With all the talk of renewed diplomacy in the Middle East involving Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Arab states such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, you can bet that one of the most emotionally charged issues will be the status of Jerusalem.
That’s why I looked forward to attending a multi-media presentation the other night at the Museum of Tolerance titled, “Jerusalem United: Fifty Years of Freedom, Three Thousand Years of Jewish History.” The presenter was longtime Israeli diplomat and strategist Ambassador Dore Gold, who is now President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
In a nutshell, Gold made a compelling and visual case for the uninterrupted, 3,000-year Jewish connection to Jerusalem. Using artifacts from biblical times, ancient scrolls, recent archeology discoveries, legal documents from international bodies and other pieces of evidence that appeared on a large screen, Gold was like a defense attorney making his closing argument to a jury.
And like a good attorney, he didn’t skip the emotional part.
When I say emotion, I mean the sense of outrage that Gold feels towards anyone who denies a Jewish connection to Jerusalem.
Gold didn’t go through the list of deniers, but we know the list is long. For example, in a piece on JPost titled, “Abbas Denies the Jewish Connection to Jerusalem,” the Palestinian leader goes as far as questioning the very existence of the Jewish Holy Temple, an affront to any historian, archeologist or biblical scholar. He also said once that Jews have no right to desecrate the holy sites in Jerusalem with their “dirty feet.”
International bodies like UNESCO have had no problem passing resolutions denying a Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. Even United Nations Resolution 2334, which President Barack Obama refused to veto, characterized the Western Wall as “occupied Palestinian territory.”
Gold showed that he is acutely aware of this pervasive movement to negate Jewish history and strike at the core of Jewish identity. Maybe that’s why he’s so obsessed with evidence. Discussing international efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state, he brought out legal documents that shows that “Israel is the most legitimate state in the UN. It is the only state whose legality was recognized even before it was founded by both the League of Nations and the United Nations.”
Near the end of his presentation, Gold reminded us that attacks on Jewish legitimacy and identity are nothing new. “Let me tell you one last historical truth,” he said. “The Romans understood that to wage war and defeat their enemies, they needed to attack their identity, not just their physical bodies. After crushing the last Jewish rebellion against them, they renamed Jerusalem ‘Aelia Capitolina,’ and Judea was given a new name: ‘Syria-Palestine.’ They wanted to erase the memory of Jewish self rule forever.”
Preserving and disseminating the truth of this memory is consuming Gold at the moment. Over lunch the following day, he told me about his plans to take his “Jerusalem United” show on the road over the next few years. “With all the talk of diplomacy right now, Jerusalem will be right in the middle of the discussions,” he told me. “It’s critical that the truth about the 3,000-year Jewish connection comes out loud and clear.”
I hope he finds room for one more truth. Ironically, I found it in a 2007 book titled, “The Fight for Jerusalem,” and written by none other than Gold himself.
It’s a truth that deals not with the time frame of 3,000 years but with the time frame of 19 years, between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan was in control of the holy sites of Jerusalem.
Here’s what Gold wrote:
“After seizing East Jerusalem in 1948, Jordan’s Arab Legion completely evicted the Jewish population from the Old City. The Jewish Quarter was set aflame, its homes were looted, and dozens of synagogues were destroyed or vandalized. Tombstones from the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount Olives were converted into latrines.
“For the following nineteen years, Jews were prevented from praying at their holy sites, including the Western Wall. The Jordanians also barred Christian institutions from buying land and otherwise restricted the rights of of Jerusalem’s Christian population, which dropped by over 50 percent during the period of Jordanian rule.”
Now compare those 19 years to what followed: “Upon capturing the Old City in 1967, Israel decided on a new approach to governing the city—it adopted a law protecting the holy sites of all religions and guaranteeing their fee access to all worshippers.”
In other words, the Jewish connection to Jerusalem is not just good for the Jews, it’s also good for the world. Maybe that’s how Gold should rest his case.
Dore Gold’s fight for Jerusalem : http://ift.tt/2snsMAZ
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