Absurdity of Self Denial
The Palestinian Authority must be beside itself with satisfaction and quiet joy. Although quiet is not particularly in their nature. Even when they're seething with anger it's never done quietly because quiet doesn't work well. Anguish is meant to be shouted with appropriate emotional hysteria so that sympathizers can gauge the depth of the wrongs done the Palestinians at the sinister hands of Israelis.And, as it happens, Israel is inordinately sinister. It protects, under its watch, the Al Aqska Mosque, while quietly sorrowing that Judaism's most sacred site, that of the two Temples of Solomon, (the original and the re-built temple) sit directly under the Dome of the Rock. The Temple Mount was handily sacrificed out of hand for the Islamic site where the Prophet Mohammad was said to have ascended to Heaven.
Jerusalem's Old City where the Temple Mount is located, aka the Dome of the Rock, is considered by the Palestinian Authority to be "occupied territory", while Israel and Judaism world-wide considers it to be Judaism's indivisible capital based on tradition, history, geography and heritage. Jews have always lived in Jerusalem, always in great numbers. While East Jerusalem was held by Jordan, Jews were not permitted entry to visit or to worship at their most sacred of places.
Jerusalem's main Ashkenazi synagogue, the Hurva synagogue was destroyed by the Jordanian army during the 1948 War of Independence - which represented Israel's defensive war against a collective Arab assault, determined to destroy the nation. The Hurva synagogue has been rebuilt and is ready for re-dedication. No religion is shut out of entry to their sacred heritage sites with Israel commanding the geography inclusive of Jerusalem.
Israeli schoolchildren are now taken on educational heritage trips to visit their country's historic sites in Jerusalem, previously off-limits due to safety concerns. Now schoolchildren will visit the Mount of Olives, Kings' Valley and the walls of the Old City. Violent protests by Palestinians who decry the presence of Jews wanting to worship at the Temple Mount speaks volumes to the trust Israel can place on Palestinian demands for surrender of East Jerusalem to make it a Palestinian state's capital.
While Israeli Jewish schoolchildren are given weekly classes on Jewish ethics based on the Talmudic text from Ethics of the Fathers, Palestinian children are taught to detest Jews, to view them as sub-human oppressors who plan to annihilate Palestinians and claim for themselves the entire geographic areas which Palestinians hope to establish their own state upon. Which is acutely absurd, given the PA proclivity to Palestinian maps demonstrating clear title to the entire geography, with the total absence of the State of Israel.
Historically when nations wage war on one another, the nation that trounces the other claims sovereignty over the geography won. With Israel, despite that it has had to fight defensive wars one after another by a coalition of attacking Arab states, the international community has always demanded that Israel behave differently, and surrender all advances in territory it has made. And despite that history and heritage claim Jerusalem as a Jewish state, it is demanded of Israel that it accede to the demands of the Palestinians.
The original Palestinians were Jews, not Arabs. The Arabs who now call themselves Palestinians entered the area as Arabs from Egypt and from Jordan, before the country was officially named, as Trans Jordan. The designation of Palestinians to mark the two Arab groups making up a unified nation is an artificial one with a very short history. How this qualifies them to claim East Jerusalem as their capital is a mysterious evolution in the absurd climate of the Middle East.
That Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must perform an abnegating apology to the vice-president of the United States for the inconveniently-timed announcement by his government's housing minister of plans to build housing in East Jerusalem, an event that will take years to accomplish represents yet another absurdity in compliance to world opinion.
Labels: Israel, Middle East, United States
posted by Pieface @ Friday, March 12, 2010
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