Response to Big Pharaoh
Egyptian blogger The Big Pharoah posts his thoughts on Ehud Olmert’s blueprint for “sharing” Jerusalem.
I believe there are 2 possible solutions for the Old City in Jerusalem. One, that it becomes an international city just as it meant to be before the 1947 war. Two, it could be shared but the Palestinians have to retain sovereignity over the Muslim and Christian areas there including the Haram el Sharif or the Temple Mount. Sorry Jews, forget the Temple Mount, you can’t even pray there, the Western Wall is more than enough.—-Call it whatever you want to call it but total Israeli control over the Old City is not an option.—-
I just don’t understand why Israel wants to keep Muslim and Christian stuff. Is it something psychological? No Jew goes inside the Temple Mount anymore, no Jew prays inside the churches there, why would Israel want to keep them? We all saw what happened when Sharon decided to go there. So please Israelis, I am on my knees begging you, be the mature big bro here.
Allow me to explain exactly why Israel is not willing to “give up” the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount is the holiest site in our religion. It is where the binding of Isaac occurred, and where Jacob had his dream (after which he proclaimed “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of G-d and this is the gate of the heavens!” – Genesis 28:17). Later on, it was the site of the holy temples, and, as such, where the Jews became closest with G-d.
So important and integral is the Temple Mount to our religion, that we face towards it while we are praying, still pray about it three times a day, fast for the destruction of the Temple, observe other commandments related to it, and yearn for it – almost 2000 years after the Second Temple’s destruction. Not only that, but we are only able to visit the periphery of the Mount, and not the sanctified areas, due to their holiness. And even then, we have to ascend the Mount in purity, according to Torah law.
The fact that Jews cannot pray there is not proof that it is not our holiest site, but rather proof of the unjust rules set by the Wakf, the Muslim authority granted de facto control over the area, by the Israeli government, since 1967 (yes, the Israeli government bends over backwards to respect the other main religions, which cannot be said for others).
As for Ariel Sharon’s Temple Mount visit, history shows that it was coordinated with the palestinians, and the violence was planned well before the visit.
While the establishment of the modern State of Israel occurred in natural fashion, and most of the founding fathers were not religious, most Jews feel a special connection with the land of Israel, and especially the Temple Mount. While most Jews in Israel are not religiously observant, there is a collective awareness of the holy Temple, and a general acknowledgement of its centrality to our faith.
One of the problems with people’s perceptions of the Middle East
conflict – as I see it – is that people readily dismiss the Jewish
people’s connection with the land of Israel, while playing up the
palestinian’s claims. Big Pharaoh’s post reinforces this.
Big Pharaoh, sorry, but to most of us, we are more interested in being true to our faith and traditions, than being “a mature big bro.” I am sure G-d understands.
About the Author
An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.Filed Under: General
Some of us, even with black hats and beards, do go there. Though, as warned by the police, if we dare to pray they’ll club us, haul us away, and arrest us.
Pictures of my visit to Har HaBayit here,
Video here with police warning us.
Wow. What was it like up there? Did you feel the kedoosha more than you do at the Wall?
Well, when we go up we stay more or less along the inside of the outer wall (this avoids problems of where is it ok to go and where not to go). Yes, much more kedusha but also a palpable sadness, for when you’re at the Kotel you see the outer wall and can envision the House, but when you’re on the inside you see the destruction and desecration and can’t help but mourn for what’s missing.
Here’s two more important photo sets from the Mount, here is Solomon’s Stables, the giant dig that the Wakf is doing, and here’s my full visit photo set.
Good Defense of Israel Controlling the Temple Mount
Israelly Cool responds.We also believe that giving up any part of Jerusalem will make it impossible to maintain the current level of safety and access all people currently enjoy under the protection of the State of Israel.Olmert's plan opens the…
The idiotic comments by the Big Pharoah outrage me. What arrogance. But I guess it is no surprise coming from someone who calls himself “The Big Pharoah”. He wrongly asserts that the Temple Mount belongs to the Palestinians, for starters, and he clearly is prejudiced against Jews to begin with. ALL of Israel belongs to the Jews, not to the PA!
Wow, thanks for sharing those photos and information on the sites! Interesting, albeit sad.
Just wanted to give a bit of historical information on the “Muslim claim to Jerusalem”:
http://www.danielpipes.org/pf.php?id=84
Quoting, from the conclusion:
Politics, not religious sensibility, has fueled the Muslim attachment to Jerusalem for nearly fourteen centuries; what the historian Bernard Wasserstein has written about the growth of Muslim feeling in the course of the Countercrusade applies through the centuries: “often in the history of Jerusalem, heightened religious fervour may be explained in large part by political necessity.” This pattern has three main implications. First, Jerusalem will never be more than a secondary city for Muslims; “belief in the sanctity of Jerusalem,” Sivan rightly concludes, “cannot be said to have been widely diffused nor deeply rooted in Islam.” Second, the Muslim interest lies not so much in controlling Jerusalem as it does in denying control over the city to anyone else. Third, the Islamic connection to the city is weaker than the Jewish one because it arises as much from transitory and mundane considerations as from the immutable claims of faith.
Mecca, by contrast, is the eternal city of Islam, the place from which non-Muslims are strictly forbidden. Very roughly speaking, what Jerusalem is to Jews, Mecca is to Muslims ‚Äì a point made in the Qur’an itself (2:145) in recognizing that Muslims have one qibla and “the people of the Book” another one. The parallel was noted by medieval Muslims; the geographer Yaqut (1179-1229) wrote, for example, that “Mecca is holy to Muslims and Jerusalem to the Jews.” In modern times, some scholars have come to the same conclusion: “Jerusalem plays for the Jewish people the same role that Mecca has for Muslims,” writes Abdul Hadi Palazzi, director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community.
The similarities are striking. Jews pray thrice to Jerusalem, Muslims five times daily to Mecca. Muslims see Mecca as the navel of the world, just as Jews see Jerusalem. Whereas Jews believe Abraham nearly sacrificed Ishmael’s brother Isaac in Jerusalem, Muslims believe this episode took place in Mecca. The Ka‚Äòba in Mecca has similar functions for Muslims as the Temple in Jerusalem for Jews (such as serving as a destination for pilgrimage). The Temple and Ka‚Äòba are both said to be inimitable structures. The supplicant takes off his shoes and goes barefoot in both their precincts. Solomon’s Temple was inaugurated on Yom Kippur, the tenth day of the year, and the Ka‚Äòba receives its new cover also on the tenth day of each year. If Jerusalem is for Jews a place so holy that not just its soil but even its air is deemed sacred, Mecca is the place whose “very mention reverberates awe in Muslims’ hearts,” according to Abad Ahmad of the Islamic Society of Central Jersey.
This parallelism of Mecca and Jerusalem offers the basis of a solution, as Sheikh Palazzi wisely writes:
To back up this view, Palazzi notes several striking and oft-neglected passages in the Qur’an. One of them (5:22-23) quotes Moses instructing the Jews to “enter the Holy Land (al-ard al-muqaddisa) which God has assigned unto you.” Another verse (17:104) has God Himself making the same point: “We said to the Children of Israel: ‚ÄòDwell securely in the Land.’” Qur’an 2:145 states that the Jews “would not follow your qibla; nor are you going to follow their qibla,” indicating a recognition of the Temple Mount as the Jews’ direction of prayer. “God himself is saying that Jerusalem is as important to Jews as Mecca is to Moslems,” Palazzi concludes.
why does he want christian churchs?
spoiled,irrational children want everything….if they don’t get it,they have a tantrum….some people say they need a “time out”..others believe in a spanking and sending them to bed……who knows what works??
I’d hate to be a Christian in the Muslim part of Jerusalem. It’d seriously suck.