Whether Jerusalem remains Jewish or once again becomes Islamic is going to define so significantly the future relations between the West and the Islamic world. This in turn will determine the direction and the ultimate results of the ongoing war on terror. That Palestine lies at the core of the war on terror has been acknowledged even by the 9/11 commission as well as by some think tanks of the US. The festering wounds of Palestinian wounds cannot be healed without restoring Jerusalem to them. Jerusalem i.e. Al-Quds concerns the entire Islamic world being the first citadel of Islam and its second holiest shrine. It is from here that the Holy Prophet Hazrat Mohammad (Peace be upon him) started his ascension to the heavens. Says the Holy Quran: “Glory to (ALLAH) who had sent His servant for a journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque whose precincts We did bless, in order that we might show him some of our signs”.
By the end of his recent visit to the Middle East, ostensibly, to expedite the resolution of the Palestine dispute, President Bush made a short shrift of the all too crucial question of East Jerusalem being made the capital of an independent state of Palestine by merely asking both the sides to work out the issue.
A number of proposals have been floated from time to time for the resolution of the intractable issue of Jerusalem without any progress. Former US President Bill Clinton, daring the Camp David Summit, had proposed a kind of shared sovereignty over the Holy Mosque and its surroundings, but Yasir Arafat so rightly insisted on the complete withdrawal from Eastern Jerusalem annexed by Israel after 1967 war. President Clinton’s suggestion for shared sovereignty envisaged a custodial sovereignty of Palestine over the city with the residual sovereignty still remaining with Israel.
This arrangement would have placed the Holy Islamic cites under Israel’s control. Earlier on, several other proposals were mooted regarding the kind of control to be exercised over the city namely (1) swapping a part of Jerusalem for the West Bank territories (this could have given the Palestinian Authority a token mandate on the Eastern part of Jerusalem with control over the whole area of the Al-Quds; (2) Israel conceding a major part of the West Bank and in return the P.A. was to have relinquished Al-Quds and the right of the Palestinian refugees to return; (3) Creation of another Jerusalem in the area of Abu-Dis for the Palestinians to use it as their capital with permission to reach the Holy City and the Muslim cites in Jerusalem; (4) Jerusalem being made the joint capital provided the P.A. laid down its arms for good; (5) Determination of Jerusalem as Islamic Palestinian territory with multiple border lines with 2 municipal boundaries.
None of the above proposals went even half way toward the full liberation of Eastern Jerusalem and the full sovereignty of Palestinians over the whole of it. Israel on the other hand claims that the whole of the Jerusalem including the part where the Al-Quds is located is the “eternal and indivisible capital”, and completely ruled out the question of withdrawal from any part of Jerusalem.
To begin with, there is a series of post-occupation UN Security Council resolutions declaring the entire eastern Jerusalem to be an Arab land, prohibiting Israel from shifting its capital there and calling upon it not to take any measure towards changing its status.
In the first place, the UN Security Resolution 242 of 1967 itself calls upon Israel to withdraw from the lands it occupied after 1967 war. It further declares unlawful the annexation of any territory acquired by means of war.
Israeli Prime Minister Begin on June 3 announced his intension to move his office to the Arab side of Jerusalem, and immediately thereafter on June 30, the Security Council voted 14-0, US abstaining, forbidding Israel to change the status of Jerusalem. The Security Council Resolution 252 (1967), 269 (1969), 271 (1969), 476 (1980), 672 (1990 or thereabout) all reaffirmed the Palestinian right and claim to the Eastern Jerusalem.
The Jewish population in Eastern Jerusalem was non-existent between 1949 and 1976. It was only after the occupation that the Israeli population grew so fast and so large as to become equal to the Arab population. In fact, with further expansion in the Jewish settlement in the East Jerusalem, the population has already exceeded or is soon going to exceed the Arab population. A latest report says Israel has already decided to extend the settlement in Jerusalem by building 4,000 more houses.
The change in the demographic balance to the detriments of the Palestinians has been brought through a series of measures including (1) encouragement of Jewish land purchases by creating a special fund for financing these purchases; Denial of permits to the Palestinians to build houses; the cancellation of the residency rights of the Palestinian who had been away from the city for more than 5 years. Despite all these restrictions, 150,000 Palestinians still live in Eastern Jerusalem.
According to the Muslim World League Journal volume 28, August 2000, Muslim’s rule over Jerusalem continued for 13 centuries interrupted only by 88 bloody years of the rule by the Crusaders. The Crusaders first came from Europe to the Middle East in 1099. They occupied Jerusalem and massacred Muslims and Jews. After 88 years, Muslims under the leadership of Salah-ud-Din brought the city once again under Muslim control which continued to be the case until 1917 when the British occupied the city and made it the capital of the British mandated Palestine from 1923 to 1948. In 1967, Israelis occupied the city and since then Jerusalem has remained under the Zionist control.
During the period, Jerusalem has remained under the Muslim control (638 – 1917) there prevailed perfect peace and harmony between the Muslims, the Christians and the Jews. This period was marked by progress and prosperity equitably shared between all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. With the arrival of the Muslim army in 1638, Hazrat Umer allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem under a guarantee known as the Covenant of Umer which guaranteed the right to life and property along with freedom to worship, and they all prospered on the basis of coexistence. As against this, the Christian’s siege of Jerusalem in 1099 resulted in the blood bath in which thousands of Muslims and Jewish inhabitants of the city were slaughtered. After the defeat of the Crusaders, Muslim rulers allowed the Holy Sepulchered to remain under Christian control, lifted the prohibition on the residence of the Jews and the Synagogues were returned to them.
When the Al-Aqsa mosque was built, the Temple of Suleman had already been destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and there was no question of the mosque been built by demolition of the Temple of Suleman, the ancient center of Jews, which was built by king and Prophet Suleman in 950 BC and destroyed by Nadevchadnazzar in 856 BC. The second temple was built in the 6th century BC by Maccabees and later by Harod, but it was later destroyed by the Roman General Titus in 70AD.
Ever since the Jews entered in Palestine, they could not establish a unified state or society. They were at each other’s throat, ridden with tribal rivalries and prejudices. Each one of the tribe got the conquered part of Palestine, parceled out among themselves, and set up their respective principalities. They could not get united and emerge as a dominant power within the conquered part. Within the conquered part of Palestine, a number of non-Israeli principalities had emerged and the Israelis were socially and culturally influenced by them. The non-Jewish communities who were left in the conquered land combined and set up a united front against Israel. Later on, a unified Israeli state emerged under Taloot who was succeeded by David and who in turn was succeeded by king Suleman. Suleman ruled from 960 BC to 926 BC. After Suleman, discord and dissensions cropped up among the Israelis. They fell apart and fought amongst themselves and founded their own different states which consisted of northern Palestine and Jordan with capital at Samaria. The other state was Yahudia consisting of Southern Palestine with capital at Jerusalem. Both these states remained locked up in intrigues and conflicts with one another.
Assyrin ruler invaded Israel and destroyed it. Thousand of Israelis were massacred or driven out and foreigners were settled in the land under whose influence Israelis attained social cohesions and cultural identity. The other Jewish state was invaded by Bukht Naser in 598 BC and all its cities were ransacked. The Jews of Yahudia revolted against Babylon regime provoking a blitzkrieg by Bukht Naser during which time Jerusalem and the Temple of Suleman were raised to the ground. In 539 BC, Syrus of Iran conquered Babylon and by royal decree permitted the Israelis to return to Palestine and settle there. He also allowed them to rebuild the Temple of Suleman. But the settlements in the neighborhood opposed it. Ultimately, Darius I (522 BC) appointed the grandson of the last king of Yahudia as the governor of Yahudia who reconstructed the Temple. After the downfall of Iranian Empire, the Jews suffered serious reverses. After the death of Alexander, his empire was divided into three states. The ruler of one of the sates, Syria, conquered Palestine in 198 BC and began to promote and propagate the Greek way of life and culture, and some of the Jewish people welcomed it. This caused dissension among the Jews. This dissension gave rise to Mukabee Movement, which cooperated in driving away the Greek and the Jews set up a state of their own that lasted up to 67 BC.
The Mukabee Movement however lost its momentum and the Jews were once again at each another’s throat. So much so, they invited the Roman conqueror Pompai to take over Palestine. Accordingly, Pompai captured Jerusalem and enslaved the Jews; he established a client state under Roman sovereignty which after about 23 years passed under the control of Harod, a very capable Jew, who adopted the policy of reconciliation between the local people and the Roman Empire.
However, after Harod his son and then his grandson were appointed by the Romans to rule over Palestine, and after only a few years, the Jews mounted a rebellion in BC 66 – 64 and ultimately Titus, a military governor, put down the rebellion with a heavy hand when 133,000 Jews were massacred and 67 thousand of them were reduced to slavery. Women were picked up for the palace of the Roman generals. Jerusalem and the Temple of Suleman were raised to the ground. After that, the Jews could never raise their heads nor could they reconstruct the Temple. Later Caesar Hardian re-conquered Jerusalem, but under the name of Eliya, and the Jews were debarred from entering the city.
Says the Holy Quran: “… So when the second of the warnings came to pass (We permitted your enemies) to disfigure your faces, and to enter your Temple as they had entered it before and to visit with destruction all that fell that into power.” (XVII ; 07).
These historic facts and the ground realities speak out loud that neither Palestine was ever their eternal homeland bequeathed by God nor was Jerusalem their eternal indivisible capital. In fact, Jerusalem for a long time was a forbidden city for the Jews until Hazrat Umer took control of it and invited them to return and settle.
The Jews presence in Palestine throughout the history was plagued by internecine discord and dissensions, intrigues, conspiracies, rebellions and the bloody putting down of the rebellions by blitzkriegs and large scale exile of the Jews and finally foreign invasion and occupation.
It was only under the Muslims rule with Jerusalem as its capital that this land enjoyed unprecedented peace, progress and prosperity that the Muslims shared so generously with the Jews and the Christians.
As against the peace progress and prosperity that prevailed in Palestine under the Muslim rule, Israelis perpetrated the genocide of Muslims by massacring the Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatila camps, by ruthless air strikes at the UN headquarters at Quana where the Muslims had taken shelters against Israelis air raids. The Holy Al-Aqsa mosque was set on fire. Even after the Oslo Peace Accord when the PLO recognized Israel, more than 20 Palestine Muslims, while offering their Friday prayers at the Al-Khalil Mosque, were sprayed with bullets. Not only that, the assassin’s grave has since become a shrine where a large number of Israelis assemble to pay homage to him. A few years ago, Israelis quietly embarked upon digging a tunnel beneath the Holy Mosque in order to destroy it.
Jerusalem thy name is Al-Quds. Thou hast been Islamic and Islamic thou shall again be.
