops in the Old City for fear of attacks by far-right Jewish nationalists.” The New York Times covered the “Conflict With the Far Right Shrouds Jerusalem’s Pride Parade,” with the backdrop of “the most hard-line and religiously conservative government in the country’s history took power.”
Both the right-wing and left-wing held their parades in Jerusalem being proud and provocative, yet the mainstream opinion shapers could only find fault with right-wing and religious Jews. It fed their macro narrative of right-wing White Supremacist Jews as the elite amongst the bigots, despite being the most persecuted group in the world.
Nothing so inflames the passions of Muslims around the world as hearing that Jews are threatening the al Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem.
So the Palestinian Authority yells lies to incite people to jihad against Jews quietly visiting Judaism’s holiest location.
On May 4, 2023, just as it has done many times, Wafa, the official news agency of the PA posted the headline “Israeli settlers break into Jerusalem’s Aqsa mosque.” The inflammatory rhetoric and article had nothing to do with facts. The article said:
“Dozens of fanatic Israeli settlers Thursday morning broke into the compounds of al-Aqsa Mosque under heavy protection from the Israeli police.
“The Waqf said that settlers, divded into groups, raided the holy Islamic Mosque from al-Maghariba gate and took provocative tours in its compounds.
“It added that the extremist settlers performed Talmudic rituals in the eastern part of the Mosque.
This comes at a time as Israeli forces intensify measures against Palestinians coming from Jerusalem to enter the Mosque, inspecting their IDs and briefly detaining them.”
Jews quietly visiting the Temple Mount, which the PA called a “raid” of the al Aqsa Mosque
That the PA would label a few dozen Jews visiting during regular visiting hours – some with their sons for their bar mitzvahs – as an “extremist” and “provocative” “raid” and “break in” of the mosque (which they never entered) demonstrates the importance of having a police escort.
The Palestinian Authority repeatedly shows the world that it can never have control of Jerusalem, as it fosters extremism and violence and rejects peaceful coexistence.
United States President Joe Biden’s approach to religious freedom was laid out clearly in back-to-back pronouncements this week.
On April 16, 2023, US Ambassador for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain and US Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr “reiterate[d] the U.S. commitment to the historical status quo in Jerusalem” which bans Jews from the basic human right of praying at their holiest site on The Jewish Temple Mount. The desire among Jews to pray at the site is almost exclusively held by the Orthodox.
The next day, Hussain tweeted “I reiterated US support for implementation of the 2016 Western Wall agreement to expand the egalitarian space at the Wall,” a move that would BREAK from the historical status quo which has limited prayer at the Kotel plaza to only be in the Orthodox style of separate sections for men and women.
There is no consistency in Biden’s approach for the status quo in Jerusalem, in one case embracing it and in another breaking from historic custom. The only commonality is his ignoring the sensitivities and wishes of Orthodox Jews and promoting those of Muslims and non-Orthodox Jews. Biden is seemingly limiting his concerns about religious freedom to those who stuff Democratic ballot boxes, as poll numbers show that 75% of Orthodox Jews vote Republican, while 80% of Reform Jews vote for Democrats.
Domestically, the Biden Administration took aim at rescinding protections for religious groups on American college campuses in February. The proposed rule read: “The U.S. Department of Education proposes to rescind regulations related to religious student organizations at certain public institutions of higher education that prescribe a novel role for the Department in enforcing grant conditions related to religious student organizations.”
Sam Brownback, a former U.S. senator and governor of Kansas and current co-chair of the bipartisan International Religious Freedom Summit, warned that the Biden administration’s proposal ignores the First Amendment rights of religious clubs, saying that the administration is not supportive of religious freedom. In response to the Biden proposal, many attorneys general sent letters to the president stating their opposition to rescinding protections for religious groups.
Biden’s domestic and international policies related to religion are dictated by his loyal base of historically Black Protestants, non-Orthodox Jews, Buddhists and Muslims who overwhelming vote for Democrats, according to Pew Research. In contrast, Mormons, Evangelicals and Orthodox Jews who vote Republican are feeling Biden’s animosity after he emerged unscathed in mid-term elections. Those groups may have much to fear if he wins a second term.
I know that you have been following matters in the Middle East and likely have access to materials and insiders that many do not. You may have concluded that while the Arab-Israeli Conflict is complicated, the thorniest issue is Jerusalem, and in that tinderbox the most sensitive is the al Aqsa Mosque / Jewish Temple Mount.
I reach that assessment based on your support of a position that the ban of Jews praying on the holy site should continue, a position known as the “status quo.”
It is likely based on comments from the leader of the Palestinian Authority who said that Israel is “playing with fire” if it allows Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, something he called allowing “settlers to desecrate holy sites.”
The leader of Hamas made similar comments, that there would be a “bloodbath” if Israel makes changes to the rights of Jews. He warned that “the action of the occupation targeting the Islamic and the Christian Holy sites in Jerusalem and Palestine, and specifically the Al Aqsa Mosque, brings about the angry Palestinian reaction.”
To avoid such bloodshed, you possibly decided to overlook the basic human rights of Jews to pray at their holiest site.
You may have convinced yourself that the only Jewish visitors who want to pray at the site are right-wing extremist “illegal settlers”, to further rationalize your position.
So let me ask you, do only Christian fanatics visit and pray at the Vatican?
Do you understand that Judaism is a particular religion, with no desire to convert or dominate anyone? That while Christians and Muslims fought crusades for over one hundred years over the holy land, and expelled the others, and converted their mosques to churches and churches to mosques, Israel did no such thing when it took control of the Temple Mount in 1967? Instead, it handed administrative control of the site to the Jordanian Waqf.
Jerusalem’s Arabs who have been living under Israeli administration for decades have slowly internalized that Israel has no plans on the al Aqsa Mosque. In a December 2022 poll of Jerusalem’s Arabs, they showed that they have a greater fear of accessing the holy site if eastern Jerusalem was under Palestinian sovereignty (63%) than Israeli (41%).
This year is the 75th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Article 18 states “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.” Article 2 underscores the point that this relates to religious rights in disputed land: “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.”
This clearly includes the rights for Jews from around the world to pray at their holiest site of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”
So it is with the status quo ban on Jews. It is morally wrong and a disgrace, and the world has blindly let it continue.
I ask that you stop facilitating the trampling of the fundamental human rights of Jews and vote to reverse the anti-Semitic “status quo” edict, and condemn the incendiary remarks and false accusations which block Jews from praying peacefully at their holiest site in their holiest city in the holy land.
First One Through 