Trump’s reckless decision on Jerusalem - part 1
Author's note: More than 12 years ago, I wrote an article - The Case of Jerusalem: the Holy City, which subsequently appeared in some websites and newspapers. The article below is a modified version of that old article.
=======================
=======================
U.S.
President Donald Trump’s controversial decision
to recognize Jerusalem as the capital
of Israel
was dealt a blow when the bulk of the United Nations (UN) General
Assembly (GA) member states backed its motion to brand his unilateral move
as “null and void”.
The
resounding condemnation against the move by the US president was delivered by
128 countries - almost two-thirds of the 193 member states of the global
alliance. Only eight - Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Marshall Islands,
Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo - supported Trump in his stance.
The UK, France
and Germany were among the nations who voted in favor of the motion. It is not
legally binding, but its near unanimous victory delivered an embarrassing blow
to Trump.
Jerusalem remains the most contested real estate in our world. Since
coming to power in 2015 for the fourth time, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has
made Jerusalem one of the central pieces of his agenda to Judaize and grab the
city, in violations of scores of international laws. He issued orders for
constructing new settlements around the occupied East Jerusalem. On 23 December 2016, the United States, under the Obama Administration,
abstained from United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, effectively
allowing it to pass. On 28 December, 2016 U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
strongly criticized Israel and its settlement policies in a speech.
Of course, with the election win of Trump, the
relationship between the two states has improved significantly. As far as the
Netanyahu government is concerned, it’s impossible to imagine an American White
House more attuned to Israel’s concerns than Trump’s. One senior Israeli
official likened Trump’s picks of pro-Israel U.S. policymakers—a uniquely
favorable lineup that presents Israel with an opportunity to make strategic
gains. The two leaders have quite a few things in common: their tactics, their contempt for the core values of democracy, their
inherent racism (both against Muslims, with Trump adding his contempt for black
people and Mexicans for good measure), their love of walls, their hatred of
Iran, their scandals and, more broadly, the growing sense that both are driven
more by a desperation for self-preservation than by any sense of commitment to
their national interests.
In October 2015, Netanyahu drew widespread criticism for
claiming that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, gave Adolf Hitler the idea for the Holocaust in the preceding months to the Second World War, convincing the Nazi leader
to exterminate Jews rather than just expel them from Europe. This ludicrous claim
has since been dismissed by mainstream historians, who note that al-Husseini's meeting with Hitler took place approximately
five months after the mass murder of Jews began. Some of the strongest
criticism came from Israeli academics: Yehuda Bauer said Netanyahu's claim was
"completely idiotic", while Moshe Zimmermann
stated that "any attempt to deflect the burden from Hitler to others is a form of Holocaust denial.
There is no doubt that Netanyahu tried to use one of the
old dirty tricks – disinformation – to justify his untenable claims on
Jerusalem.
Introduction
Jerusalem has been the subject of immense
interest throughout history. It embodies sacred memories of the Prophets of
Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is here that all the three Semitic
religions of the world played vital roles at different junctures in the history
of mankind. For twelve centuries, under Muslim rule (636-1917 CE, except a
century of Christian rule), Jerusalem has been an oasis of peace and
tranquility. Yet, beginning in 1948, we witness a change of a major dimension,
a conspiracy that culminated in the establishment of a Zionist state in
Palestine ignoring the rights of its overwhelming Muslim majority. This event
has been responsible for much bloodshed to subsequently follow among the
children and heirs to the Abrahamic heritage.
Jerusalem is very dear and sacred to Muslims
for a number of reasons.
The Holy Qur’an refers to Jerusalem in
connection with Prophet Muhammad’s (Sallal-lahu alayh wa-as-salam: blessings of
Allah and peace be upon him) Isra’ and Mi’raj in the following verses: "Glory
be to Him who did take His servant for a journey by night from the Masjid
Al-Haram (Sacred Mosque) to the Masjid Al-Aqsa (Farthest Mosque) whose
precincts We did bless, in order that We might show him some of Our signs. He
(Allah) is the One who hears and sees all things.” [Qur’an 17:1] (The masjid in
Jerusalem was called the farthest mosque because it was the farthest mosque
known to the Arabs during the Prophet’s time.) According to most commentators
of the Qur’an, this event of Isra’ and Mi’raj took place in the year before the
Hijra (Prophet’s migration to Madina). The hadith literature gives details of
this journey. To Muslims, the event is viewed as passing of the spiritual baton
from the children of Isaac (Ishaq) to those of Isma’il (alayhis salam).[12]
As has been pointed out by Professor Walid
Khalidi in his 1996 address at the Jerusalem Conference of the American
Committee on Jerusalem, “The Prophet’s isra to and miraj from Jerusalem became
the source of inspiration of a vast body of devotional Muslim literature, as
successive generations of Traditionists, Koranic commentators, theologians, and
mystics added their glosses and embellishments. In this literature, in which
the Prophet is made to describe his visits to Hell and Paradise, Jerusalem lies
at the center of Muslims beliefs, literal and allegorical, concerning life
beyond the grave. This literature is in circulation to this day in all the
languages spoken by nearly one billion Muslims. To this day, too, the Night of
the Miraj is annually celebrated throughout the Muslim world.
A particular link also exists between
Jerusalem and one of the five "pillars" of Islam — the five daily
prayers (salat). According to Muslim tradition, it was during the Prophet’s
miraj that, after conversations between the Prophet and Moses, the five daily
prayers observed throughout the Muslim world became canonical. Parallel to this
body of literature concerning the isra and miraj is another vast corpus of
devotional writings concerning the "Excellencies" or "Virtues"
(fada’il) of Jerusalem.”[13]
In the early stage of Islam, Jerusalem was the
Qiblah towards which Muslims faced in their prayers. Later, however, they were
instructed by Allah to change their Qiblah to Makkah: “So turn thy face toward
the Masjid al-Haram, and ye (O Muslims), wheresoever ye may be, turn your faces
(when ye pray) toward it. Lo! those who have received the Scripture know that
(this Revelation) is the Truth from their Lord. And Allah is not unaware of
what they do.” [Qur’an 2:144]
With this change of Qiblah, Jerusalem did not
lose its sacredness to Muslims though. It came to be known as Al-Quds (the
sanctuary), al-Beit al-Muqaddis (i.e., the holy house), and al-Quds ash-Sharif
(the holy and noble city).
Pre-Islamic Period:
The memorandum of the Zionist Organization to
the Peace Conference in 1919 declared, "This land is the
"historic" home of the Jews." By "historic" the
Zionists meant the right of the "first occupier," i.e., nobody
inhabited the region prior to the Jews. Such an assertion, as we will see, is
only a myth. For debunking this myth of “first occupier,” we shall examine the
Bible. The Book of Genesis says, "And Te’rah took Abram [referring to
prophet Abraham or Ibrahim (Alayhis Salam)] his son, and Lot [referring to Lut
(AS)] the son of Ha’ran his son’s son, and Sa’rai his daughter in law, his son
Abram’s wife; and they went out from Ur of Chaldeans in order to enter the land
of Canaan." [Gen. 11:31]; "And Abram passed through the land unto the
place of Si’chem, unto the plain of Mo’reh. And the Canaanite was then in the
land." [Gen. 12:6] [14] The verses 13:3-7 state that the Canaanite and the
Perizzite were already dwelling in the land when Abraham returned from Egypt to
Bethel and set his tent between Bethel and Ha’i. Not only did the tribes with
Abraham find the Canaanites but they also found the Hittites (around Hebron),
the Ammonites (around Amman), the Moabites (to the east of the Dead Sea) and
the Edomites (in the south-east). At the same time, there were arriving from
the Aegean Sea another people, the Philistines, who installed themselves
between Mount Carmel and the desert.
The Bible says that Jacob [prophet Yaqub
(AS)], who is also known as Israel, settled in Sha’lem , a city of She’chem,
which was in the land of Canaan (Gen. 33:18). There he erected an altar and
called it El-e-lo’he-Israel. [Gen. 33:20]
The modern-day Palestinians are, in deed,
descended from indigenous Canaanite Jebusites who lived in Palestine at least
5000 years ago, from the Philistines (who gave the country its name –
Palestine, Arabic for Falastin), and from the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs
and the Turks who successively occupied the territory, following the
Babylonians, the Hittites, and the Egyptians. The "first occupiers"
are these inhabitants who have inhabited the territory since the dawn of
history. And any reference that the Palestinians are descendants of Muslim
Arabs (from the time of Muslim conquest of Jerusalem) is disingenuous and is
aimed at denying their ancestral tie to the land for five millennia.
The current mythology to connect Prophet Dawud
or David (AS) with Jerusalem is a typical example of distorting history. The
name Jerusalem does not come from the Hebrew word ‘shalom’ meaning peace, but
from Uru-shalim, meaning the city or foundation of the (Canaanite Jebusite) god
Shalim, cited in ancient Egyptian texts. It is these Jebusites who gave the
name of the city some 2000 years before the time of David and Solomon.
Both the Qur’an and the so-called Old
Testament mention that the children of Jacob [Yaqub (AS)] settled in Egypt when
Joseph [Yusuf (AS)] was appointed a Minister to the Pharaoh. Moses [Musa (AS)],
born in Egypt, was later commanded by Allah to rescue the Children of Israel
from the Egyptian bondage and to settle them in the Sinai desert. During the time
of Moses, the holy land was denied to them due to their disobedience of the
commandments of Allah (see the Book of Deuteronomy).
From the accounts in the Bible, it is clear
that the Children of Israel did not establish themselves in the Holy Land until
around 1004 BCE when David [Dawud (AS)] of the tribe of Judah defeated the
Jebusites to found a kingdom there. He created a multi-national state,
embracing peoples of different religions. His own ancestress Ruth was a
Moabite. His son Solomon [Sulayman (AS)], who succeeded the throne, was born of
a Hittite mother. Solomon, like his father, maintained the multi-national
characteristics of his regime.[15] He built a stone temple, commonly known as
the Temple of Solomon, as a gesture of his thanks to Allah (YHWH).
After Solomon’s death, the kingdom got divided
into two -” the Kingdom of Israel in the north (comprising the ten tribes) with
the capital in Samaria, and the Kingdom of Judah in the south (comprising the
two tribes) with capital in Jerusalem. In 722-721 BCE, the Kingdom of Israel
was invaded by the Assyrians and its people scattered, who came to be known as
the "Ten lost tribes of Israel.” In 586 BCE, the Babylonians under the
leadership of King Nebuchadnezzar annexed the southern kingdom of Judah. The
country’s notables were exiled to Babylon. Jerusalem was ravaged to the ground,
along with its temple and fortifications. When Emperor Cyrus (Dhul Qarnain of
the Qur’an) of Persia defeated the Babylonians in 538-537 BCE, he let the
exiles to return to Jerusalem. Many Jews, however, preferred to remain in more
prosperous Babylon.
History is scant and dubious before
Alexander’s peaceful entry into Jerusalem in 332 BCE, but it suffered heavily
under the Persians and the temple – rebuilt under Ezra (Uzayr) and Nehemiah
about 515 BCE – might have been destroyed during Artaxerxes’s regime. In 320
BCE, Ptolemy I of Egypt partially demolished the fortifications that remained
in ruins until their restoration by Simon II in 219 BCE After a series of
struggles between the Ptolemies and Seleucids, the latter obtained the city by
a treaty in 197 BCE. The temple was totally Hellenized, i.e., turned into a
heathen idol-temple, by Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 BCE.
Next we come to the period of the Maccabean
revolt. After a twenty years’ struggle, the Maccabees were able to form the
Hasmonean dynasty in 164 BCE. This broke up owing to internal conflicts and in
63 BCE Roman General Pompey was able to conquer Palestine, which first became a
vassal monarchy under Herod, and then a Roman province.
Under Herod, Jerusalem was rebuilt and the
second temple (known as the Temple of Zerubabel) elaborated (from 17 BCE to 29
CE). However, during the failed revolt (66-70 CE) by the Hebrews, the city was
blockaded by Roman General Titus who completely razed it to the ground and
burned the temple in 70 CE on the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Ab, the very
month and day on which 657 years earlier Nebuchadnezzar had razed the first
Temple.[16] (The Qur’an briefly mentions these two destructions of the Temple
in Surah 17:4-7.) The Jewish inhabitants were exiled or sold into slavery.
After the failed second revolt (132 CE), led by Bar Kochba, the city was
renamed Aelia Capitolina in 135 CE and Jews were banned from entering the city.
And since then Jews gradually moved away from Palestine.
In 326 CE, Emperor Constantine the great
ordered the building of the Church of Holy Sepulcher in Aelia. In 614-615 CE
Khoshru II of Persia captured the city by defeating the Roman (Byzantine)
Christians, mention of which is available in the Qur’an 30:2-3: “The Romans
have been defeated in a land close by: but they, (even) after (this) defeat of
theirs, will soon be victorious within a few years, with Allah is the command
in the past and in the future: on that day shall the believers rejoice.” His
forces destroyed many buildings. Just as the Qur’an had prophesied, the Romans
defeated the Persians in 628 C.E, under Heraclius, and reentered Aelia.
==== To be continued ….
Comments
Post a Comment