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Why Jerusalem is the Jewish capital of Israel

 

Why Jerusalem is the Jewish capital of Israel

1. 1. The Case for an Undivided Jerusalem
2. 2. Jerusalem: Biblical History • Jerusalem is the holiest city in Judaism. It is mentioned 638 times in the Bible • Binding of Isaac- First time Jerusalem is explicitly mentioned in the Bible (Mt. Moriah) • 1003 BCE : King David makes it the Jewish capital • King Solomon builds the Temple in Jerusalem, and establishes it as a major city • Jerusalem remains the capital for 400 years until the Babylonian invasion, when the First Temple is destroyed. • 538 BCE: After the Babylonian exile, Jews are granted return to Israel by King Cyrus. Temple is rebuilt. • 70 CE : Jerusalem remains the Jewish capital until the destruction of the 2nd Temple by the Roman Empire.
3. 3. Jerusalem After the Temple • 135 CE: After the Bar Kochba revolt, Jews are forbidden from entering Jerusalem and Romans rename it Aelia Capitolina. • 324 CE: Byzantine Rule under Emperor Constantine • 634 CE: Muslims invade and in 691 CE the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque are built. • 1099-1187: Crusades- Jews and Muslims are killed and their holy places are destroyed or transformed into churches. Jerusalem is established as the capital of the Crusader Kingdom. • 1187: Saladin, Kurdish Muslim, captures Jerusalem • 1260: Mamluks begin rule in Jerusalem, making Jerusalem an exclusively Muslim city, and running it into economic failure. • 1517: During the Ottoman Empire, Suleiman the Magnificent builds up the city (including the walls around the city)
4. 4. The Beginning of Modern Jerusalem • 1858-1860: Mishkenot Sha'ananim, built by Montefiore, becomes first Jewish neighborhood outside the Old City walls. • 1917-1948: Jerusalem is built up during the British Mandate, establishing a new city that pushes Westward from the Old City. • 1929: Thousands of armed Arabs attack the residents of Jerusalem’s Old City during the Western Wall Uprising, initiating a week of riots in which at least 116 Arabs and 133 Jews are killed. • 1936-1939 Arab Revolts: The three-year Arab uprising results in the deaths of more than 5,000 Arabs, 400 Jews, and 200 Britons. • 1937: The British offer the Peel Commission Partition Plan: a Jewish state, an Arab state, and a British corridor in between, including Jerusalem. The Jews accept, but the Arabs reject the Peel Commission and continue to riot.
5. 5. War of Independence • 1948: Jordan captures the Old City of Jerusalem during the War of Independence • The Jews of eastern Jerusalem were either forced out or killed • The 58 synagogues in the Jewish Quarter are all destroyed • The 2,500 year old cemetery on the Mount of Olives is desecrated when a road is dug through it, and Jewish tombstones are used to make a path to a latrine. • The Arabs decree that selling land to a Jew is a crime punishable by death.
6. 6. Jordanian Rule • 1948-1967: The Armistice lines drawn at the end of Israel’s War of Independence gave control of Eastern Jerusalem to Jordan. Israel retains control over Western Jerusalem. • The city is divided by concrete walls and barbed wire between 1948-1967. • In open violation of the Armistice Agreement, Jordan refuses to set up a special committee for rule and order in Jerusalem, and bars Jews from their Holy Places. It is the only time since King David made it the capital that there are no Jews in the Old City.
7. 7. Religious Discrimination Under Jordanian Rule • Non-Muslim institutions and individuals are legally prohibited acquisition of property in the Old City, and Christian schools are required to teach the Quran and the Arabic language and to close on Friday, the Muslim holy day. • There are limits on the numbers of Christian pilgrims permitted into the Old City and Bethlehem during Christmas and Easter. Muslim Israeli Arabs are unable to visit Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Jews are not allowed to visit the Western Wall.
8. 8. Six Day War (1967) • Jerusalem is reunified, following Israel’s victory in the Six Day War. • Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan orders soldiers to remove an Israeli flag that had been raised over the Temple Mount, and immediately cedes control of the Temple Mount to the Jordanian Waqf. • Prime Minister Levi Eshkol meets with spiritual leaders of different faiths and issues a declaration of peace, including giving various religions internal management of their own Holy Places. • The Knesset passes the Protection of Holy Places Law, granting special legal status to Holy Sites and making it a criminal offense to desecrate them or impede access to them.
9. 9. Jerusalem Neighborhoods
10. 10. Jerusalem Neighborhoods: The Old City • During the Roman period, following the destruction of the Second Temple, the Old City was divided into Jewish, Armenian, Muslim, and Christian Quarters. • Since 1967, the Waqf, the Islamic Movement, and various Islamic groups have exploited their control of the Temple Mount, and have seriously damaged Temple Mount antiquities in renovations and disregard for the archaeological finds they turn over.
11. 11. Jerusalem Neighborhoods: Gilo • Gilo is a 40,000 resident neighborhood in southern Jerusalem. • In 2000, Gilo suffered from unprovoked nightly shooting from the bordering Christian Arab neighborhood of Beit Jalah. • Residents stayed away from their windows and reinforced them with sandbags. A reinforced wall was built around the area of Israeli schools to protect children from the shooting during the day. (insert photo) • “In the beginning, the Palestinian Authority claimed that the shooting was being done against their will and against their efforts to stop it. We have good evidence that in the last few days not only is it not done against their will, but it is coordinated and encouraged by the officials of the Palestinian Authority in Bethlehem.” – Jerusalem Mayor, Ehud Omert Oct. 24, 2000 (briefing)
12. 12. Jerusalem Neighborhoods: Ma’ale Adumim • The first Jewish city founded in Judea and Samaria after the Six Day War, Ma’ale Adumim is a suburb of Jerusalem. • Located four and half miles east of Jerusalem, Ma’ale Adumim connects the Judean desert to Jerusalem making it a strategic defensive point for Jerusalem. • Named after the border between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin which gave off a reddish hue from the rocks. • In 2005, Ma’ale Adumim’s population was 32,000.
13. 13. Jerusalem Neighborhoods: Mt. Scopus • The Hebrew University campus is located on Mt. Scopus in the eastern part of Jerusalem. • Hebrew University opened in 1925, but was shut down from 1948-1967 during the Jordanian occupation • Hadassah Hospital was founded by Hadassah, the Woman’s Zionist Organization. • Different stones were used in the building of the hospital due to an Arab riot at the excavation site. These differences are noticeable today during rain storms. • Hadassah is used as Hebrew University’s teaching hospital. • Hadassah Hospital was used to treat patients in WWII. • April 13th, 1948- a group of doctors and nurses were ambushed by Arabs on their way to the hospital and 78 of them were killed. • The hospital was shut down after this ambush, and did not reopen until 1978.
14. 14. Jerusalem Basic Law (1980) “The Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings towards those places.”
15. 15. Terror in Jerusalem: Past • Jerusalemite Palestinians were exploited for their Israeli identity cards and knowledge of the area and population. They were used to gather information for the planning of attacks, acquiring arms and materials not available in Judea and Samaria, and for transporting terrorists to the locations of terror attacks, under the direction of organized groups (ie: Fatah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad). • Between 1949 and 1956, 1,300 Israelis all over the country, including Jerusalem, were killed and wounded by Fedayeen, Arab militants. • Terror attacks continued until the Six Day War in 1967. • Since 1967, 2,149 people have been killed in Palestinian terror attacks all over Israel, including in Jerusalem.
16. 16. Terror in Jerusalem: Present • Local cells initiate and carry out attacks without external direction. • Lone Wolf attackers • Most attacks involve shootings, vehicular borne assaults, and stabbings. • Significant Recent Attacks – Vehicle Attack: July 2, 2008. Husam Dwayat plowed a tractor into a crowd of pedestrians on Jaffa Street killing 3 Israelis and wounding 42. – Shooting Attack: March 6, 2008. Ala’ Abu Dahim opened fire with an automatic assault rifle in the Mercaz Ha Rav Yeshiva (Jewish seminary). He killed 8 Israeli students and wounded 12 others.
17. 17. Terror Trends • 28% of total terror arrests during the Intifada were in 2008. • 2001-2007: 270 East Jerusalem residents involved in terror were arrested. • January-September 2008: 104 East Jerusalem residents involved in terror arrested. • Increases not just in number of arrests, but also in the escalating severity of attacks.
18. 18. Terror Trends
19. 19. Dealing with the Threat • Increasing options for deterrence: – Strengthening sanctions against families of terrorists. – Greater presence of security forces (strategy which has succeeded in curbing attacks from originating in Judea and Samaria). – Strengthening existing laws against the illegal sale or transfer of arms.
20. 20. ConsequencesConsequences
21. 21. Rejecting Jewish Ties to Jerusalem • Denying Jewish Ties to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount has become a central theme of Palestinian Propaganda. • This pattern stretches back many years and was central to Yasser Arafat’s rejection of the Israeli peace plan at Camp David in 2000. • Denial of Jewish ties has manifested itself in Palestinian media, speeches by politicians and religious leaders, and even academia.
22. 22. PA Politicians: Yasser Arafat • “That is not the Western Wall at all, but a Moslem shrine” (Ma’ariv, October 11, 1996) • “For 34 years they [Jews] have dug tunnels, the most dangerous of which is the great tunnel. They found not a single stone proving that the Temple of Solomon was there, because historically the Temple was not in Palestine [at all]. They found only remnants of a shrine of the Roman Herod.” (Al Hayat, October 5, 2002, Translation: MEMRI)
23. 23. PA Politicians: Mahmoud Abbas • “They demand that we forget what happened 50 years ago to the refugees – and I speak as a living, breathing refugee – while at the same time they claim that 2000 years ago they had a temple. I challenge the assertion that this is so [that there has ever been a Jewish Temple}.” (Kul Al-Arab (Israel), August 25, 2000; Translation: MEMRI) • Adnan Husseini, advisor to Mamhoud Abbas: “This is part of Islamic heritage that cannot be given up, and it must be under Muslim control,” Husseini told Israel’s NRG website, adding that all of Jerusalem’s Old City should be part of a future Palestinian state” (‘Abbas aide: Western Wall is ours,’ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 11, 2007).
24. 24. PA Religious Leaders: Tayseer Al-Tamimi • “ [the Al-Aqsa Mosque] is subject to an [Israeli] conspiracy that threatens its structure and identity, to cause it to collapse and to establish the "alleged Jewish Temple" upon its ruins.” (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), July 29, 2009)
25. 25. PA Religious Leaders: Sheikh Ikrima Sabri • “There is not [even] the smallest indication of the existence of a Jewish Temple on this place in the past. In the whole city, there is not even a single stone indicating Jewish history... The Jews cannot legitimately claim [the Western] wall, neither religiously nor historically.” [Die Welt, January 17, 2001]
26. 26. PA TV
27. 27. PA Academic: Shamekh Alawneh
28. 28. PA Study • “The Zionist occupation falsely and unjustly claims that it owns this wall, which it calls the Western Wall or Kotel… Al-Buraq Wall is in fact the western wall of Al-Aksa Mosque… This wall was never part of the so-called Temple Mount, but Muslim tolerance allowed the Jews to stand in front of it and weep over its destruction” [Jerusalem Post, November 22, 2010]
29. 29. Summary •Only under Jewish sovereignty has there been respect for all religions. •Creating a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem would pose significant security threats. •It is not simple to divide Jerusalem into East and West due to the mixture of neighborhoods. •The cause of an Undivided Jerusalem has near uniform support in the Jewish community (94% in last month’s AJC survey of American Jewish Opinion). •The Arab world never declared Jerusalem as its capital city during its time ruling the city. •Divided cities have never worked anywhere else in the world.
30. 30. Sources • Jerusalem History: http://www.jafi.org.il/education/jerusalem/timeline.html • War of Independence: CAMERA: Jennings’ Jerusalem Jihad. December 31,1996. Andrea Levin. • Jordanian Rule: CAMERA: BACKGROUNDER: History of Jerusalem. August 28, 2007. Ricki Holander. • Terrorism: http://www.jewishagency.org/NR/exeres/86314008-E729-4282-AD78- 8B0C0E24B36B http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism- +Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+before+2000/Which+Came+First- +Terrorism+or+Occupation+-+Major.htm • Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts%20About %20Israel/State/JERUSALEM • Old City Map: http://www.bu.edu/mzank/Michael_Zank/Jerusalem/35.gif • Gilo Photo: http://www.honestreporting.com/a/images/communiques/upload1/gilo.jpg • Six Day War Photo: http://www.judaicaposters.com/Images/jp71.jpg • 2nd Temple Model Photo: http://holylandarchive.com/section_images/387_TempleMap01.jpg • Crusader Map: http://static.newworldencyclopedia.org/f/f3/Jerusalemcrusades.jpeg • Dome of the Rock Photo: