eiews We Forget ee, Jerusalem
Shmuel Berkovits recovered their property, and a key- “How Dreadful Is is Place!” stone of the Jewish faith. For Dayan, Holiness, Politics, and Justice Israel was now burdened with a for- in Jerusalem and eign religious artifact; the best it the Holy Places in Israel could do was to try not to upset Carta Jerusalem, 2006, Muslim sensitivities. ese contrast- ing attitudes reflect two opposite ap- 576 pages Hebrew. proaches to Zionism: One that sees in it the partial fulfillment of the biblical Reviewed by Emmanuel Navon vision of Jewish redemption, and one that sees in it a strictly practical an- his past May, Israel celebrated swer to the problem of anti-Semitism Tthe fortieth anniversary of Je- and Jewish defenselessness. rusalem’s re-unification, marking the As Shmuel Berkovits demonstrates return of Jerusalem to Jewish control in How Dreadful Is is Place!, a book for the first time in 2,000 years. In on the political, legal, and religious truth, however, Israel never really took significance of holy sites in Israel, the control of Jerusalem’s holiest site, the Israeli government has consistently Temple Mount. Even as Chief Rabbi adopted the second approach in its of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) treatment of the Temple Mount since Shlomo Goren famously stood at the 1967. Focusing mainly on post-state newly liberated Western Wall and policies toward holy sites, but draw- blew the shofar, Minister of Defense ing on a wealth of primary and sec- Moshe Dayan, contemplating his ondary Jewish, Muslim, and Chris- victory from nearby Mount Scopus, tian historical sources, Berkovits’ is said to have wondered, “What do comprehensive work reveals a trou- we need all this Vatican for?” For bling state of affairs: While its Mus- Rabbi Goren, the Jews had rightfully lim neighbors have been calculating,
/ • even shrewd, in their attempts to guns attacking the Dome of the Rock. claim the Temple Mount as their Husseini was likely also the inspiration own—and, concomitantly, to deny for Yasser Arafat’s incitement to terror any Jewish link to the site at all— against Israeli civilians in September Israel has shown an astonishing lack of 2000 (aptly named the “Al Aksa Inti- determination in defending it. us is fada”), in which he called upon both Israeli control over the Temple Mount the Palestinians and the entire Mus- more precarious today than ever, and, lim world to “defend” the Al Aksa absent a concerted effort on the part mosque from the Jews. No doubt, of Jews both in Israel and abroad, li- threats to the sanctity of the Temple able to disappear altogether. Mount serve as effective incitement to violence in the Arab street. Yet as n February 2007, Arab leaders Berkovits’ history of both Jewish and I threatened to unleash a wave of Arab treatment of the Temple Mount violence against Israel in order to makes clear, it is hardly the Arabs who stop its government from re-building have cause for complaint. a bridge at the Temple Mount’s When Israel liberated the Old Mughrabi Gate. e construction, it City in June 1967, it immediately was claimed, would cause the Temple passed—and enforced—a law guar- Mount to collapse, thus destroying anteeing freedom of worship for the the Dome of the Rock and the adja- three monotheistic religions and the cent Al Aksa mosque. Such ludicrous preservation of their holy places. accusations regarding the Temple However, as Berkovits explains, “e Mount have a long and fruitful tradi- Israeli government, the Jerusalem tion in the Muslim world. As Martin Municipality, and the Antiquities Au- Gilbert shows in Jerusalem in the thority have been hesitant to enforce Twentieth Century (1996), Haj Amin Israeli law on the Temple Mount.” al-Husseini, the former mufti of Je- Over the years, Israel’s High Court of rusalem, claimed the Jews threatened Justice has rejected repeated petitions the security of mosques and other to enjoin the government to let Jews Islamic holy sites in 1929, leading to pray on the Temple Mount—even the Hebron massacre of that year; he individual prayers, conducted silently then hoped to repeat the bloodbath and without ritual objects—for fear on a larger scale in 1931, when he of upsetting Muslim worshippers convened a pan-Islamic conference and triggering Muslim violence. As of in Jerusalem at which he disseminated today, the Israeli police prevent Jews photomontages of Jews with machine from praying on the Temple Mount,
• A / • and only in June 2003—three years Jerusalem with a future Palestinian after the PA-controlled Waqf closed state. e United States even went all entrances to the Temple Mount so far, Berkovits writes, as to suggest to Jews—did the Israeli government Palestinian custodianship over the order the police to allow Jews, under Temple Mount and full Palestinian extremely limited conditions, to once sovereignty in the Muslim and Chris- again enter the Temple Mount. tian quarters of the Old City; the deal is approach stands in stark faltered only when the Palestinians re- contrast to the treatment Jewish holy jected the American proposal in favor sites have received at Arab hands. Jor- of full Palestinian sovereignty over all dan, for instance, violated the 1949 parts of Jerusalem conquered by Israel armistice agreement with Israel by in June 1967, including the Temple preventing Jews from praying at the Mount itself. To this, Prime Minister Western Wall; destroying the Old Ehud Barak replied that Israel’s sov- City’s fifty-eight synagogues and ereignty over the Temple Mount was Jewish schools; and desecrating the “the Archimedes point of our exis- Mount of Olives Jewish cemetery by tence.” In response, the Palestinians using gravestones for the construc- claimed that no Jewish Temple had tion of roads, military camps, and ever existed in Jerusalem and denied latrines. e Palestinian Authority any connection between Israel and (PA) also violated its commitment the Temple Mount altogether. under the Oslo accords to protect Considering the position of the Jewish holy sites when, in 2000, it Palestinian side, further negotiation destroyed Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem on the matter of the Temple Mount (Nablus) and an ancient synagogue in might have seemed pointless. Nev- Jericho, and called for the “liberation” ertheless, even after the failed sum- of Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem by mit, Israel suggested a division of claiming that the building was actu- sovereignty over the Temple Mount ally an ancient mosque. Finally, the whereby a future Palestinian state Waqf’s massive digging and building would control the upper level, and activities on and under the Temple Israel the lower one. Berkovits reveals Mount have destroyed countless Jew- that then–foreign minister Shlomo ish relics from the First and Second Ben-Ami told him that, in December Temple periods. 2000, he had offered the Palestinians Nonetheless, at Camp David in full and exclusive sovereignty over 2000, the Israeli delegation agreed the Temple Mount (including the to share Israel’s sovereignty over lower level), provided merely that the
• A / • Palestinians recognize the site’s holi- Islam declared it sacred. Moreover, ness to the Jewish people and prevent Jerusalem is not mentioned once the destruction of Jewish remnants in the Koran, and, unlike the Jews, on the Mount. Yet even that proposal who pray facing Jerusalem’s Temple was rejected by the Palestinians, who Mount, Muslims pray with their have, to this day, refused to concede backs to it, facing Mecca instead. the Jewish connection to the Temple Nonetheless, Islam considers Jeru- Mount, and are reluctant even to al- salem a holy Muslim city because low Jews to pray in front of a small of Muhammad’s journey there, and section of the Western Wall. Why are the Temple Mount a holy Muslim the Palestinians so determined not to site because it is allegedly the place share sovereignty over the site with from which Muhammad ascended Israel? According to Berkovits, one to heaven (although this idea, too, of the main reasons is that “nothing is not mentioned anywhere in the scares [the Palestinians] more than Koran). As with Judaism, however, the discovery of remnants of the Jeru- Islam views abandoning the Temple salem Temple underneath the Temple Mount to another faith or turning it Mount.” over to alien rule as inconceivable. In- As Berkovits shows, then, the real deed, just as Israel’s Chief Rabbinate issue surrounding the Temple Mount warned Israeli diplomats who partici- is not one of sovereignty so much as pated in the Camp David and Taba it is of the recognition, demanded by summits that abandoning the Temple Jews, of their historical, religious, and Mount was forbidden by Jewish law, national connection to the site—and so, too, did the mufti of Jerusalem the Palestinians’ fervent refusal to state that the entire Temple Mount, grant it. What this refusal reveals including the Western Wall, belongs about the paucity of their own histori- to Islam, and Muslims are forbidden cal claims is exposed by the fascinating to relinquish it to “infidels.” But how wealth of facts and sources Berkovits holy, exactly, does Islamic tradition has so painstakingly amassed. hold the Temple Mount to be? According to Berkovits, contempo- erusalem, which is mentioned 656 rary Palestinian claims to the Temple J times in the Hebrew Bible, was Mount and the Western Wall are the capital of Israel and the holiest site quite new to Islam. Muhammad, he of the Jewish people one thousand points out, made a point of elimi- years before it was considered holy by nating pagan sites of worship, and Christianity, and 1,700 years before sanctifying only one place—the Kaaba
• A / • in Mecca—to signify the unity of Mount, were recognized as the site God. Indeed, according to one Islam- in question. It was only in the second ic tradition, Muhammad’s last words part of the nineteenth century that were “God cursed the Christians and some Muslim clerics started to claim the Jews for turning their prophets’ that Muhammad had tied his horse to tombs into places of worship.” us the Western Wall. Incidentally, Berko- does an ambivalence, if not outright vits shows, this is precisely the period disregard, toward the status of Jeru- in which the Jews in Palestine began salem pervade the writings of Islam’s to bring Tora scrolls to their prayers at great scholars for centuries to come. the Wall, asked the Ottoman authori- Indeed, as Dore Gold shows in his ties to repair the floor of the praying book e Fight for Jerusalem (Regnery, area, and tried to purchase ownership 2007), as late as the fourteenth cen- rights over the Wall from the Muslim tury, Islamic scholar Taqi al-Din Ibn Waqf. It is thus not hard to conclude, Taymiyya, whose writings influenced as does Berkovits, that the Jews’ the Wahhabi movement in Arabia, heightened demonstrations of con- ruled that sacred Islamic sites are to be nection to the place led Muslims to found only in the Arabian Peninsula, “realize” the great significance it held and that “in Jerusalem, there is not a for them, too: place one calls sacred, and the same During the British Mandate, the holds true for the tombs of Hebron.” national struggle between Jews and (is ruling is echoed today by Abdul Arabs intensified, and so too did Hadi Palazzi, the current imam of the the religious struggle between Jews Italian Islamic community, who holds and Muslims over the Western Wall. e Jews’ attempts to purchase the that the space between the Dome of Western Wall and to improve the the Rock and the Al Aksa mosque is praying conditions there were under- not holy to Islam; thus, Muslims will stood by the Muslims as a first step in eat or smoke there, and do not take off order to take control of the Temple their shoes—behavior that is strictly Mount and rebuild the ird Temple forbidden at a Muslim holy site.) in place of the Al Aksa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Hence did Until the seventeenth century, the mufti decide to grant a religious there was no consensus among Mus- and international dimension to the lim scholars regarding the exact place national struggle by trying to recruit where Muhammad, in his journey to to this struggle the masses of the the Mount, tied his horse. rough- Muslim world. out history, different places, mainly And yet, during the British Man- on the southern side of the Temple date, Palestinian Muslims showed
• A / • a shocking disregard for the holi- says so (it does not). And in Febru- ness of the site. Mufti Haj Amin al- ary 2001, the Jerusalem mufti issued a Husseini, for example, claiming that fatwa declaring that the Western Wall the Jews were trying to purchase the is in fact part of the Al Aksa mosque. Western Wall from the Waqf in order Of course, anyone versed in elemen- to exact an eventual takeover of the tary biblical or archaeological history entire Temple Mount, destroy the knows that the Western Wall is the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aksa last remnant of the Jewish Second mosque, and rebuild the Temple, Temple—a remnant that stood 635 sought to prevent Jewish access to it years before the construction of the by building the Mughrabi neighbor- mosque in the year 705. Nonetheless, hood and piling up garbage in front the mufti insisted that the Wall is ex- of it. Al-Husseini even went so far as clusive Muslim property, and “not one to build a latrine just one and a half stone of this wall has any connection meters away from the Wall—an act whatsoever with Hebrew history.” that, had it indeed been considered us, when Arafat shocked the a holy Muslim site, would certainly Israeli and American delegations at have been forbidden. Camp David by claiming that the Nonetheless, when the Israeli Jerusalem Temple had never existed, government opened the northern he was not merely playing a tacti- entrance to the Western Wall’s tunnel cal card; he was expressing what has in September 1996, the Arab League now become a widespread Palestin- was up in arms: It declared that the ian myth, one openly expressed by tunnel—in fact a combination of two the leaders and representatives of tunnels, one dug by Israeli archae- Israel’s Arab citizens as well. ese ologists in 1987, and the other (the individuals—such as Sheikh Ra’ed Hasmonean tunnel) dating back two Salah, head of the northern branch thousand years—ran underneath the of the Islamic Movement in Israel; Western Wall of the Al Aksa mosque, Arab Knesset members (or former and was thus illegal. is statement members) Abdulmalik Dehamshe was blatantly false: e tunnels do and Muhammad Barakeh; and the not run under the mosque, or even chairman of the Israeli-Arab Follow- under the Temple Mount. Yet the up Committee, Shuki Khatib—all facts did not stop Arafat from then claim that the Temple never existed, adding that the true name of the and therefore the Jews have no rights Western Wall is “Al Buraq,” that it whatsoever over the Temple Mount. is a Muslim site, and that the Koran is myth has been embraced and
• A / • widely propagated in the larger Arab existence. In 1996, the Palestinian world: In Saudi Arabia, for example, Authority turned them into the larg- academics claim that the Temple was est mosque ever built in Israel. actually a mosque. Even Araf al-Araf, a Palestinian historian who, as a close collaborator ike the “Islamization” of the of Haj Amin al-Husseini, could hard- L Western Wall, the Islamic de- ly be suspected of pro-Jewish bias, nial of the Temple’s existence is also wrote in his book Tariah Al-Quds a recent phenomenon. During the (1951) that “Al Haram Al Sharif [the early Muslim period (between the Temple Mount] is on Mount Moriah, seventh and eleventh centuries), the mentioned in the book of Genesis… Arabs used to call Jerusalem and the It was bought by David to build the Temple Mount, interchangeably, Bayt Temple, but it is Solomon who built Al-Maqdis, an Arabic transliteration it in 1007 ...” And in his book A of the Hebrew Beit Hamikdash (Tem- Detailed History of Jerusalem (1961) ple). ere was no question of the al-Araf writes that “e Western Jewish connection to the site. Indeed, Wall is the outside wall of the Tem- after the Arab conquest of the land of ple erected by Herod. It is frequently Israel and during the first period of visited by the Jews, especially on the Arab rule, Jews were allowed to pray Ninth of Av. ere, they remember a freely on the Temple Mount. glorious and unforgettable history.” Up until the late twentieth cen- tury, in fact, the Muslims recognized erhaps the most shocking part that the Temple Mount was the site of P of Berkovits’ narrative of Israel’s the Jerusalem Temple. For instance, a “loss” of the Temple Mount is the re- guidebook published by the Supreme counting of the country’s own role in Muslim Council in 1924 says about the affair. After the Six Day War, Isra- the Temple Mount: “is site is el’s political and judicial leaders were amongst the oldest in the world. It is, eager not to upset Muslims. But it was beyond any doubt, where King Solo- in the Oslo era that Israel’s self-pro- mon’s Temple once stood.” e same claimed elite seemed near determined guide describes the site of Solomon’s to get rid of “all that Vatican” in the Stables, explaining that they, too, are name of an all too elusive peace. remnants of King Solomon’s Temple. For instance, Israeli law strictly for- Today’s visitors, however, are no bids the desecration of all holy places, longer told about Solomon’s Stables, even going so far as to seek to protect nor can they see testimony of their the feelings of the faithful. Further
• A / • Israeli laws (such as the 1978 Antiqui- e Israeli government also con- ties Law) seek to protect holy places tributed indirectly to the erosion of from unauthorized archaeological Israel’s rule over the Temple Mount. digging. Yet, when the PA turned In October 1993, then-foreign Solomon’s Stables into a mosque, minister Shimon Peres wrote to his Israel’s High Court of Justice, when Norwegian counterpart that Israel petitioned by an Israeli NGO, did would not interfere with the activi- not order the Israeli government ties of “all Palestinian institutions in to enforce the law by stopping this East Jerusalem… and holy Muslim undeniable act of archaeological places.” Although Peres’ letter did not vandalism—even though, it should specify what it meant exactly by Mus- be noted, the court itself had previ- lim holy places, Arafat nonetheless ously ruled that it is illegal to conduct later claimed that Israel had implicitly a religious service on a site that is recognized the PA’s jurisdiction over considered holy by another religion, the Temple Mount. as it may upset the feelings of that Berkovits concludes, “e Israeli religion’s followers. government has systematically ig- Over the years, the High Court of nored the High Court of Justice’s Justice has rejected petitions to enjoin injunction to supervise all archaeo- the government to let Jews pray on the logical works on the Temple Mount Temple Mount (the petitioners follow and to save the antiquities there.” Rabbi Goren’s ruling authorizing Jews us has the Temple Mount become to enter certain parts of the Temple an extra-territorial legal entity in the Mount), as well as petitions to enjoin capital of Israel, where Israeli law the government to protect antiquities does not apply. Indeed, since Arafat on the Temple Mount, on grounds launched a wave of riots against Is- that doing so would upset Muslims raeli civilians in September 1996, the and trigger violence. us has the Waqf has ceased to cooperate with court consistently placed Muslim Israel on its activities on the Mount, sensibilities before Jewish civil rights, instead carrying out illegal construc- and appeasement ahead of the rule of tion projects. It has also restricted the law. But, as Berkovits argues, “e access of Israel Antiquities Authority attempt to avoid confrontation with inspectors to the Mount, making the Waqf for fear of violence… will their work there impossible—all in actually bring us to a clash, because it flagrant violation of Israeli law, and convinces the Muslim authorities that after the refusal of the High Court to they can do whatever they want.” accept the petition of leading Israeli
• A / • archaeologists that the Wakf’s actions him why he didn’t send workers with a on the Mount were causing irrepara- ladder to remove the plaster, he replied ble damage to the site’s antiquities. that whoever climbs up the ladder will never be able to climb it down. As a result of the Israeli govern- ment’s inaction, vindicated by the us do the Palestinians publicly High Court of Justice, the Waqf was deny the Temple’s existence even as able, in November 1999, to open they actively erase proofs to the con- a “small emergency exit” for the trary; thus does Israel’s High Court of enormous mosque built in Solomon’s Justice acquiesce to the destruction of Stables that required the digging of evidence of the Temple’s Jewish past a 1,600-square-meter, fifteen-meter- for fear of upsetting Muslim sensi- deep pit at the site, and the removal tivities. It is hardly surprising, then, of more than ten thousand tons of that the Waqf has succeeded over archaeological rubble containing arti- the past decade in building, illegally, facts dating back to the First Temple two enormous mosques underneath period. Decorations and inscriptions the Temple Mount (the Solomon’s were polished away from ancient Stables mosque and the Al Aksa Al- stones, and stones with Hebrew Qadim mosque), and plans to con- writings and Hasmonean stars were nect them with underground tunnels, thrown into Jerusalem’s municipal thus effectively turning the Temple garbage dump. e “small emergency Mount into an exclusively Muslim exit” became a new mosque named Al site. Should this state of affairs con- Aksa Al-Qadim. tinue unimpeded, in the near future Berkovits relates that he visited the the last remnants of the Jerusalem Al Aksa Al-Qadim mosque in Novem- Temple will effectively disappear, ber 2004 together with his students: and the Palestinians will be able to deny its existence without having to On the ceiling were four domes. be burdened by new archaeological Two of them still bore rare artistic inscriptions, which are the work of counterevidence. Jewish artists from the Second Temple With Palestinian Authority Chair- period. I noticed that those inscrip- man Mahmoud Abbas still demand- tions had been covered with plaster, ing Jerusalem as the capital of the and reported this to the Antiquities future Palestinian state, the question Authority after the tour. A senior the Jews must ask themselves is this: representative of the Antiquities Au- thority told me that he was aware of If Israel could allow the PA to turn the plaster that had been used to cover the Temple Mount into an exclusively the Jewish inscriptions. When I asked Muslim site even while it was still
• A / • officially under Israeli sovereignty, Berkovits in fact would encourage how would Israel manage to prevent Israel to keep trying to achieve some the further Islamization of the Mount sort of shared arrangement, such as after formally abandoning its sover- an “international management” of eignty there? Moreover, given the take- the Mount, if it can achieve the long- over of the PA by Hamas, and Hamas’ desired peace. is conclusion obvi- ideological connection to Wahhabism ously stands in stark contrast to the (which calls for the destruction of evidence Berkovits himself presents non-Muslim sites in “Muslim lands”), in his book, attesting to the fact that it takes little in the way of imagination Palestinian intransigence over the to figure out what would happen to Temple Mount stems from an unwill- the Temple Mount if Israel were to ingness to accept Israel’s existence— relinquish its control there. both today, and three millennia ago. One might rightfully ask: How does ayan likely did not realize vindicating the Muslims’ ideological D the irony of his words when rejection of Jewish history convince he described the Temple Mount as them to accept the Jewish state? To a “Vatican.” Today’s radical Islam this, Berkovits has no answer. does, indeed, aspire to conquer the In the end, Israeli Jews must make a Vatican, but the road to Rome first choice between claiming their Jewish passes through Jerusalem. e leaders past and relinquishing it altogether. of al-Qaida, Hezbollah, and Hamas roughout recent history, some have have all declared in recent years that believed that by choosing the latter “liberating” Jerusalem is the prelude option, they would finally be left in to Islam’s victory and world domina- peace. But as history has shown, the tion. Abandoning the Temple Mount opposite is true: Denying our past, to Islam is thus far more likely to en- as well as our historical mission as courage jihad than it is to satiate the a people, is as hopeless an act in our jihadist thirst for conquest and deliver own land as it was in exile. Instead, some elusive “peace.” the time has come to reclaim our Berkovits, however, as explained in past—indeed, to fight for it. conversations with this reviewer and in various articles and other writings, Emmanuel Navon is the founding part- reaches the opposite conclusion. In- ner of the Navon-Levy Group Ltd. and deed, while the views drawn in How a lecturer at the Abba Eban Graduate Dreadful Is is Place! rest on legal and Program for Diplomacy Studies at Tel juridical aspects of the controversy, Aviv University.
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