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Writing Jews Out of Jerusalem's History

[Guardian-UK] Jeremy Sharon - The statements and actions of a number of Muslim clerics based in Israel, Palestinian politicians and even foreign governments are indicative of a fundamental lack of tolerance for the religious beliefs of the Jewish people. While Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told foreign ambassadors that the recent riots in Jerusalem were due to "an assault by extremist religious settlers on the Temple Mount compound," not one shred of evidence has been presented to back up the accusations, the reason being that there simply is none. Inventing wild myths about Jewish designs on Muslim holy places can only harm any prospects for the normalization of ties between Israel and its Arab and Muslim neighbors. The notion that Jews seeking to visit, or even pray at, their holiest place of worship (the Temple Mount) should be seen as a provocation or desecration is disturbing. Jerusalem and the Temple Mount are an indelible part of the Jewish national consciousness. An insidious campaign is afoot, one that rewrites history by arguing that there never was any Jewish temple at the site, thereby seeking to delegitimize any connection that Israel and the Jewish people may have to it and, by extension, to the land as a whole. The failure to acknowledge the connection the Jewish people have to Jerusalem is symptomatic of a problem which goes to the heart of the political conflict; that the Palestinian body politic has never reconciled itself to the fact that the Jewish people have deep-rooted historical ties to the land and are not foreign invaders who wandered in. If there is ever to be any political accommodation between the two sides, Palestinian and Muslim leaders must desist from the incitement against Israel and the delegitimization of the Jewish people's connection to the land.
2009-11-03 06:00:00
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