The Lie About The Six-Day War And Why We Gave The Temple Mount Away

We get the newspaper just once a week, on Friday. Shabbat is the only time we have to read actual books and newspapers as opposed to reading the news on our computer screens. On the other hand, reading the news isn’t really in the spirit of Shabbos, and I often feel protective over my Sabbath peace. I don’t want to sully that lovely timeless feeling of peace by reading about terror and corruption, crime and politics.

Feh.

Much nicer to be in my Shabbos bubble.

But since my husband shells out the shekels for the paper, I figure I should read it. So there I was on Shabbos, relaxing in bed with the paper, when I see something that makes my blood boil. It’s an op-ed by Daniel K. Eisenbud about the Temple Mount.

Beneath this dome....
Beneath this dome….

Eisenbud explains that the Arabs are using the Temple Mount to incite violence against the Jews. The Arabs, he says, are whipping themselves up into a fury over the “Judaization” of Al Aqsa while Netanyahu is bending over backward to disavow any such attempt to take over the Mount.

Nothing wrong with any of that. All true.

What made my blood boil is Eisenbud stating, as if it were fact, that Israel had no choice but to cede the Temple Mount to the Jordanian Muslim Waqf Authority at the end of the Six Day War, or, he says, the war would never have ended. Furthermore, he says, Netanyahu knows he has to keep the status quo, in other words, keep Jews from praying on the Temple Mount, in order to preserve the peace.

NO, NO, NO.

His entire premise is incorrect. This is not what happened in 1967, nor do we get peace by maintaining the status quo. I mean, DUH. They’re stabbing us and running us over with cars. That’s not peace.

As for what happened in 1967, I mean, don’t be ridiculous. We’d whupped Arab butt. We were the solid victors. The war was truly over and we’d won the prize! The Temple Mount was in our hands. Until Dayan (as in Moshe) decided to get magnanimous.

Six_day_war_wallHe gave the holiest site of the Jews to the Waqf! No one gave him the right to do that. And when he did that, he made us look like a bunch of pansies. Pansies with no respect for their God or their religion. It made them DISDAIN us. And it made them think they had the upper hand and that if they continued to use violence against us, they’d get more land, more things, more holy Jewish sites for the Khilafa, the Muslim Caliphate.

This was annoying to read about on Shabbos, not only because it was incorrect and I didn’t have the guy next to me so I could yell at him, but because I knew a whole bunch of people were going to read that article and worse yet, believe it to be true.

Right then and there I knew I had to write a letter to the editor. Which I did as soon as Shabbos was over. Even though it was a crazy time with switching the house over after Pesach.

Today, my letter was printed. Which is a bummer. It’s the Friday paper that gets the most views, and I wanted what I wrote to get maximum exposure. I wanted the same people who read that Friday paper and Eisenbud’s op-ed, to read my response. I had wanted my letter in the Friday paper.

Since that’s not what happened, I decided I’d blog my letter here. I think people need to know the facts about what really happened in 1967 and what a mistake we’re making TODAY, vis-à-vis the Temple Mount.

So, with no further ado, here’s the text of my letter:

Peace in our time

Daniel K. Eisenbud (“The Temple Mount: Radical Islam’s twisted trump card in their holy war against Israel,” April 28) posits a false premise: that if Israel had not given Judaism’s holiest site back to the Jordanian Wakf, “the war would have never ended, and countless more Muslim soldiers would have attempted to annihilate the people of Israel.” Furthermore, says Eisenbud, this logic “still holds true.”

Actually, we trounced Jordan soundly and there was no reason to give it anything at all.

We mortified them with that win, and they were thoroughly cowed. This “gesture of peace” was Moshe Dayan showing what a generous fellow he was.

Dayan’s gesture betrayed ignorance of what the Temple Mount means to the Jewish people. He wasn’t knowledgeable about Judaism. He wrongly interpreted the prohibition by many rabbis to ascend to the Mount to mean it was a place of historic, rather than religious, significance. He didn’t know that a place could be so holy that some people would not dare tread there.

It is also widely thought that Dayan felt he could be magnanimous, especially since the Muslims had an actual mosque on the site. It was a huge mistake, a catastrophe, then and now.

What Dayan did was empower the Arabs and make them see us as weak and unworthy of respect. They see themselves as the winners and keepers of the spoils. They see Islam as reigning supreme over Jerusalem.

They respect only a show of strength. In ceding the Mount, Dayan – and by extension, all of Israel – appeared weak, a laughingstock.

The way to show who’s boss is to say loudly and clearly: This is ours and we will pray and do as we wish on the Temple Mount, our holy site, up to and including the right not to tread or pray there if we do not desire to do so. The lesson in all this is that only by asserting ourselves will there be peace in our time.

VARDA EPSTEIN Efrat

I’d really appreciate it if you’d share this one. People need to know the truth. And they may or may not get that from the mainstream media. We gotta bring it to them.

Thanks for listening and sharing, as always.

21 thoughts on “The Lie About The Six-Day War And Why We Gave The Temple Mount Away”

  1. I curse Dayan and his arrogance. He Syria he was a competent Company Commander. In 1948-9 he was a lousy Battalion Commander, as a General he should have been demoted to Captain again. As a Defense Minister he was way over his head.

    A leftist darling because of his eye patch, he made Sharon look good and that took a lot to do.

  2. To be fair, Moshe Dayan had a part in the amazing victory Israel had, which was really miraculous. That doesn’t mean he had the right to give up the Temple Mount. I suppose it’s possible that even he was astonished with the magnitude of their victory and with the fact that in six days Israel was transformed – no longer would they be fired on from the Golan, they had the Sinai and most importantly, Jerusalem was now Israel’s true eternal capital. It isn’t true to say that the Arab armies could have kept fighting if Israel didn’t give up the Temple Mount, or that the war wouldn’t end. On the other hand, then, as now, Israel would continue to be surrounded by blood-thirsty Arabs on every border, steeped in a mentality of honour and shame. 5 armies losing to little Israel within 6 days would definitely fall in the shame category, no matter how you spin it. I don’t think it was just to be magnanimous. I think there was a misguided attempt to stabilise the area on the enemy side – could he have thought that if Jordan at least had power over the Waqf and Temple Mount, they held onto some “honour” and wouldn’t be subsumed by Palestinian Arab hordes. As it is, the Jordanian kingdom has always been precarious.
    There were certainly many more things that should have been done – to put Israel’s soldiers or police in charge of arresting Jews for mouthing a prayer in a public space is just foul and ludicrous. There is no reason that the status quo couldn’t have just been an assurance that Jews won’t erect a house of prayer or won’t enter the mosque. Also, Israel should have enforced from the beginning for the Arabs to understand a concept that I often try to drum into my children – the difference between rights and privileges. My children often struggle with understanding that if you have something, whether someone has the right to take it away, and whether you have the right to fight for it. Usually this applies to things, video games, but also to the idea of going on holidays and going to a good (but expensive) Jewish school. I’m getting there, slowly. That’s the important concept that should have been enforced. If it’s their right, then Israel can’t impose their right. But it should never have been their “right”, it should have been a priveledge.

    1. ahad_ha_amoratsim

      As I recall, Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren advised Dayan to dynamite the two mosques on the Temple Mount then and there, while the Arabs were still relieved to have escaped with their lives.

      1. There was so much ammunition stored on the Temple Mount and in those mosques that doing that would have leveled the entire Old City.

        It took hundreds of men and trucks two weeks to remove all the munitions

      1. Only in as much as they are held to standards as if they were children, and they behave like children. In short, Palestinian Arabs are why we can’t have nice things.

        A couple of further points:
        I don’t think the status quo was quite what it is now. I imagine that after not having access to all of our holy sites in Jerusalem, to triumph like that and to finally have Jerusalem, when Israel was not even 20 years old, that it wasn’t just arrogance, but optimism driving the decision. I mean, if the Arabs didn’t behave like this, this could really be everyone’s holy site. I can’t imagine that if things were as bad as now, that they wouldn’t have reversed the decision in 1972.
        Secondly, it’s not just magnanimous – this decision seems quite in line with Israeli hospitals treating Palestinians from Gaza, Syrians, even risking lives to bring them over; releasing thousands of murderers to bring a soldier home etc. Usually I’m proud of Israel precisely because they grit their teeth and get on with the business of displaying a humanity that’s well above human. But occasionally I do wonder if they have a sense of self preservation.

          1. THEIR children do stab. And the world, including Israel doesn’t hold them accountable. They threaten violence, they go on killing sprees, and instead of shutting their mosques down, Israel gives assurances about the status quo.

  3. Maximilian Teusch

    It is disgusting how General Moshe Dayan is criticized. And it is stupid to use it as an ego booster.

  4. Well, as other turning points in history, this is a teachable moment. Acc to your friend’s article, Moshe Dayan had said “This compound was our Temple Mount. Here stood our Temple during ancient time, and it would be inconceivable for Jews not to be able freely to visit this holy place now that Jerusalem is under our rule.”

    I don’t have a good understanding why the Jews’ no praying rule was thought necessary. I can understand if it stipulated no praying in the mosques, or no gathering crowds of people praying just outside of mosques, but praying can be such a discrete, personal thing, it’s an odd thing to forbid. It’s an odd thing to enforce. I can’t imagine how such an assurance could be intended as being so literal.

    However, the important teachable moment is that Jews are not allowed to visit freely, not by any definition. As previously, there has been a gross inversion of justice, a case of “give them a hand, they take the whole arm” (also Moshe Dayan?). It’s Israel that needs to learn this lesson. As usual history repeats: Oslo Accords/ Ehud Olmert offer, Ehud Barak offer, etc, etc. Why does Israel not set out consequences to Arabs breaking agreements? Why the fear of changing the rules, if justified? Why does Israel seem to give in at the threat of violence? The Arabs never view this as humility. They always view this as weakness and cowardice, and interpret it as their victory.
    Personally, I don’t believe reversing the no praying thing should be the starting point. The simple reason is that, as important as the religious freedom of the act of prayer on the holiest place, may be to some, I don’t think Jewish lives should be risked for it. I think the starting point should be the enforcing the other stipulated terms of Jews being able to visit freely, and consequences and restrictions to be applied when this right is infringed.

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