Most of the world will neither know or greatly care that today is Yom Yerushalayim, the day that celebrates the 1967 reunification of the holy city of Jerusalem. It is a day that has become endowed with an almost inexpressible level of significance in the modern Jewish collective conscious. It marks an event of biblical proportions; when an attempt was made to destroy the Jewish people in their land. That instead resulted in these same Jews finding themselves dancing to the Western Wall, their holy place from which all Jews had been forbidden from accessing by the Jordanian occupiers since 1948. In that time the Eastern half of the City saw its ancient synagogues demolished and the tomb stones of its Jewish cemeteries turned into building materials. To this day a Jordanian built hotel constructed mostly out of Jewish graves sits atop the Mount of Olives boasting impressive panoramic views over the rest of the city.
It is the centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish identity that explains why David Ben Gurion and Israel’s founding figures were so determined that this city would be Israel’s capital. It is a central component of what makes Israel a Jewish State. And perhaps that is why the good people at J-Street, the anti-Israel organisation masquerading as its own opposite, were so quick to mockingly deride the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner Eli Weisel when last week he published his open letter on the importance of Jerusalem.
Today the legitimacy of the Jewish claim to their holy city is under assault from every direction. That the city should be divided so that it once more resembles cold war Berlin is now the commonly held wisdom. When Israel’s Prime Minister declares that Israel’s Capital will never be divided, as Netanyahu did earlier today, he instantly establishes himself as an anti-peace extremist in the eyes of the rest of the world. The idea of Muslims sharing Mecca or indeed just about any other sovereign State agreeing to the division of its Capital is incomprehensible. And yet this is exactly what Israel is expected to roll over and give at the click of American fingers. A small price to pay in return for the other side not trying to blow you up on your buses and in your cafes, so Jerusalemites are so often told.
Israel is informed by those calling themselves its friends that the division of the City is the long term goal. Israel must after all take into consideration the demands of the Palestinians, even as these same world leaders that declare this take it upon themselves to decide which of Israel’s demands are legitimate or not. In the meantime Israel is told it must prohibit its Jewish citizens from living in vast swathes of the city, regardless of whether there already exist Jewish communities in these areas or whether Jews still have in their possession the deeds to stolen homes in these neighbourhoods, the documents dating back to the time prior to the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem's Jews in 1948. Indeed Israel is even criticised by the foreign media if it so much as caries out archaeological digs or creates green areas or tourist trails in the East of the city. Leftwing watchdogs list the Jewish residents of Jerusalem’s historic Jewish quarter as illegal settlers and more recently the British advertising Standards Authority has deemed that Judaism’s most well known religious site, the Western Wall, is occupied territory and therefore can not be featured in advertising by the Israeli tourist board.
In the face of such relentless pressure it is difficult to see how Israel will ever manage to maintain its hold on its Capital in the long term. But if the Jewish people are going to be able to maintain their status in their own land then Israel must. The punishment that Israel will receive from the world for refusing to hand over Jerusalem, the nation’s identity, the nation’s soul, will be hard to bare. However if Israel cannot fend off this assault on its legitimacy in its own Capital then it will never be able to fend off the mounting assault on the Jewish people’s legitimacy in their homeland or to the right to nationhood itself.
It is the centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish identity that explains why David Ben Gurion and Israel’s founding figures were so determined that this city would be Israel’s capital. It is a central component of what makes Israel a Jewish State. And perhaps that is why the good people at J-Street, the anti-Israel organisation masquerading as its own opposite, were so quick to mockingly deride the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner Eli Weisel when last week he published his open letter on the importance of Jerusalem.
Today the legitimacy of the Jewish claim to their holy city is under assault from every direction. That the city should be divided so that it once more resembles cold war Berlin is now the commonly held wisdom. When Israel’s Prime Minister declares that Israel’s Capital will never be divided, as Netanyahu did earlier today, he instantly establishes himself as an anti-peace extremist in the eyes of the rest of the world. The idea of Muslims sharing Mecca or indeed just about any other sovereign State agreeing to the division of its Capital is incomprehensible. And yet this is exactly what Israel is expected to roll over and give at the click of American fingers. A small price to pay in return for the other side not trying to blow you up on your buses and in your cafes, so Jerusalemites are so often told.
Israel is informed by those calling themselves its friends that the division of the City is the long term goal. Israel must after all take into consideration the demands of the Palestinians, even as these same world leaders that declare this take it upon themselves to decide which of Israel’s demands are legitimate or not. In the meantime Israel is told it must prohibit its Jewish citizens from living in vast swathes of the city, regardless of whether there already exist Jewish communities in these areas or whether Jews still have in their possession the deeds to stolen homes in these neighbourhoods, the documents dating back to the time prior to the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem's Jews in 1948. Indeed Israel is even criticised by the foreign media if it so much as caries out archaeological digs or creates green areas or tourist trails in the East of the city. Leftwing watchdogs list the Jewish residents of Jerusalem’s historic Jewish quarter as illegal settlers and more recently the British advertising Standards Authority has deemed that Judaism’s most well known religious site, the Western Wall, is occupied territory and therefore can not be featured in advertising by the Israeli tourist board.
In the face of such relentless pressure it is difficult to see how Israel will ever manage to maintain its hold on its Capital in the long term. But if the Jewish people are going to be able to maintain their status in their own land then Israel must. The punishment that Israel will receive from the world for refusing to hand over Jerusalem, the nation’s identity, the nation’s soul, will be hard to bare. However if Israel cannot fend off this assault on its legitimacy in its own Capital then it will never be able to fend off the mounting assault on the Jewish people’s legitimacy in their homeland or to the right to nationhood itself.
excellent piece , thank you !
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