by Hillel Fendel and Chaim Silberstein, www.KeepJerusalem.org
The Trump “Deal of the Century,” slated to end the Israeli-Arab conflict and bring peace and prosperity in our time, has been presented – in part – and the Palestinian Authority has gone all out to condemn it.
Let us here not focus on the PA’s specific gripes, but rather the problem in general that the Arabs have with a plan that could actually improve their situation: They don’t want to come to any arrangement with Israel, and they don’t want Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital.
For instance, a leading Fatah official explained the PA’s refusal to participate in the Bahrain conference by calling it “the great plot that is being woven against our people.” As reported by Palestinian Media Watch, Fatah Council Secretary Majed Al-Fatiani implicitly threatened violence and terrorism against Israel, stating that they will use “all means” available: “The Palestinian people [sic] is not too helpless to use its means in order to stop the great plot. [This] will push our Palestinian people to protect its rights by all means available to it, in order to defeat the occupation and the settlement… Palestine is not for sale and Jerusalem is not up for negotiation.”
What does Jerusalem have to do with this? Everything. The Jewish People have known and internalized for over 3,000 years that Jerusalem is the crux of the matter – and the Arabs wake up to this fact every few centuries as well, but only when they deem it politically necessary. As will be explained below, the Arabs every once in a while “discover” their “undying religious connections” – but then promptly ignore them when the political need no longer exists.
This week, for instance, Al-Fatiani explained that Fatah’s Revolutionary Council will dedicate the 24th, 25th, and 26th of this month “to Palestine and Jerusalem, in order to express [its] rejection of the Bahrain Conference.'”
Israel, for its part, is not standing idly by in light of the above threats. Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan signed an order Friday to prevent the PA from holding a conference entitled “Jerusalem the Capital of Palestine” in the Old City. The event was to include songs of PA “nationhood” and praise to the Palestinian Authority, and the distribution of PA certificates and awards.
Similar events were held Ramallah and Shechem (Nablus), where Israel has no say in stopping them. Israeli law, rooted in the Oslo agreements, forbids the PA from opening offices or holding official gatherings within pre-’67 Israel and anywhere in Jerusalem. Minister Erdan has actively enforced this law over the past years, issuing closure orders to a commemorative PA-funded event in eastern Jerusalem, a conference in Silwan promoting PA attempts to take over eastern Jerusalem, and others.
Furthermore, Erdan is trying to bolster the law by initiating an amendment enabling him to file indictments and ask for three-year jail sentences for organizers of such illegal events that violate Israel’s sovereignty.
And remember the Orient House building, not far from the Old City, from where the PA funded and organized terror attacks and sought to establish its “national” government offices? In 1999, Binyamin Netanyahu ordered the building closed at the end of his first term in office, but the Supreme Court intervened and nullified the order. Two years later, after the Sbarros pizzeria suicide bombing in August 2001 in which 15 Israelis were murdered, PM Ariel Sharon closed the headquarters. Nearly a year ago, Minister Erdan extended the closure order.
“The Palestinian Authority continues to try to chip away at Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem,” Erdan said, “and I will continue to act to prevent any violation of Israeli sovereignty in all parts of our capital.”
Regarding supposed “undying, historic” Muslim links to Jerusalem, it bears repeating that while Yerushalayim is mentioned hundreds of time in the Bible, it is not mentioned even once in the Quran; Muslims actually turn their backs on Jerusalem when they pray!
How ironic it is that the Muslim name for the holy city is Al-Quds – an abbreviation of a previous Arabic name of the city, “Bet Al-maKDeS,” referring to none other than the Beit HaMikdash, our Holy Temple. Thus, the name used by Arabs for the purpose of “Arab-izing” Jerusalem – is actually one that marks the city’s Jewishness!
Today, when the Muslim world is once again thinking “Caliphate” and imposing Sharia worldwide, we must remain alert: The awakening of supposed Muslim religious ties to Jerusalem means only that Islam wants to conquer Jerusalem for political, nationalistic, or military reasons. Muhammad was the first to enact this policy: Seeking to win over the Jews living near him, he announced that prayers would from then on be directed towards Jerusalem. As soon as he was rebuffed, however, he skillfully zig-zagged and re-directed Muslim prayers towards Mecca.
When the Moslems later conquered the Holy Land, they totally ignored Jerusalem and established their capital in Ramle!
This pattern was repeated again and again in history: Circa the year 700, Caliph Abdel Malik, shamed by having lost Mecca and Medina in battle to a rival Muslim leader, came up with the idea of renewing Jerusalem as “top holy city.” Some five centuries later, Salah a-Din needed to inflame his Moslem warriors against the Christian Crusaders – and again, Jerusalem briefly became the focus of jihad and religious longing. For centuries thereafter, Jerusalem remained in the Muslim background, overshadowed by the cities of Mecca and Medina.
Today, once again, the Muslim world has taken to claiming Jerusalem as a pinnacle of its religious aspirations – even though as recently as 1964, the PLO’s founding charter did not even mention Jerusalem!
However, don’t bother the Muslims with the facts, nor will we win the war of public opinion only by presenting them. The Jewish People must not remain nonchalant or passive in this war; Aliyah to Jerusalem must continue and increase, all efforts to Islamicize Jerusalem must be firmly rebuffed, and Israel must assert its sovereignty throughout United Jerusalem in every way.
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