Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Israel to U.S. : Now Deal with Syria and Iran -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rrufff who wrote (2403)	10/18/2003 8:39:38 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22250

Re: Why should the Arabs have full control over E. Jerusalem? Even given the rocky history of the past 3 years, there has been more religious tolerance and openness to shrines of all religions under Israel than under the previous domination. I don't think that can be seriously refuted. Wrong! The real story: "It is impossible to reconcile ourselves for a prolonged period to a situation where it is not permitted for all adherents of all religions to visit and pray at Temple Mount," [Israeli Public Security Minister T. Hanegbi] said. The significance of this comment went unremarked by the Hebrew media, which has grown used to hearing such opinions from government figures. In fact, however, it constitutes a further change in the status quo. Religious Jews have been banned from both entering and praying on the Temple Mount by rabbinical authorities since the Middle Ages. This view held in 1967 when Israel captured East Jerusalem. A notice signed by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and immediately posted at the gate to the compound nearest the Western Wall stated: "Entrance to the area of the Temple Mount is forbidden to everyone by Jewish law owing to the sacredness of the place." The rabbinical reasoning was that no one knew where the Second Temple was precisely located on the Mount and so any Jews entering would risk violating the "strict prohibition against desecrating the purity of the temple site". More than 300 rabbis supported this ruling in 1967. However, the rabbinical consensus has been slowly eroding, mainly in Israel. Two chief rabbis, Shlomo Goren in the 1970s and Moredchai Eliahu in the 1980s, argued in favour of Jews being allowed to enter the site. The reasons why are complex. With the birth of Israel in 1948, Judaism was as good as nationalised for the first time in more than 2,000 years. The state chose to invest religious authority in one stream, Orthodoxy, a classical view of Judaism whose roots remained firmly entrenched in the Middle Ages. The two other, more modern streams, Reform and Conservatism, which dominate in the Diaspora, have been shunned to this day. But while Israel's rabbis were drawn from the most traditionalist among world Jewry, they were also subject to nationalist influences and pressures that rabbis in the Diaspora could avoid. Judaism and Zionism jostled uncomfortably for primacy in their hearts. Rabbi Goren, for example, was with the first soldiers to enter the newly conquered Haram-Temple Mount in 1967. Goren is recorded as having suggested to the military commander that they put explosives under the Mosque of Omar and "get rid of it once and for all". The sort of personal religious-nationalist fervour many of the rabbis and their followers experienced with the seemingly miraculous conquest of Jerusalem and Jewish holy sites in the West Bank had a profound effect. Some began to believe that Israel was paving the way for the arrival of the Messiah. There were consequences for the wider society too. Through a system of double-funding for religious schools, more and more parents were encouraged to send their children to non-secular institutions. Today, some 40 per cent of Jewish Israeli children attend either ultra-Orthodox or national-religious schools. There is little doubt this is likely to colour their perception of the significance of the holy places in Jewish life. The messianism of the "hilltop youth" -- young settlers who have recently been resisting the army's feeble efforts at dismantling settlements -- is an outcome. But ignorance of Jewish tradition, particularly relating to the Temple Mount, is now evident in much of the Jewish public. Right-wing nationalist politicians like Sharon, former Likud Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the former Mayor of Jerusalem Ehud Olmert have been keen to exploit this ignorance for their own political ends. And not to be outdone, so too have left-wing leaders. All have worked tirelessly to place Temple Mount at the centre of Israel's claims to exclusive sovereignty over the whole of Jerusalem, and have thereby made any chance of peace with the Palestinians unattainable. Sharon's predecessor, Ehud Barak, took exactly this position in his negotiations with Yasser Arafat at Camp David in July 2000, making Jersualem and control of Temple Mount -- what he termed "the holy of holies" -- the biggest stumbling blocks in the talks. He demanded sovereignty over the Old City, including the Haram-Temple Mount, with the Palestinians only "administering" the Muslim and Christian quarters. Jews for the first time would be allowed to pray at the Haram in a special section. When this failed to win Arafat's consent, the Americans were reported to have proposed giving the Palestinians custody of the Haram, while Israel was to hold "residual sovereignty". In the Old City the Palestinians would get sovereignty over the Muslim and Christian quarters and Israel the Jewish and Armenian quarters. Arafat rejected this offer too, warning that relinquishing the Muslim holy places would be his "funeral". In fact, although it may sound strange to those used to hearing the speeches of modern Israeli politicians, Judaism has traditionally avoided sanctifying specific religious sites. As Shemaryahu Talmon, professor of Bible studies at Hebrew University, has observed: "In Jewish tradition it is the whole circumference of the city [meaning the walled Old City] which is held and will be held holy. In distinction from other religions that have pinned their pious reverence for Jerusalem on select localities in her Judaism has sanctified the city as such." [...] Excerpted from: Message 19186526