Signs that the Redemption is near?

For years, the American magazine, Sports Illustrated, has run a weekly mini-report entitled, “Signs of the Apocalypse” (or something like that).  It contains a one-or-two sentence announcement that features some weekly occurrence in the Sports world. Typically, it focuses on someone doing something really stupid. It highlights how incredibly awful highly-paid or famous people can be. Such   behaviour by those we honour, the piece suggests, is surely a sign that our world must soon end.

Mostly, these incidents entertain.

That magazine comes from America. We live in Israel, which follows a different religious and cultural orientation. So if someone in America thinks about Christian-inspired world Destruction, perhaps we can think about something different--a Jewish-inspired Redemption.

Consider now some recent examples from the news that, in some way—humorous and not so humorous-- might suggest that the world might be preparing for something New. If you don’t see how these headlines might pre-sage a Jewish Redemption, that’s okay. That just means that your ‘Redemption training’ isn’t up-to-date.

For May, 2013:

- Are we all Muslim now? (Al Jazeera)

 

- Hezbollah to receive ‘game-changing weapons’ from Syria (Al Arabiya)

 

- Abuse of Science: Hawking’s boycott of Israel is intellectually and morally disreputable (Times of London)

 

-Navy carrier jets 'can't land in hot weather' (The Guardian)

 

- King, Messiah, Major fastest-growing baby names  (New York Daily News)

 

-Group: 'Crazy' to Put Iran In Charge of UN Disarmament Panel (Arutz Sheva)

 

-'Al-Dura probe will spur honest Israel coverage' (Jerusalem Post)

 

-Muslim Imams Pray for Holocaust Victims at Auschwitz (Arutz Sheva)

 

- On the run for 13 years, cops nab fugitive wanted for attempted murder after he's caught urinating on KFC wall (New York Daily News)

 Does a debunked libel against Israel (the Al Dura story)  mean that the world now begins to see Israel as a beacon of peace?

Do criminals getting caught because they behave stupidly mean that justice is finally a reality—or is urinating on a fast-food restaurant simply a culinary statement?

Is naming your baby Messiah an unconscious signal that you are ready for Redemption? Or, does it mean simply you know what’s in the future, and you want to give your baby a ‘leg up’?

What does it mean when a prestigious newspaper (The Times of London) calls an anti-Israel scientist, ‘morally disreputable’? Does it suggest that world news outlets are ready now to promote morality and truth?

What are we to make of two apparently opposing headlines about Muslims—one that asks if we are all Muslims and one that shows Muslim clerics praying for Holocaust victims? Are we about to be converted--or are Muslims finally acknowledging Jewish history?

Perhaps more important, when expensive carrier jets cannot land in hot weather, does that mean nations are ready to think about changing swords into plowshares?

These headlines challenge us. They provoke.

 

Does putting Iran in charge of a UN panel on disarmament mean that the UN opposes these other signs of change—or does it mean that the UN has decided to move things along in its own way, by putting the fox in charge of the henhouse?

Naturally, it’s possible that all of these headlines are meaningless. They may have nothing to do with the Jewish Redemption. Perhaps we needn’t worry about these things. But then, the Times of London does step forward to fight against moral dishonesty about Israel.

What do you think that means? 

 

 

 

 

Israel, the UN, and the arc of human history

 

Everyone knows that Iran wants a nuclear bomb. Everyone knows that Arabs want to remove Israel from the world map. But no one talks about Iran or Arabs as a threat to world peace.

They talk about Israel. Israel may be the target for annihilation, but the threat to peace is not the ‘bomb’ of Iran or the hate of the Arab. The threat is Israel—the intended victim.

This is not coincidence. History has been moving us to this point since World War Two—or earlier. Our past is parent to today’s drama.

History is strange. We live it. It’s all around us. But we don’t understand it. It doesn’t unfold on a single plane; it unfolds simultaneously on multiple planes until, at some point, those planes converge: the United Nations is formed out the ashes of a horrific world war against tyranny; the UN immediately initiates a drive to create peace-in-the-world so that Man can rid the world of the scourge of war; the state of Israel is formed; Islamic Arabs initiate a relentless war against Israel; militant Islam spreads aggressively to Europe; the desire for peace becomes so pervasive that world-wide movements for ‘peace’ and ‘justice’ grow strong;  Jews experience a world-wide religious revival and begin to populate Jewish ancestral homeland in Israel; Jihadists attack America and put Islam in the spotlight; a new President of the United States begins an aggressive campaign to sell Islam as a ’religion of peace’; Leftists who want ‘justice and peace’ and Jihadists who want the land of Israel join together to destroy Israel for ‘peace’; and finally, Israel is pressured to yield—for peace-- to Arab demands even as an Arab official says he would nuke Israel immediately if he had ‘the bomb’.

 As hate and peace converge on Israel, the arc of history begins to come into focus. We can see how intense is the desire for peace—and how vicious is the hate against Israel.  

Since World War Two, a new code of International Law has developed. This new code, focused on ‘peace’, creates a new argument--and legal force--against the Jewish state: after World War Two, Jews from a war-torn Europe flooded ‘illegally’ into ‘Palestine’.  A few years later, 1948, these Jews, outsiders to ‘Palestine’, declared their own state, ‘illegally’ taking Arab land to do so. Since then, Israel has ‘illegally’ expanded its borders through war. Therefore, virtually everything Israel has done since its inception is illegal.

The defenders of International Law believe there can never be peace when such ‘illegality’ exists.

The UN (mentor for world law-and-order) has not yet decided to unmake this allegedly illegal Israel. But a UN agency now prints maps with ‘Palestine’ in place of Israel. The message cannot be any clearer: the United Nations would join with the Arab to anticipate a future without ‘Israel’.

The British Leftist Jenny Tonge has been quoted as saying that the single greatest obstacle to world peace is terrorism—and Israel causes that terrorism. Her inference is clear: to destroy the greatest obstacle to world peace, destroy the cause of terrorism.

For world peace, destroy Israel.

Since the UN has condemned Israel more times than all other nations combined, a world without Israel makes sense.  World peace without Israel certainly sounds good to a lot of people: Humanists, atheists, Leftists, academicians and many human rights organizations. It also sounds good to Muslims.

Muslims may have actually been the first to promote Israel as the obstacle to peace. Article 22 of the PLO/Fatah Charter declares that peace will come when the Zionist presence is destroyed. That was written in 1968. Does the world now sing the same song?

Christian leaders might sing that song.  In the last three years, several Christian denominations have described Israel as illegal, unjust and immoral. The Church of Scotland has most recently attempted to invalidate the Jewish religion itself.

Together, Muslims, Christian leaders, atheists and Humanists add up to a world majority—as much as two-thirds of the world’s 7 billion people.  How many are anti-Israel?

That’s an important question because at the UN, the majority rules. Muslims alone make up more that twenty-five per cent of the UN. Do other nations join them against Israel? How many believe that the closer Iran gets to a nuclear bomb, the more dangerous Israel becomes to world peace?

Many seem eager to remove Israel from the world map. Now, even the leader of Man’s drive for world peace and justice—the UN—appears to support that call.

Man’s message is clear: it doesn’t matter if Israel is G-d’s beloved (the Song of Songs). Man is in charge, not G-d; and to prove it, Man rejects what G-d loves.

The planes of history converge: the UN versus Israel; Man versus G-d.

The arc of history pulls the world to the G-d of Israel. Are you surprised?

 

Morality, dehumanization and the Arab cause

A cause that calls itself moral should be consistent. If one demands moral consideration, one should behave morally, if only to demonstrate that one understands what ‘moral’ means. But the Arab cause does not promote moral behaviour and its Arab citizens do not act morally.  Does that make their cause immoral?

 Think about how the Arab speaks about his cause. At the United Nations, on November 29, 2012, Mahmoud Abbas  told the world he wants his own state. He spoke of justice, ‘moral values’ and ‘moral duty’.

He connected statehood for ‘Palestine’ with morality. 

But Mahmoud Abbas and his fellow Arab leaders do not make this same association when speaking to their own people. They do not speak about morality. They don’t speak about peace. They speak of war-- against Israel; and the way they manipulate their people towards that war is anything but moral.

The Arab cause is the destruction of Israel. Read the Arab  Charters for PLO/Fatah, and Hamas. According to the Hamas Charter, the only solution for the ‘Palestinian problem’ is religious war, not political compromise.  According to the PLO/Fatah Charter, their cause is not peace-with-Israel, but the removal of the ‘Zionist entity’ from the Middle East.

To identify the destruction of a sovereign state as the reason for one’s existence is not moral behaviour.  To declare religious war against a homogeneous people (Jews in Israel) is not morality. It’s a call for ethnic cleansing.

Ethnic cleansing is not moral. It is connected to racial hatred. It is a crime against humanity.

It’s also the Arab battle-cry against Israel.

Arab leaders have one message: we will destroy Israel. Follow us, and the Zionist entity will disappear.

That’s not a moral cause. It’s racist hate.

Arab political and religious leaders are not shy about their hate. They love it so much they repeat it constantly: in speeches and publications, on TV and in the mosque. They will even hold up maps showing their Palestine in place of Israel, not beside it. They honour those who murder Jews. Their public heroes aren’t athletes or scientists; they’re killers.

When ethicists write about war, they often explore what makes war just or unjust. For these discussions, they identify a singular ‘smoking gun’ that presages unjust war: dehumanization of the enemy.

Dehumanization exists only for vicious intent. Arab characterizations of Jews and Israel dehumanize and demonize in ugly and repulsive terms. Arabs call Jews the enemy of god. They say Jews descend from apes and pigs. They say Jews engage in religious ritual to kill children for blood. They say Jews organize and control the world drug trade. Arabs call Israel a cancer.

Ethicists identify such tactics as immoral. These tactics are public manipulations designed for one purpose only: to remove psychological and moral barriers to killing. They are related to delegitimization, racism, moral exclusion and illegal violence—all characteristics of the Arab war against Israel.  Nazi dehumanization of the Jews as vermin—and similar Arab descriptions—make this point:  it might be tough to kill a fellow human; but killing vermin isn’t just acceptable—it’s socially desirable.  

For the ethicist, dehumanization is not just a way to prepare for killing. It is a particularly vicious and immoral behaviour directly linked to the worst kind of killing--genocide.  Dehumanization in both Nazi Germany and Rwanda telegraphed—and then led to--genocide.

Dehumanization is a communal preparation for genocide. Arab dehumanization prepares (and encourages) Arabs to slaughter Jews—often, for Islam (see the Hamas Charter and dozens of religious speeches recorded since the 1930’s).

Dehumanization, through manipulation and conditioning, encourages all ethical, moral and religious considerations to be thrown aside. Arabs have used dehumanization of the Jew for so long that slaughtering the Jew-pig has become the religious and social norm, not the exception.

Ethicists have observed that wherever you find public  dehumanization and demonization of another, you find unjust war.  The link between the two is that clear. We saw this in Gaza, in November, 2012. There, fighting against Israel, Arab warfare was purely unjust: they fired rockets from within civilian Arab populations; they fired into civilian Israeli populations; they used faked photographs and news reports to support their demonization of Israel.

To the ethicist, each of these examples illustrates what unjust war looks like. Each example is immoral; and each is linked to the contemporaneous use of some form of dehumanization (including celebrating over dead Jews).

If the Arab cause is moral, why does he so embrace the immoral?

Actions speak louder than words. Arabs want you to accept them as moral people seeking justice (the 2012 Abbas UN speech).  But their actions are immoral; and their dependence upon dehumanization telegraphs their desire for the ultimate immoral horror called genocide.

Arab dehumanization of its enemy does not suggest a moral cause. Their cause is not moral. It is horribly, unacceptably and criminally immoral.

Shavuot and the Women of the Wall

Last updated May 17, 2013

The Jewish holiday, Shavuot, celebrates the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people. It was at this moment, more than 3,300 years ago, that G-d made us a nation.  

Shavuot is the second and final part of the Biblical Exodus story. It is the culminating event of that story.

When the Jewish people gathered at Mount Sinai, they experienced a unique national moment—the only one of its kind in history. It was the first and only recorded moment when a complete nation experienced G-d’s Presence.

It was not just one man at Sinai who interacted with G-d. Every Jew did. That was the day Jews became distinct.  It was the day our ancestors committed to G-d as the defining  expression of their new-found freedom.  

In Judaism, freedom is not permission to do as we please. It is rather the necessary foundation for properly serving the Creator.

This year, Shavuot starts at nightfall on May 14, during the same seven-day period we saw the spectacle of a group calling themselves, Women of the Wall. These women recently went to the Kotel—the Western Wall—ostensibly to pray, just like thousands of others. But they went to pray like men, not women. They wore prayer shawls and phylacteries. They wanted to read from the Torah. They went, they said, to ‘liberate’ the Wall from Orthodox rules that prohibit women from praying like men. It appears that these women believe in Reform Judaism, which is not officially recognized in Israel. Reform Judaism rejects Orthodox practice and calls for, among other things, absolutely equality for women in all areas of Jewish life. The Women of the Wall want to show us what that equality looks like.

The Reform website Homepage declares that Reform Judaism was the first Movement to ordain women rabbis, invest women cantors and elect women to synagogue presidency. They give a brief nod to G-d, but declare that they choose to focus on repairing the world, so as to bring “peace, freedom, and justice to all people”.  That, and a mantra of 'change', appears to be their religious focus.

The Israel High Court has ruled that these women can pray at the Wall. It has been suggested that a portion of the Wall has already been allocated to those who, like these women, want to pray ‘as they please’. But these women apparently do not like that place.  They want to pray where they please.

Shavuot reminds us that these women use their religion in a way foreign to our 3,000 year tradition. You see, if Passover reminds us that Jews yearn to be free, Shavuot reminds us that freedom is not ‘to do as I please’.

Freedom did not lead to, ’me first.’ It led to Sinai. It led to G-d. It led to Torah and the unchanging Word of G-d.

Women of the Wall embrace freedom. But they reject 3,000 years of tradition. They reject Divine Immutability.

Women of the Wall do not have a single agenda. The leader of the group, Anat Hoffman, is not just interested in changing the rules of prayer at the Western Wall. In a BBC interview, she revealed that she has another goal: to change the Jewish religion in Israel. So as not to be mistaken, here are her exact words:

“…when you change the holiest site of the Jewish people you are actually asking ‘why not’ about a variety of life choices dictated to Israelis by the Orthodox monopoly (my emphasis)”

Her goals echo the Reform Judaism Homepage which states, about its interest in Israel, that it seeks to “reform the State of Israel.” Given the fact that the Reform Movement does not like the Orthodox Jewish vision of certain ‘life choice’ issues-- marriage, divorce and conversion--it seems clear from her words that Anat Hoffman’s ultimate purpose is to forward Reform Judaism’s desire to change  Israeli society—and to start those changes with an easy target, prayer at the Western Wall.

This is a serious plan. If implemented, it will alter Judaism-in-Israel forever. It is also a plan that hides a dirty secret: failure.

Reform Judaism states on its Homepage that Judaism must change and adapt to the needs of the day—in order to survive. Reform Judaism, however, has a serious survival issue. Unlike their religious adversary—the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox—Reform Judaism faces a demographic disaster of Biblical proportion: an outmarriage rate (marrying a non-Jew who does not convert) that averages 70 per cent. For a group that declares, ‘follow my changes and we will survive,’ their own track record suggests that they will not survive as Jews.

We do not survive because of the Reform Judaism agenda--or the agenda of the Women of the Wall. We survive because of the agenda of that momentous day 3,325 years ago.

That’s why we celebrate Shavuot: to celebrate what endures.

Old Communists would be proud of B’Tselem

 

More that forty years ago, Russia and the US were deep into a ‘cold war.’ One Russian propaganda goal was to demonstrate that Russia was better than the US. So great were the economic differences between the two countries that Americans typically found this effort laughable. But the Russians took it seriously. They worked overtime at it. They were bigger, better, stronger and faster than the US—in everything.

To prove this point—and to sell the superiority of Communism over capitalism--they often used fact to sell a lie. Facts-for-lies became a Russian joke. One of these jokes came to America.

In this joke, the Russians challenged America to a two-car race across Russia. The Americans accepted. The race was run. The Americans finished the race ten days ahead of the Russian car, which had continuously broken down. Nevertheless, the Russian government, with typical Communist creativity, heralded this race as a Communist triumph. How did they do that? They declared that, in a recent auto race across the Russian frontier, the Russian car came in second while the American car came in next to last!

The Communists didn’t lie. They just ‘massaged’ the facts. We smile—and understand that their intent was to create a false, anti-American conclusion.

We are reminded of this joke, and its underlying attack motive, because it has recently been updated by an Israel-based organization called, B’Tselem. B’Tselem is an anti-Israel, pro-Arab ‘human rights’ outfit that works aggressively to demonize Israel. 

One of B’Tselem’s tactics is to analyse Israeli military action against Arabs. Their intent appears to be to validate that Israel commits war crimes and violates International Humanitarian Law. They use facts gathered from Israeli military action in a way that Communists of old would have loved—to sell a lie.

B’Tselem used facts in this way with Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, December 2008-January 2009. They do it again with the November 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense.

In a newly-minted (May, 2013) report on Israeli attacks against Gaza in November 2012, B’Tselem has reported that 167 Arabs were killed by the IDF. Of these 167 deaths, they say, 87 were civilian. What B’Tselem does with these facts links its behaviour to those old Communists. They package facts to accuse Israel. The report gives only five words to  Arabs who clearly violated International Humanitarian Law (using human shields, firing rockets from within civilian populations, targeting Israeli civilians, dragging an Arab to death through the streets). Instead, they focus exclusively on the allegation that 70 of the 87 civilians killed by Israel had apparently died during the last four days of fighting (the fighting lasted eight days). They declare that such top-heavy deaths raise ‘suspicions’ of Israeli Humanitarian violations.

They ignore real international crimes and violations by Arabs. But they have a lot to say about their ‘suspicion’ of violations by Israel.

Their report claims that as many as 6 Arabs were killed by Arab rocket fire and an additional 7 were killed by Arabs after having been arrested for collaborating with Israel. B’Tselem harbours no ‘suspicions’ that these deaths have violated Humanitarian code.

They attack Israel’s reputation. They claim their report “challenges the common perception in the Israeli public and media that the operation was “surgical” and caused practically no fatalities among uninvolved Palestinian civilians.” This assertion is nonsense. It is a straw-man argument with no basis in reality. There was no ‘media and public perception’ that ‘practically no’ civilian casualties occurred. The common public perception at that time was that if Israel did not use ‘surgical strike’ tactics, the Arab death toll would not have been 167, but closer to 16,700.

What makes this anti-Israel attack so similar to the old Communist joke is how facts are used to sell a lie about Israel. The facts involve civilian death. A UN analysis of civilian –combatant deaths in asymmetric war (referred to in a 2011 news story) suggests that the average ratio of civilian-to-combatant death in asymmetric war is 3:1, or 3 civilians killed for every combatant killed.

In 2009, B’Tselem accused Israel of war crimes and violations of Humanitarian code—precisely because of the number of Arab civilians killed during fighting in 2008-9.  Because of the seriousness of the accusations, it would be reasonable to assume that, if a 3:1 death-ratio is simply the average, then Israel had far exceeded that ratio. Now they accuse Israel of ‘suspicions’ of similar violations in 2012.

But such death-ratios never occurred in 2009 or 2012. In 2009, the civilian-combatant death-ratio in Gaza was approximately 1.3:1 (or lower, if you use Israel’s numbers). In November 2012, the ratio was approximately 1.1:1.  These are not ‘Humanitarian violation’ ratios. They are, in fact (given the human shield factor) extraordinarily low. They are, possibly, lower than any other army, ever, in asymmetric warfare. Yet here is B’Teslem, the ‘human rights’ organization, ignoring such an extraordinary accomplishment to protect civilians in order to demonize Israel as a Humanitarian violator?

B’Tselem says that the November 2012 deaths challenge Israel’s claim that it uses surgical strikes to protect civilians. Really? How else did Israel achieve such historically low death-ratios?

Those old Communists would be proud of B’Tselem. They know how to use facts to sell a lie.

 

 

Jerusalem day, 2013

 

Think about the city you live in. In all probability, it’s a lot like most other cities—people, parks, jobs and schools. If it’s big enough, it might even still have a ‘downtown’ just like Jerusalem.

But your city is not like Jerusalem. First of all, your city isn’t old enough. Jerusalem is more than 3,000 years old. It has been destroyed twice, attacked more than 50 times, and captured-recaptured more than 40 times.

Chances are, your city probably hasn’t ever been destroyed. It’s probably never been captured or recaptured, either,  except perhaps by sports fans fighting their police after the occasional great victory by a local sports team.

That doesn’t compare to Jerusalem. Jerusalem isn’t about sports. It’s about religion. It’s about G-d. It’s so important, three religions want it as their own.

Judaism, the oldest of the three religions, claims Jerusalem. Judaism was first. It has provenance.

But both Christianity and then Islam claim they’re the new-and-improved versions of religion. They also want Jerusalem. For them, Jews don’t count.

Each claims Jerusalem for itself.

So it is that Jerusalem takes stage-center. Nations and religions kill to control it.  Somehow, through it all, Jerusalem remains holy—and, incredibly, Jewish.

The Jews have never gone away.

Jerusalem is Zion. She embodies the essence of the Jewish nation. She is the heart of Jewish history.

Jerusalem: this is where King David lived and King Solomon built our Holy Temple more than 2900 years ago.

Jerusalem: this is where close to 2,000 Jews were ethnically cleansed in 1948 after Arabs conquered the city’s Jewish Quarter.

Jerusalem: this is where, in 1967, Jews died to free our Temple Mount and Jewish soldiers felt the presence of G-d as they fought.

Jerusalem: this is where the Temple Mount, for the first time in 2,000 years, stands ready to offer freedom of worship to Jews (according to conditions set by Jewish law).

The G-d of Israel has been kind to Jerusalem, even as Man has not. When, after almost 2,000 years of exile, the United Nations gave Israel the right to become a modern State, it did not give Jerusalem to the Jews. It kept Jerusalem for UN control; the UN plan was that the Jews would not get their heart, their Zion. But then, two self-defensive wars later—less than 20 years after Independence--the G-d of Israel returned to Israel her heart, her Zion. Jerusalem and her Temple Mount became Jewish again, just as the Jewish G-d had promised thousands of years before.

Jerusalem is more than a city. It is the resting place of G-dliness. But it is also the battlefield for those who would destroy that G-dliness. Today may indeed be Yom Yirushaly-em—Jerusalem Day—when we remember those who died to unify under Jewish control this greatest of Jewish cities; but it is also a day to understand that our work is not yet done.

Jerusalem is still a battlefield. For example, this is Israel’s capital. But those who hate Jews claim it is the capital of Arab ‘Palestine’. 

Jerusalem is the home of the Temple Mount, Judaism’s Holiest site. But those who hate Jews prohibit Jews from worshipping there—and Israel’s government supports that hate.

Jerusalem is so holy, even prayer has become a battlefield. Wherever a Jew lives, he turns to Jerusalem to pray. Three times a day, he turns to Jerusalem. Those who hate Jews claim that Jerusalem is their exclusive Holy city. But when they pray, they show their backsides to Jerusalem.

We celebrate this day. But we do so knowing that Jerusalem is not yet free. According to at least one Waqf representative (representing the Muslim leadership of ‘Jerusalem’), the Temple Mount does not belong to Jews. It belongs to the Waqf—and Jews aren’t allowed there.

Today, some of Jerusalem’s neighbourhoods are Judenrein—Jew-free.

Today, it is legal for Arabs to sit in Jerusalem’s Knesset and support terror against the State of Israel. But today it is illegal  for Jews to move their lips  at their Holiest place, the Temple Mount.

Today, many Jews in the police, civil administration and  criminal justice system--those who rule us on a daily basis--see Jews as usurpers. For these anti-Jewish Jews, this city does not belong to Jews; it belongs to the Arab. Today, these anti-Jew Jews prefer to protect the Arab more than the Jew; and they now tell Jews that they don’t belong on what they apparently have decided is an Arab Temple Mount.

Even as we celebrate, the enemies of Jewish Jerusalem literally take stage-center, as one of the main singers scheduled for Jerusalem Day events is to be an singer who advocates dividing  Jerusalem and giving the Temple Mount to the Arab.

Despite this on-going battle, we celebrate our ‘Jerusalem Day’ with joy. We do that because we are Jewish, this city is Jewish—and our Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest place, is Jewish.

MK Moshe Feiglin on the Temple Mount: isn’t that illegal?

Last updated May 6, 2013

When the United Nations voted in November, 1947 to create a two-state solution ‘for the future government of Palestine’ (read UN Resolution 181), Jerusalem received special attention. This was done deliberately, to establish Jerusalem “as a corpus separatum under a special international regime”. Jerusalem would not be a part of the proposed two-state solution. Instead, it would be carved out. It would be an ‘international city’  administered by the UN.

UN Resolution 181 created two states, Jordan for the Arabs and Israel for the Jews. The concept was to create a ‘Partition—with Economic Union’ between the two states. In separate ‘Parts’, the Resolution discussed “the Arab State, the Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem (see Part 1A3)”.  In Part III, Sections C-1a; 12-a,b; and 13-a,b,c, the UN specified requirements for Jerusalem’s holy sites: (1) all holy sites were to be protected and preserved; (2) all citizens were to have freedom of religion and worship; (3) there should be no discrimination of any kind on grounds of race or religion; (4) rights to holy places, sites or buildings should not be denied or impaired; (5) there should be free access for everyone to all holy sites; and (6) no act is allowed that could in any way impair a holy site’s sacred character.

According to Wikipedia, what happened next was, ‘Civil War’. While this might be technically correct, it misrepresents actual events: the Jews accepted the UN plan; the Arabs attacked the Jews in order to impose their own one-state solution. Research contemporaneous news accounts of the 1947-48 war. That war was not between two peoples vying for the same national homeland (as many want you to believe). Resolution 181 had just created two separate homelands, Jordan for the Arab and Israel for the Jew.  The Arab rhetoric of the day was not nationalism; it was pure, unadulterated genocide—to kill Jews.

By 1949, this first Arab anti-Israel war ended with no peace. Boundaries were drawn--and because Arabs won major parts of Jerusalem, the city did not become an international city. It remained Arab-controlled and, as a consequence, all Jews were cleansed from Arab-controlled sections, Jewish holy sites were destroyed, and the Temple Mount was sealed off from Jews.

That Arab rule of Jerusalem lasted 19 years. During that time, no Jew had access to the Temple Mount. No Jew had freedom of worship within Arab-controlled areas.

In a 1967 war of self-defense, Israel won back Jerusalem. As part of that victory, Israel allowed the Waqf of Jerusalem—Muslim’s religious leader for the Jerusalem ‘area’—to remain (until this day) the ‘manager’ of the Mount.

Since that Jewish victory, all requirements for holy sites described in Part III of UN Resolution 181 have been enforced by Israel, for all religions. The Waqf, however, has violated every one of those requirements. Specifically, no Jew can worship on the Temple Mount; Jews approaching the Temple Mount are discriminated against because of their religion (their presence on the Mount is heavily restricted); Jewish rights to the Temple Mount are regularly denied and impaired; Jews are refused free access to the Mount;  Muslims have committed heavy damage to the Jewish character of the Mount (removing perhaps 15,000 tons of Temple Mount dirt, including  thousands of archaeologically rich Temple-era artifacts); and instead of preserving and protecting the Jewish nature of the Mount,  they have desecrated it by aggressively removing evidence of Jewish history—and have now begun to declare (after all the damage they have done) that there is no evidence of Jewish life on the Mount.

Someone has further desecrated the Temple Mount by chipping the word, ‘allah’ into one of the large stones there.

All of this becomes important in May, 2013 because MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud), who has been ascending to the Temple Mount once a month for years as a private citizen, has now been blocked from ascending by the Prime Minister himself. Feiglin insists that a Jew has the civil legal right (within  Jewish religious guidelines) to walk on the Temple Mount. He insists that it is illegal to forbid him to do so.

He’s right. When Israel won back the Mount in 1967, the Knesset realized the site’s religious significance. Just weeks after victory Israel’s Knesset passed the ‘Protection of Holy Places Law’, which made it illegal to (1) desecrate holy places; and (2) violate freedom of access to holy places.

Feiglin has the right to ascend the Mount.

 

But on visits to the Mount as far back as March, 2013, his ascent has been aggressively restricted. On one visit, when MK Feiglin attempted to approach the Dome of the Rock (which is not a mosque and which has been managed by the Waqf as a tourist attraction) a representative of the Waqf told him, ‘only Muslims may enter’--a direct violation of law. Then the police told Feiglin, ‘This place belongs to the Waqf.’

Now, Israel’s leader forbids him to ascend the Mount.

In case you missed it, there has been no change of law. The Mount and its tourist sites do not ‘belong’ to the Waqf. He has no legal right to restrict access. He had no right to forbid worship (if Jews even move their lips while on the Mount, they are arrested). Such restriction is illegal.

What’s going on here? Why are Jews so discriminated against in their own country?

Why does the Prime Minister break the law?