Myths, Hypotheses and Facts
Concerning the Origin of Peoples
The True Identity of the So-called Palestinians
In this essay I
would like to present the true origin and identity of the Arab people commonly
known as “Palestinians”, and the widespread myths surrounding them. This
research is intended to be completely neutral and objective, based on historic
and archaeological evidences as well as other documents, including Arab
sources, and quoting statements by authoritative Islamic personalities.
There are some modern myths -or more exactly, lies- that we can hear everyday
through the mass-media as if they were true, of course, hiding the actual truth.
For example, whenever the Temple Mount or Jerusalem are mentioned, it is usually
remarked that it is “the third holiest place for Muslims”, but why it is
never said that is the FIRST Holiest Place for Jews? It sounds like
utterly biased information!
In order to make this material more comprehensible, it will be presented in two
units:
·1) Myths and facts concerning the origin and identity of the so-called
Palestinians;
·2) Myths and facts regarding Jerusalem and the Land of Israel.
I - Origin and identity of the so-called Palestinians
Palestinians are the newest of all the peoples on the face of the Earth, and began to exist in a single day by a kind of supernatural phenomenon that is unique in the whole history of mankind, as it is witnessed by Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist that acknowledged the lie he was fighting for and the truth he was fighting against:
“Why is it that
on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?”
“We did not particularly mind Jordanian rule. The teaching of the destruction of
Israel was a definite part of the curriculum, but we considered ourselves
Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then all of the sudden we were
Palestinians - they removed the star from the Jordanian flag and all at once we
had a Palestinian flag”.
“When I finally realized the lies and myths I was taught, it is my duty as a
righteous person to speak out”.
This declaration by a true “Palestinian” should have some significance for a sincerely neutral observer. Indeed, there is no such a thing like a Palestinian people, or a Palestinian culture, or a Palestinian language, or a Palestinian history. There has never been any Palestinian state, neither any Palestinian archaeological find nor coinage. The present-day “Palestinians” are an Arab people, with Arab culture, Arabic language and Arab history. They have their own Arab states from where they came into the Land of Israel about one century ago to contrast the Jewish immigration. That is the historical truth. They were Jordanians (another recent British invention, as there has never been any people known as “Jordanians”), and after the Six-Day War in which Israel utterly defeated the coalition of nine Arab states and took legitimate possession of Judea and Samaria, the Arab dwellers in those regions underwent a kind of anthropological miracle and discovered that they were Palestinians - something they did not know the day before. Of course, these people having a new identity had to build themselves a history, namely, had to steal some others’ history, and the only way that the victims of the theft would not complain is if those victims do no longer exist. Therefore, the Palestinian leaders claimed two contradictory lineages from ancient peoples that inhabited in the Land of Israel: the Canaanites and the Philistines. Let us consider both of them before going on with the Palestinian issue.
The Canaanites:
The Canaanites
are historically acknowledged as the first inhabitants of the Land of Israel,
before the Hebrews settled there. Indeed, the correct geographic name of the
Land of Israel is Canaan, not “Palestine” (a Roman invention, as we will see
later). They were composed of different tribes that may be divided into two main
groups: the Northern or Coastland Canaanites and the Southern or Mountain
Canaanites.
·The Northern Canaanites settled along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea from
the south-eastern side of the Gulf of Iskenderun to the proximities of the Gulf
of Haifa. Their main cities were Tzur, Tzidon, Gebal (Byblos), Arvad, Ugarit,
and are better known in history by their Greek name Phoenicians, but they
called themselves “Kana’ana” or “Kinachnu”. They did not found any unified
kingdom but were organized in self-ruled cities, and were not a warlike people
but rather skilful traders, seafarers and builders. Their language was adopted
from their Semitic neighbours, the Arameans, and was closely related to Hebrew
(not to Arabic!). Phoenicians and Israelites did not need interpreters to
understand each other. They followed the same destiny of ancient Israel and fell
under Assyrian rule, then Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian, Seleucian and Roman.
Throughout their history the Phoenicians intermarried with different peoples
that dwelled in their land, mainly Greeks and Armenians. During the Islamic
expansion they were Arabized, yet, never completely assimilated, and their
present-day state is Lebanon, erroneously regarded as an “Arab” country, a label
that the Lebanese people reject. Unlike the Arab states, Lebanon has a western
democratic-style official name, “Lebanese Republic”, without the essential
adjective “Arab” that is required in the denominations of every Arab state. The
only mention of the term Arabic in the Lebanese constitution refers to
the official language of the state, which does not mean that the Lebanese people
are Arabs in the same way as the official language of the United States is
English but this does not qualify the Americans as British.
The so-called Palestinians are not Lebanese (although some of them came from
Syrian-occupied Lebanon), therefore they are not Phoenicians (Northern
Canaanites). Actually, in Lebanon they are “refugees” and are not identified
with the local people.
·The Southern Canaanites dwelled in the mountain region from the Golan
southwards, on both sides of the Yarden and along the Mediterranean coast from
the Gulf of Haifa to Yafo, that is the Biblical Canaan. They were composed by
various tribes of different stocks: besides the proper Canaanites (Phoenicians),
there were Amorites, Hittites and Hurrian peoples like the Yevusites, Hivvites
and Horites, all of them assimilated into the Aramean-Canaanite context. They
never constituted a unified, organized state but kept within the tribal alliance
system.
When the first Hebrews arrived in Canaan they shared the land but did not
intermarry, as it was an interdiction for Avraham’s family to marry the
Canaanites. Nevertheless, eleven of the twelve sons of Yaakov married Canaanite
women (the other son married an Egyptian), and since then, the Tribes of Israel
began to mix with the local inhabitants. After the Exodus, when the Israelites
conquered the Land, there were some wars between them and the Canaanites
throughout the period of the Sofetim (Judges); and were definitively subdued by
King David. By that time, most Canaanites were married to Israelites, others
voluntarily accepted Torah becoming Israelites; others joined up in the
Israelite or Judean army. Actually, the Canaanites are seldom mentioned during
the Kings’ period, usually in reference to their heathen customs introduced
among the Israelites, but no longer as a distinguishable people, because they
were indeed assimilated into the Israelite nation. When the Assyrians overran
the Kingdom of Israel, they did not leave any Canaanite aside; as they had by
that time all become Israelites. The same happened when the Babylonians
overthrew the Kingdom of Judah.
Therefore, the only people that can trace back a lineage to the ancient
Canaanites are the Jews, not the Palestinians, as Canaanites did not exist any
longer after the 8th century BCE and they were not annihilated but assimilated
into the Jewish people.
Conclusion: the Palestinians cannot claim any descent from the ancient
Canaanites - if so, why not to pretend also the Syrian “occupied territories”,
namely, Lebanon? Why do they not speak the language of the ancient Canaanites,
Hebrew? Because they are NOT Canaanites at all!
The Philistines:
It is from the
term “Philistines” that the name “Palestinians” has been taken. Actually, the
ancient Philistines and modern Palestinians have something in common: both are
invaders from other lands! That is precisely the meaning of their name;
that is not an ethnic denomination but an adjective applied to them: Peleshet,
from the verb “pelesh”, “dividers”, “penetrators” or “invaders”. The Philistines
were a confederation of non-Semitic peoples coming from Crete, the Aegean
Islands and Asia Minor, also known as “Sea Peoples”. The main tribes were
Tzekelesh, Shardana, Akhaiusha, Danauna, Tzakara, Masa or Meshwesh, Lukki,
Dardana, Tursha, Keshesh or Karkisha, Labu and Irven. The original homeland of
the group that ruled the Philistine federation, namely the “Pelesati”, was the
island of Crete. When the Minoan civilization collapsed, also the Minoan culture
disappeared from Crete, as invaders from Greece took control of the island.
These ancient Cretans arrived in Southern Canaan and were known as “Pelestim and
Keretim” by Hebrews and Canaanites (that became allied to fight the invaders).
Their first settlement, seem to have been Gaza, whose original name was “Minoa”,
a clear reference to the fallen Minoa kingdom. They also invaded Egypt and were
defeated by Pharaoh Ramose III in the 12th centuryBCE. The Philistines were
organized in city-states, being the most important the Pentapolis: Gaza, Ashdod,
Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron, and their territory was close to the Mediterranean
coast, a little longer and broader than the present-day “Gaza Strip” - not the
whole of Judah; they never reached Hevron, Jerusalem or Yericho!
Those Sea Peoples that invaded Egypt were expelled towards other Mediterranean
lands and did not evolve into any Arab people, but disappeared as
distinguishable groups in Roman times. Those dwelling in Canaan were defeated by
King David and reduced to insignificance, the best warriors among them were
chosen as David’s bodyguard. The remaining Philistines still dwelling in Gaza
were subdued by Sargon II of Assyria and after that time, they disappeared
definitively from history. They are no longer mentioned since the return of the
Jewish exiles from Babylon.
Conclusion: there is not one single person in the world who may be able to prove
Philistine lineage, yet, if Palestinians insist, they have to recognize
themselves as invaders in Israel, and then they must ask Greece to return them
back the Isle of Crete! The Philistines are extinct and claims to alleged links
with them are utterly false as they are historically impossible to establish. In
any case, claiming a Philistine heritage is idle because it cannot legitimate
any land in which they were foreign occupants and not native dwellers.
Philistines were not Arabs, and the only feature in common between both peoples
is that in Israel they should be regarded as invaders, Philistines from the sea
and Arabs from the wilderness. They do not want Jerusalem because it is their
city, which is not and never has been, they simply want to take her from the
Jews, to whom she has belonged for three thousand years. The Philistines wanted
to take from Israelites the Holy Ark of the Covenant, modern so-called
Palestinians want to take from them the Holy City of the Covenant.
The Palestinians: No, they are not any ancient people, but claim to be. They were born in a single day, after a war that lasted six days in 1967 CE. If they were true Canaanites, they would speak Hebrew and demand from Syria to give them back their occupied homeland in Lebanon, but they are not. If they were Philistines, they would claim back the Isle of Crete from Greece and would recognize that they have nothing to do with the Land of Israel, and would ask excuses to Israel for having stolen the Ark of the Covenant.
The land called “Palestine”
In the 2nd
century CE, the last attempt of the Jews to achieve independence from the Roman
Empire ended with the well-known event of Masada, that is historically
documented and universally recognized as the fact that determined the Jewish
Diaspora in a definitive way. The Land where these things happened was until
then the province known as Judæa
, and there is no mention of any place called
“Palestine” before that time. The Roman emperor Hadrian was utterly upset with
the Jewish Nation and wanted to erase the name of Israel and Judah from the face
of the Earth, so that there would be no memory of the country that belonged to
that rebel people. He decided to replace the denomination of that Roman province
and resorted to ancient history in order to find a name that might appear
appropriate, and found that an extinct people that was unknown in Roman times,
called “Philistines”, was once dwelling in that area and were enemies of the
Israelites. Therefore, according to Latin spelling, he invented the new name:
“Palæstina”, a name that would be also hateful for the Jews as it reminded them
their old foes. He did so with the explicit purpose of effacing any trace of
Jewish history. Ancient Romans, as well as modern Palestinians, have fulfilled
the Hebrew Scriptures Prophecy that declares: “They lay crafty plans against
Your People... they say: ‘come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name
of Israel be remembered no more’.” - Tehilim 83:3-4 (Psalm 83:3-4). They failed,
as Israel is still alive. Any honest person would recognize that there is no
mention of the name Palestina in history before the Romans renamed the
province of Judea, that such name does not occur in any ancient document, is not
written in the Bible, neither in the Hebrew Scriptures nor in the Christian
Testament, not even in Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian, Ptolemaic, Seleucian or
other Greek sources, and that not any “Palestinian” people has ever been
mentioned, not even by the Romans that invented the term. If “Palestinians”
allegedly are the historic inhabitants of the Holy Land, why did they not fight
for independence from Roman occupation as Jews did? How is it possible that not
a single Palestinian leader heading for a revolt against the Roman invaders is
mentioned in any historic record? Why there is not any Palestinian rebel group
mentioned, as for example the Jewish Zealots? Why every historic document
mentions the Jews as the native inhabitants, and the Greeks, Romans and others
as foreigners dwelling in Judea, but not any Palestinian people, neither as
native nor as foreigner? What is more, there is no reference to any Palestinian
people in the Qur’an (Koran), although Muslims claim that their prophet was once
in Jerusalem (an event that is not mentioned in the Koran either). It appears
evident that he did not meet any Palestinian in his whole life, nor his
successors did either. Caliph Salahuddin al-Ayyub (Saladin), knew the Jews and
kindly invited them to settle in Jerusalem, that he recognized as their
Homeland, but he did not know any Palestinian... To claim that Palestinians are
the original people of Eretz Yisrael is not only against secular history but
also against Islamic history!
The name “Falastin” that Arabs today use for “Palestine” is not an Arabic name,
but adopted and adapted from the Latin Palæstina . How can an Arab people
have a western name instead of one in their own language? Because the use of the
term “Palestinian” for an Arab group is only a modern political creation without
any historic or ethnic grounds, and did not indicate any people before 1967. An
Arab writer and journalist declared:
“There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Iraqis, etc. Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of one percent of the landmass. But that’s too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today... No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough”.
- Joseph Farah, “Myths of the Middle East”
Let us hear what other Arabs have said:
“There is no such country as Palestine. ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was, for centuries, part of Syria. ‘Palestine’ is alien to us. It is the Zionists who introduced it”.
- Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, Syrian Arab leader to British Peel Commission, 1937
“There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not”.
- Professor Philip Hitti, Arab historian, 1946
“It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but Southern Syria”.
- Representative of Saudi Arabia at the United Nations, 1956
Concerning the Holy Land, the chairman of the Syrian Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in February 1919 stated:
“The only Arab domination since the Conquest in 635 CE hardly lasted, as such, 22 years”.
The preceding declarations by Arab politicians have been done before 1967, as they had not the slightest knowledge of the existence of any Palestinian people. How and when did they change their mind and decided that such people existed? When the State of Israel was reborn in 1948 CE the “Palestinians” did not exist yet, the Arabs had still not discovered that “ancient” people. They were too busy with the purpose of annihilating the new Sovereign State and did not intend to create any Palestinian entity, but only to distribute the land among the already existing Arab states. They were defeated. They attempted again to destroy Israel in 1967, and were humiliated in only six days, in which they lost the lands that they had usurped in 1948. In those 19 years of Arab occupation of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, neither Jordan nor Egypt suggested to create a “Palestinian” state, since the still non-existing Palestinians would have never claimed their alleged right to have their own state... Paradoxically, during the British Mandate, it was not any Arab group but the Jews that were known as “Palestinians”!
What other Arabs declared after the Six-Day War:
“There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our Palestinian identity... yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel”.
- Zuhair Muhsin, military commander of the PLO and member of the PLO Executive Council
“You do not represent Palestine as much as we do. Never forget this one point: There is no such thing as a Palestinian people, there is no Palestinian entity; there is only Syria. You are an integral part of the Syrian people; Palestine is an integral part of Syria. Therefore it is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the true representatives of the Palestinian people”.
- Syrian dictator Hafez Assad to the PLO leader Yasser Arafat
“As I lived in Palestine, everyone I knew could trace their heritage back to the original country their great grandparents came from. Everyone knew their origin was not from the Canaanites, but ironically, this is the kind of stuff our education in the Middle East included. The fact is that today’s Palestinians are immigrants from the surrounding nations! I grew up well knowing the history and origins of today’s Palestinians as being from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Christians from Greece, Muslim Sherkas from Russia, Muslims from Bosnia, and the Jordanians next door. My grandfather, who was a dignitary in Bethlehem, almost lost his life by Abdul Qader Al-Husseni (the leader of the Palestinian revolution) after being accused of selling land to Jews. He used to tell us that his village Beit Sahur (The Shepherds Fields) in Bethlehem County was empty before his father settled in the area with six other families. The town has now grown to 30,000 inhabitants”.
- Walid Shoebat, an “ex-Palestinian” Arab
How long do “Palestinians” live in “Palestine”?
According to the United Nations weird standards, any person that spent TWO YEARS (!!!) in “Palestine” before 1948, with or without proof, is a “Palestinian”, as well as all the descendants of that person. Indeed, the PLO leaders eagerly demand the “right” of all Palestinians to come back to the land that they occupied before June 1967 CE but utterly reject to return back to the land where they lived only 50 years before, namely, in 1917 CE. Why? Because if they agree to do so, they have to settle back in Iraq, Syria, Arabia, Libya, Egypt... and only a handful Arabs would remain in Israel (by Israel is intended the whole Land between the Yarden River and the Mediterranean Sea, plus the Golan region). It is thoroughly documented that the first inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael after some centuries were the Jewish pioneers, and not the Arabs so-called Palestinians. Some eyewitnesses have written their memories about the Land before the Jewish immigration:
“There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent (valley of Jezreel, Galilea); not for thirty miles in either direction... One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings. For the sort of solitude to make one dreary, come to Galilee... Nazareth is forlorn... Jericho lies a mouldering ruin... Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and humiliation... untenanted by any living creature... A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds... a silent, mournful expanse... a desolation... We never saw a human being on the whole route... Hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil had almost deserted the country... Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes... desolate and unlovely...”.
- Mark Twain, “The Innocents Abroad”, 1867
Where had the Palestinians been hidden that Mark Twain did not see them? Where was that “ancient” people in the mid XIX century CE.? Of course, modern biased Arab politicians try to discredit Mark Twain and insult and blame him of racism. Yet, it seems that there were other people that did not achieve in recognizing a single Palestinian in those times and earlier:
“In 1590 a ‘simple English visitor’ to Jerusalem wrote: ‘Nothing there is to bescene but a little of the old walls, which is yet remayning and all the rest is grasse, mosse and weedes much like to a piece of rank or moist grounde’.”.
- Gunner Edward Webbe, Palestine
Exploration Fund,
Quarterly Statement, p. 86; de Haas, History, p. 338
“The land in Palestine is lacking in people to till its fertile soil”.
- British archaeologist Thomas Shaw, mid-1700s
“Palestine is a ruined and desolate land”.
- Count Constantine François Volney, XVIII century French author and historian
“The Arabs themselves cannot be considered but temporary residents. They pitched their tents in its grazing fields or built their places of refuge in its ruined cities. They created nothing in it. Since they were strangers to the land, they never became its masters. The desert wind that brought them hither could one day carry them away without their leaving behind them any sign of their passage through it”.
- Comments by Christians concerning the Arabs in Palestine in the 1800s
“Then we entered the hill district, and our path lay through the clattering bed of an ancient stream, whose brawling waters have rolled away into the past, along with the fierce and turbulent race who once inhabited these savage hills. There may have been cultivation here two thousand years ago. The mountains, or huge stony mounds environing this rough path, have level ridges all the way up to their summits; on these parallel ledges there is still some verdure and soil: when water flowed here, and the country was thronged with that extraordinary population, which, according to the Sacred Histories, was crowded into the region, these mountain steps may have been gardens and vineyards, such as we see now thriving along the hills of the Rhine. Now the district is quite deserted, and you ride among what seem to be so many petrified waterfalls. We saw no animals moving among the stony brakes; scarcely even a dozen little birds in the whole course of the ride”.
- William Thackeray in “From Jaffa To Jerusalem”, 1844
“The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is of a body of population”.
- James Finn, British Consul in 1857
“There are many proofs, such as ancient ruins, broken aqueducts, and remains of old roads, which show that it has not always been so desolate as it seems now. In the portion of the plain between Mount Carmel and Jaffa one sees but rarely a village or other sights of human life. There are some rude mills here which are turned by the stream. A ride of half an hour more brought us to the ruins of the ancient city of Cæsarea, once a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, and the Roman capital of Palestine, but now entirely deserted. As the sun was setting we gazed upon the desolate harbor, once filled with ships, and looked over the sea in vain for a single sail. In this once crowded mart, filled with the din of traffic, there was the silence of the desert. After our dinner we gathered in our tent as usual to talk over the incidents of the day, or the history of the locality. Yet it was sad, as I laid upon my couch at night, to listen to the moaning of the waves and to think of the desolation around us”.
- B. W. Johnson, in “Young Folks in Bible Lands”: Chapter IV, 1892
“The area was under populated and remained economically stagnant until the arrival of the first Zionist pioneers in the 1880’s, who came to rebuild the Jewish land. The country had remained “The Holy Land” in the religious and historic consciousness of mankind, which associated it with the Bible and the history of the Jewish people. Jewish development of the country also attracted large numbers of other immigrants - both Jewish and Arab. The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts... Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen... The plows used were of wood... The yields were very poor... The sanitary conditions in the village [Yabna] were horrible... Schools did not exist... The rate of infant mortality was very high... The western part, toward the sea, was almost a desert... The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants”.
- The report of the British Royal Commission, 1913
The list of travellers and pilgrims throughout the XVI to the XIX centuries CE that give a similar description of the Holy Land is quite longer, including Alphonse de Lamartine, Sir George Gawler, Sir George Adam Smith, Siebald Rieter, priest Michael Nuad, Martin Kabatnik, Arnold Van Harff, Johann Tucker, Felix Fabri, Edward Robinson and others. All of them found the land almost empty, except for Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Shechem, Hevron, Haifa, Safed, Irsuf, Cæsarea, Gaza, Ramleh, Acre, Sidon, Tzur, El Arish, and some towns in Galilee: Ein Zeitim, Pekiin, Biria, Kfar Alma, Kfar Hanania, Kfar Kana and Kfar Yassif. Even Napoleon I Bonaparte, having seen the need that the Holy Land would be populated, had in mind to enable a mass return of Jews from Europe to settle in the country that he recognized as theirs’ - evidently, he did not see any “Palestinian” claiming historical rights over the Holy Land, whose few inhabitants were mainly Jews.
Besides them, many Arab sources confirm the fact that the Holy Land was still Jewish by population and culture in spite of the Diaspora:
In 985 CE the Arab writer Muqaddasi complained that in Jerusalem the large majority of the population were Jewish, and said that “the mosque is empty of worshippers...” .
Ibn Khaldun, one of the most creditable Arab historians, in 1377 CE wrote:
“Jewish
sovereignty in the Land of Israel extended over 1400 years... It was the Jews
who implanted the culture and customs of the permanent settlement”.
After 300 years of Arab rule in the Holy Land, Ibn Khaldun attested that Jewish
culture and traditions were still dominant. By that time there was still no
evidence of “Palestinian” roots or culture .
The historian
James Parker wrote: “During the first century after the Arab conquest [670-740
CE], the caliph and governors of Syria and the [Holy] Land ruled entirely over
Christian and Jewish subjects. Apart from the Bedouin in the earliest days, the
only Arabs west of the Jordan were the garrisons”.
Even though the Arabs ruled the Land from 640 CE to 1099 CE, they never became
the majority of the population. Most of the inhabitants were Christians
(Assyrian and Armenian) and Jews.
If the historic
documents, comments written by eyewitnesses and declarations by the most
authoritative Arab scholars are still not enough, let us quote the most
important source for Muslim Arabs:
“And thereafter We [Allah] said to the Children of Israel: ‘Dwell securely in
the Promised Land. And when the last warning will come to pass, we will gather
you together in a mingled crowd’.”.
- Qur’an 17:104 -
Any sincere Muslim must recognize the Land they call “Palestine” as the Jewish Homeland, according to the book considered by Muslims to be the most sacred word and Allah’s ultimate revelation.
Permanent Jewish presence in the Holy Land
Whenever the
issue concerning the Jewish population in Israel is discussed, the idea that
Jews are “returning back” to their Homeland after almost two millennia of exile
is taken for granted. It is true that such is the case for the largest number of
Jews, but not for all of them. It is not correct to say that the whole Jewish
nation has been in exile. The long exile, known as Diaspora, is a documented
fact that proves the legitimacy of the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel, and
was the consequence of the Jewish Wars of independence from the Roman Empire. If
“Palestinians” allegedly are the historic inhabitants of the Holy Land, why did
they not fight for independence from Roman occupation as Jews did? How is it
possible that not a single Palestinian leader heading for a revolt against the
Roman invaders is mentioned in any historic record? Why there is not any
Palestinian rebel group mentioned, as for example the Jewish Zealots? Why every
historic document mentions the Jews as the native inhabitants, and the Greeks,
Romans and others as foreigners dwelling in Judea, but not any Palestinian
people, neither as native nor as foreigner? After the last Jewish War in the 2nd
century CE, the Roman emperor Hadrian sacked Jerusalem in 135 CE and changed her
name into Ælia Capitolina, and the name of Judæa into Palæstina, in order to
erase the Jewish identity from the face of the Earth. Most of the Jews were
expelled from their own land by the Romans, a fact that determined the beginning
of the great Diaspora. Nevertheless, small groups of Jews remained in the
province then renamed “Palestine”, and their descendants dwelled in their own
country continuously throughout generations until the Zionist pioneers started
on the mass return in the XIX century. Therefore, the Jewish claim to the Land
of Israel is justified not only by an old Biblical Promise, but also by a
permanent presence of Jews as the only autochthonous ethnic community existing
in the Holy Land. Along the centuries and under different dominations, the
“Palestinian” Jews did never submit to assimilation but conserved their
spiritual and cultural identity, as well as their links with other Jewish
communities in the Middle East. The continuous flow of Mizrachim (Oriental) and
Sephardim (Mediterranean) Jews to the Holy Land contributed to support the
existence of the Jewish population in the area. This enduring Jewish presence in
the so-called Palestine preceded many centuries the arrival of the first Arab
conqueror.
Even though Jerusalem has been off-limits to Jews in different periods (since
Romans banned all Jews to enter the City), many of them settled in the immediate
proximities and in other towns and villages of the Holy Land. A Jewish community
was established at Mount Zion. The Roman and subsequent Byzantine rule were
oppressive; Jews were prevented from praying at the Kotel, where the Holy Temple
once existed. The Sassanid Persians took control over Jerusalem in 614 CE allied
with the local Jews, but five years later the City fell again under Byzantine
control, although it was an ephemeral rule because in 638 CE Jerusalem was
captured by the caliph Omar. That was the first time that an Arab leader set
foot in the Holy City, inhabited by non-Arab peoples (Jews, Assyrians,
Armenians, Greeks and other Christian communities). After centuries of
Roman-Byzantine oppression, the Jews welcomed the Arab conquerors with the hope
that their conditions would improve. The Arabs found a strong Jewish identity in
Jerusalem and the surrounding land; Jews were living in every district of the
country and on both sides of the Jordan. Indeed, the “Palestinians” that were
historically dwelling in the Holy Land were no other than the Jews! Towns like
Ramallah, Yericho and Gaza were almost purely Jewish by that time. The Arabs,
not having a name of their own for this region, adopted the Latin name
“Palæstina”, that they translated into Arabic as “Falastin”.
The first Arab immigrants that settled in the so-called Palestine - or,
according to the modern UN conception, the first “Palestinian refugees” - were
actually Jewish Arabs, namely Nabateans that adopted Judaism. Before the rise of
Islam, flourishing centres like Khaybar and Yathrib (renamed Madinah) were
mainly Jewish Nabatean cities. Whenever there was a famine in the land, people
would go to Khaybar; the Jews always had fruit, and their springs yielded a
plentiful supply of water. Once the muslim hordes conquered the Arabian
peninsula, all that richness was ruined; the muslims perpetrated massacres
against the Jews and replaced them with masses of ignorant fellahin submitted to
the new religion. The survivors had to escape and took refuge in the Holy Land,
mainly in Yericho and Dera’a, on both shores of the Jordan.
The Arab caliphs (Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid) controlled the Holy Land until
1071 CE, when Jerusalem was captured by the Seldjuq Turks, and after that time,
it was never again under Arab rule. During all that period, Arabs hardly
established any permanent social structure of their own, but rather governed
over the native non-Arab Christian and Jewish population. Any honest observer
would notice that the Arabs ruled over the Holy Land three centuries less than
they did over Spain!
In 1099 CE, the European Crusaders conquered the so-called Palestine and
established a kingdom that was politically independent, but never developed a
national identity; it was just a military outpost of Christian Europe. The
Crusaders were ruthless and tried by all means to remove any expression of
Jewish culture, but all their efforts ended without success. In 1187 CE, Jews
actively participated with Salah-ud-Din Al’Ayyub (Saladin) against the Crusaders
in the conquest of Jerusalem. Saladin, who was the greatest muslim conqueror,
was not an Arab but a Kurd. The Crusaders took Jerusalem back from 1229 to 1244
CE, when the City was captured by the Khwarezmians. A period of chaos and Mongol
invasions followed until 1291CE, when the Mameluks completed the conquest of
almost the whole Middle East and settled their capital in Cairo, Egypt. The
Mameluks were originally Central Asian and Caucasian mercenaries employed by the
Arab caliphs; a medley of peoples whose main contingent was composed by Kumans,
a Turkic tribe also known as Kipchak, related to the Seldjuqs, Kimaks and other
groups. They were characterized by their ambiguous behaviour, as Kuman
mercenaries were often contemporarily serving two enemy armies. The Mameluk
soldiers did not miss the right moment to seize power for themselves, and even
after their rule was overthrown, they were still employed as warriors by the
Ottoman sultans and at last by Napoleon Bonaparte.
In 1517 CE, Jerusalem and the whole Holy Land were conquered by the Ottoman
Turks and remained under their rule during four centuries, until 1917 CE, when
the British captured Jerusalem and established the “Mandate of Palestine”. It
was the end of the Ottoman Empire, that owned all the present-day Arab countries
until then. Indeed, since the fall of the Abbasid caliphate in 945 CE, no Arab
political entity existed in the Middle East for almost a millennium!
By the beginning of the XX century CE, the population of Judea and Samaria - the
improperly called “West Bank” - was less than 100,000 inhabitants, of which the
majority were Jews. Gaza had no more than 80,000 “native” inhabitants in 1951,
at the end of Israel’s Independence War against the whole Arab world. Gaza was
occupied by Arabs: How is it possible that in only 50 years it has increased
from 80,000 to more than one million people? Are all those Arabs of Gaza so
skilful as to procreate children in a supernatural way? Mass immigration is the
ONLY plausible explanation for such a demographic increase. The Arab occupation
between 1948 and 1967 was an advantageous opportunity for Arab leaders to
promote mass immigration of so-called “Palestinians” (a mishmash of Arab
immigrants) into Judea, Samaria and Gaza from every Arab country, mainly Egypt,
Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan. In fact, since 1950 until the Six-Day War,
under Jordanian rule, more than 250 Arab settlements have been founded in Judea
and Samaria. The recent construction of the Arab houses is quite evident by the
materials used for building: concrete and cinderblock. The Israeli government
admits to have allowed over 240,000 workers to enter Judea and Samaria through
the border with Jordan since the Oslo Conference - only to have them stay in
those territories as Arab settlers. The actual numbers are probably higher. If
hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern migrant workers are flooding into the
Judea, Samaria and Gaza, why should Israel be required to provide them jobs? In
fact the reverse, by supporting their economy while these people refuse to
accept Israeli or Jordanian citizenship, Israel is only attracting more migrant
workers. Saudi Arabia in a single year expelled over 1,000,000 stateless migrant
workers. Lest anyone think that these are all “Palestinians”, taking account of
the definition of “Palestinian” according to the United Nations: all those Arabs
that spent TWO YEARS in “Palestine” before 1948, and their descendants - with or
without proof or documentation -. This definition was specifically designed to
include immigrant Arab settlers (not Jewish settlers!).
The British perfidy
The restoration
of the desolate and deserted Land began in the latter half of the XIX century
with the arrival of the first Jewish pioneers. Their labours created newer and
better conditions and opportunities, which in turn attracted migrants from many
parts of the Middle East, mainly Arabs but also Circassians, Kurds and others.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917, confirmed by the League of Nations, committed
the British government (that took control of the Holy Land after having defeated
the Ottoman Turks) to the principle that “His Majesty’s government view with
favour the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish National Home, and will use
their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object”. It was
specified both that this area be open to “Jewish settlement” and that the rights
of all inhabitants already in the country be preserved and protected. The
“Mandate of Palestine” ‒as it was called the British-occupied land‒ originally
included all of present-day Jordan, as well as the whole of Israel, and the
so-called “territories” between them (?) ‒actually, the Jordan river and the
Dead Sea are the only “territory” between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom‒.
However, the political and economic interests of Great Britain in Arabia turned
soon into a blatant anti-Jewish policy. The British rule progressively limited
Jewish immigration. In 1939 the admission of Jews to enter the Holy Land was put
to an end. In the moment in which Jews from Europe had the greatest need of
refuge, the British denied them to reach the Land that was their only hope of
deliverance from the atrocious Shoah. Yes, the British government is not less
guilty than Nazi Germany for the Shoah! At the same time, the British allowed
and even encouraged massive illegal immigration into the lands west of the
Jordan river from Arab countries. Then, all the lands of the Mandate of
Palestine east of the Jordan river were given to the Arabs and the
puppet-kingdom of “Trans-Jordan” was created, name that was then changed into
“Jordan” after the Arabs occupied the western side in 1948. There was no
traditional or historic Arab name for this land, so it was called after the
river that marked its western border (which was later included, until June
1967). By this political act, that violated the conditions of the Balfour
Declaration and the Mandate, the British stole more than 75 % out of the Jewish
National Home. No Jew has ever been permitted to reside in the east of the
Jordan river. Less than 25 % then remained of Mandate of Palestine, and even in
this remnant, the British violated the Balfour and Mandate requirements for a
“Jewish National Home” and for “Jewish settlement”. They progressively
restricted where Jews could buy land, where they could live, build, farm or
work. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel was finally able to settle some
small part of those lands from which the Jews had been banned by the British.
Successive British governments regularly condemned Jewish settlement as
“illegal”. Actually, it was the British who had acted illegally in banning Jews
from these parts of the Jewish National Home! To conclude in shame, when the it
was held the UN voting to approve the creation of the State of Israel in
November 29, 1947, the United Kingdom ABSTAINED. Israel was recognized by the
USSR, the Communist Countries, the USA and Philippines. When the British had to
leave the Holy Land, they left their weapons in Arab hands ‒ while Jews were
prohibited to have any kind of weapon and had to keep them in secret in order to
defend themselves from the imminent attack by the Arabs, in which the British
would appear as “disengaged” and free from any responsibility...
“Palestinian «Refugees»“?
Another of the
big lies that are being passed off as truth by politics and mass media is the
“Palestinian refugees” issue: the allegedly “native” population that were
“evicted” by the Israelis. Actually, in 1948 the Arab so-called refugees were
encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders, who promised to purge the Land of
Jews. Almost 70 % of them left without having ever seen a single Israeli
soldier.
On the other side, nothing is said about the Jewish refugees that were forced to
flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms. As soon as
the State of Israel was founded, hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled
from every Arab country, mainly Yemen, Iraq and Egypt. The Mizrachim, also known
as Babylonian Jews, were living in present-day Iraq since the Babylonian exile
in the 6th century BCE, the Teymanim or Yemenite Jews were settled in the Sabean
Kingdoms long before Roman times. Arabs have expelled them from the lands where
those Jews were living for many centuries! The number of Arab so-called refugees
that left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000, while the Jewish
refugees that were forced out from Arab lands is estimated to be some more than
that... Nevertheless, the UN has never demanded from Arab states to receive the
Jews that were settled there for many generations and to restore their property
and to provide them employment. Meanwhile, the so-called Palestinian “refugees”
were intentionally not absorbed or integrated into the Arab countries to which
they fled, despite the vast Arab territory (Israel’s extension is less than 1%
of the territory of all Arab lands). Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World
War II, the so-called Palestinians are the only refugee group in the world that
has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples’ lands. On the
contrary, Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel.
The truth is that the Arab League keeps the Palestinian refugees issue as a
political weapon against Israel, with which they continue to fool the United
Nations and propagate their perfidious policy. The proofs of such intention are
given by Arab sources themselves: At a refugee conference in Homs, Syria, the
Arab leaders declared that «any discussion aimed at a solution of the Palestine
problem which will not based on ensuring the refugees’ right to annihilate
Israel will be regarded as desecration of the Arab people and an act of
treason». In 1958, former director of UNRWA Ralph Galloway declared angrily
while in Jordan that «the Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem.
They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations, and
as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders do not give a damn whether Arab
refugees live or die». King Hussein, the sole Arab leader that directed
integration of the Arabs, in 1960 stated: «Since 1948 Arab leaders have
approached the Palestine problem in an irresponsible manner.... They have used
the Palestine people for selfish political purposes. This is ridiculous and, I
could say, even criminal».
Between 1948 and 1967, the Arab flow into the Israeli territories occupied by
them (Judea, Samaria and Gaza) was intensified. The UNRWA reported in 1951-52
that «200,000 Arab “refugees” were languishing in Gaza, along with 80,000
original residents who barely made a living before the refugees arrived»,
notwithstanding, a project to accommodate 10,000 families in the Sinai area
(then under Egyptian control) was suspended. How is that the Gaza Strip, having
around 80,000 allegedly native residents and twice and half that number of
immigrants is only fifty years later overpopulated, with about one and half
million of “native people dwelling there since ancestral times”?
The Arab states are acting a downright discrimination policy against
Palestinians, preventing them with all means to achieve any sort of integration
in the Arab countries (the same ones from where the Palestinians’ grandparents
emigrated to the Holy Land). Iraq and Syria were the most appropriate lands for
resettlement of the so-called Palestinian refugees. Between 1948 and 1951, more
than 120,000 Jews left Iraq to settle in Israel, leaving all of their goods and
homes behind them. Most of them were businessmen and artisans, and many were
wealthy. Their departure created a large gap in Iraq’s economy; in some fields,
such as transport, banking and wholesale trades, it reached serious proportions,
and there was also a dearth of white collar workers and professional men. Salah
Jabr, former dictator of Iraq recognized that «the emigration of 120,000 Jews
from Iraq to Israel is beneficial to Iraq and to the Palestinian Arabs because
it makes possible the entry into Iraq of a similar number of Arab refugees and
their occupation of the Jewish houses there». Nevertheless, Palestinians in Iraq
have been “allowed to live in the country but not to assume Iraqi nationality”,
despite the fact that the country needs manpower and “is encouraging Arab
nationals to work and live there by granting them citizenship, with the
exception of Palestinians”.
Syria was also almost a desert in the early fifties and a very suitable land to
give home to the “refugees”, not only those already dwelling in Syria but also
those in Lebanon and Jordan. In 1949 a newspaper editorial from Damascus stated
that «Syria needs not only 100,000 refugees, but five million to work the lands
and make them fruitful». Indeed, two years later the Syrian government
officially requested that half a million Egyptian agricultural workers be
permitted to emigrate to Syria in order to help develop Syrian land which would
be transferred to them as their property. The responsible Egyptian authorities
have rejected this request on the grounds that Egyptian agriculture is in need
of labour as well. Syria was offering land rent free to anyone willing to settle
there. It even announced a committee to study would-be settlers’ applications.
In fact, Syrian authorities began the experiment by moving 25,000 of the
refugees in Syria into areas of potential development in the northern parts of
the country, but the rigid Arab League position against permanent resettlement
prevailed. Palestinians in Syria are still regarded as “refugees” and
discriminated as such. The situation in all the remaining Arab states is the
same: even though the great majority of the so-called Palestinian refugees have
now left the camps for a better life as immigrant workers, they are being denied
citizenship in the Arab countries to which they had moved. Regardless of their
good behaviour and the many years they are living there, they are still
discriminated and denied full integration in society. They must be kept as
“refugees” forever, until they may occupy the Land of Israel once that Jews have
been expelled or annihilated, that is the ultimate aim of the Arab League
policy. Of course, they would never achieve in doing so, as every time that the
Arabs attacked Israel, the Arabs have undergone a shameful defeat.
The current myth is that these Arabs were long established in “Palestine”, until
the Jews came and “displaced” them. The fact is, recent Arab immigration into
the Land of Israel displaced the Jews. That the massive increase in Arab
population was very recent is attested by the ruling of the United Nations: That
any Arab who had lived in the Holy Land for two years and then left in
1948 qualifies as a “Palestinian refugee”.
II - Myths and facts about Jerusalem
and Temple Mount
(from “Myths
of the Middle East”)
One of the most popular lies that has become universally accepted as if it was
an indisputable truth is the myth about Jerusalem being the third
sacred place to Islam. It is quite rare to hear the honest truth, that Jerusalem
is the First and Only Holiest place to Judaism! As a
matter of fact, Jerusalem is not mentioned at all in the Koran, and Muhammad has
never been there (perhaps he did not even know about the existence of
Jerusalem!). The tale about his dream flight has been related with Jerusalem in
a very recent time for political strategy purposes.
1) The Islamic claim to the Temple Mount is very recent - Jerusalem’s role
as “The Third Holiest Site in Islam” in mainstream Islamic writings does not
precede the 1930s. It was created by the grand mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini.
Most of the problems surrounding Jerusalem can be traced to two areas of
dispute: the political area that asks Jerusalem to be the capital of both Israel
and the hypothetic Palestine; the other and most contentious problem is the
holiness of Temple Mount to both Judaism and Islam.
The role Jerusalem has in the Hebrew Holy Scriptures is well known and not open
to debate; however, there are varying opinions on the holiness of Jerusalem,
specifically Temple Mount to Islam.
Many if not most
opinions that counter Islam’s claim point out the Jerusalem is not mentioned in
the Qur’an and did not occupy any special role in Islam until recent political
exigencies transformed Jerusalem into Islam’s “third holy site”. This falsehood
was created by the grand mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The mufti knew that
nationalist slogans alone would not succeed in uniting the masses against
arriving Jewish refugees; he therefore turned the struggle into a religious
conflict. He addressed the masses clearly, calling for a holy war. Since the
moment when he was appointed to the position of mufti, Haj Amin worked
vigorously to raise Jerusalem’s status as an Islamic holy centre.
2) The Islamic claim to Jerusalem is false - There were no mosques in
Jerusalem in 632 ce at the death
of Muhammad... Jerusalem was [then] a Christian-occupied city
‒by Dr. Manfred R. Lehmann, writer for the Algemeiner Journal. Excerpts of the
article originally published in the Algemeiner Journal, August 19, 1994‒
The Muslim “claim” to Jerusalem is allegedly based on what is written in the
Koran, which although does not mention Jerusalem even once, nevertheless
talks of the “furthest mosque” (in Sura 17:1): «Glory be unto Allah who did take
his servant for a journey at night from the sacred mosque to the furthest
mosque». But is there any foundation to the Muslim argument that this “furthest
mosque” (al-masujidi al-aqsa) refers to what is today called the Aqsa mosque in
Jerusalem? The answer is, NO!
In the days of Muhammad, who died in 632 of the Common Era, Jerusalem was a
Christian-occupied city within the Byzantine Empire. Jerusalem was captured by
caliph Omar only in 638 ce, six
years after Muhammad’s death. Throughout all this time there were only churches
in Jerusalem, and a church stood on the Temple Mount, called the Church of Saint
Mary of Justinian, built in the Byzantine architectural style. The Aqsa mosque
was built 20 years after the Dome of the Rock, which was built in 691-692 by
caliph Abd el-Malik. The name “Omar mosque” is therefore false. In or around
711, about 80 years after Muhammad died, Malik’s son, Abd el-Wahd ‒who ruled in
705-715‒ reconstructed the Christian-Byzantine Church of St. Mary and converted
it into a mosque. He left the structure as it was, a typical Byzantine
“basilica” structure with a row of pillars on either side of the rectangular
“ship” in the centre. All he added was an onion-like dome on top of the building
to make it look like a mosque. He then named it El-Aqsa, so it would sound like
the one mentioned in the Koran.
Consequently, it is crystal clear that Muhammad could never have had this mosque
in mind when he wrote the Koran (if he did so), since it did not exist for
another three generations after his death. Rather, as many scholars long ago
established, it is logical that Muhammad intended the mosque in Mecca as the
“sacred mosque”, and the mosque in Medina as the “furthest mosque”. So much for
the Muslim claim based on the Aqsa mosque.
With this understood, it is no wonder that Muhammad issued a strict prohibition
against facing Jerusalem in prayer, a practice that had been tolerated only for
some months in order to lure Jews to convert to Islam. When that effort failed,
Muhammad put an abrupt stop to it on February 624. Jerusalem simply never held
any sanctity for the Muslims themselves, but only for the Jews in their domain.
3) The present Arabic name of Jerusalem is “Al-Quds”... but “Al-Quds” is
an abbreviation for “The Jewish Temple”!
‒by Rabbi Joseph Katz‒
The Arabic name for Jerusalem is “Al-QuDS” (The Holy),
which is abbreviation for another Arabic name used for Jerusalem until the last
century, “Bayt al-MaQDeS” (The Holy House), since the 10th
century ce. The name “Bayt
al-MaQDeS” is a translation of the Hebrew “Beyt
ha-MiKDaSH”, which means “House of Holiness”, “Temple”.
But Islam has no Temple, only the Jews did. Thus the Arabic name for Jerusalem
makes no reference to Muhammad’s alleged trip to Heaven, but rather refers to
the Jewish Temple!
In fact, it can be seen that significant Islamic interest in the Temple Mount
does not precede the Six-Day War in 1967.
The greatest lie ever told about Jerusalem
‒by Emanuel A. Winston, a Middle East analyst & commentator; January 7, 2001‒
The 13th century Arab biographer Yakut noted: «Mecca is holy to Muslims;
Jerusalem is holy to the Jews».
The terrorist PLO leader Yasser Arafat and the Arabs claimed the Holy Jewish
Temple Mount and Jerusalem based upon one extraordinarily huge lie told over and
over again. Here then is a brief history of the religious war against the Jewish
people, the Jewish State of Israel and her 3000 year old Eternal Capital,
Jerusalem. Would be conquerors invariably issue false claims to provide
justification for their march to conquest. The more recent call to “Jihad”
against the Jews of Israel was first called in 1947 after the U.N. partition in
a “fatwa” (religious ruling) by the Saudis ‒ supposedly to save the Al-Aqsa
mosque on the Temple Mount from the Jews. Thus, Yasser Arafat, with the full
support of the Arab nations, later claimed the Jewish Temple Mount as the third
holiest site for Islam - including all of Jerusalem. Therefore, as in the past,
this claim has its root in a classic religious war - in addition to other
spurious reasons offered.
This myth of Jerusalem as Islam’s third holiest city based upon the mythical
ascension of Muhammad from Al-Aqsa to Heaven has grown exponentially in the
recent telling since 1967. When you tell a Big Lie and repeat it often, it
achieves credibility and legs of its own. In Islam, telling a lie to infidels
for the sake of enlarging your own believers’ faith or defeating the infidel is
acceptable, even desirable.
History and revisionism
These facts of recorded history have been obliterated by the recent false claims
made in the name of radical Islamic fundamentalism supported by the silence of
scholars unwilling to face a “fatwa” of assassination, the world media, with
full access to Biblical scholars and historical files, have instead accepted the
Great Lie. They carry it forward without question and with a certain perverse
enthusiasm, having refused to use the Bible (Torah) as a resource ‒ the most
accurate historic record of contemporary events of ancient times. They also have
neglected to publicize the historic documents that attest the Jewish ownership
of Jerusalem, including Arab sources.
The history of Jerusalem and the site of the Jewish Holy Temple, constructed in
956 bce. by King Solomon, son of
King David, is fully described with minute detail in the Torah. The First Temple
was later destroyed by the Babylonian King Nebukhadnetzar in 586
bce.
The Second Temple was rebuilt by order of Koresh (Cyrus), the King of Persia,
who also paid for its reconstruction and ordered the return of the Jews exiled
in Babylon. The Second Temple was completed and consecrated in 515
bce.
After the Jews revolted against Roman rule, the Romans under Titus destroyed and
burned the Second Temple beginning on the 9th of Av (Tisha B’Av), 70 CE This
event is illustrated in the carvings on the Arch of Titus in Rome, depicting
Titus’ triumphal march through Rome, parading the Holy Temple vessels, including
the great Menorah. Despite Arafat’s claim that there was no Jewish Temple, the
Romans memorialized their capture of the Jews and their Temple in 70 CE by
carving it in stone!
Before the days of Muhammad, “Christian” conquerors had occupied Jerusalem
(within the Byzantine Empire). Bringing one’s religion into battle demonstrated
that both their armies and their religion were superior to those of their
victims when they won. So, they usually built their holy places on top of their
victims’ holy places, which they did on the Temple Mount, to absorb the strength
of their conquered adversaries and to convert them to their religion. Even under
the threat of the sword, the Jews refused to convert and allow their lineage to
be absorbed, which would in effect, transfer God’s Covenant.
Muhammad died in 632 ce. Jerusalem
was subsequently captured from the Romans by caliph Omar, six years after
Muhammad’s death. There was a struggle over who would assume Muhammad’s role as
leader of the new religion of Islam which he had envisioned.
So, another conqueror (the Muslims) had superseded the European invaders and
their mosque was proof of their superiority in battle and religion. But, it was
much more. It was also to be a mighty symbol in the struggle for leadership of
the growing movement of Islam. Since Mecca was already the location of
Muhammad’s power with its own priest cult, if a claimant wanted to redirect that
power to himself as the new leader of Islam, he would also need an uncontested
and new base of religious power. He could not make war on Mecca and expect to be
accepted as Muhammad’s rightful heir.
Jerusalem, despite Muhammad’s rejection, was still looked upon in the then Arab
world as a powerful symbol where the ancient Jews had placed their faith. The
Jews considered Jerusalem the centre of the world and the earthly dwelling place
of HaShem, the One God. It was not surprising that the Arabs and other nations
wanted to own and control this source of power.