By Yoram Getzler: Christian Presence in the Holy Land / Eretz Yisrael / Palestine is contingent on the Jewish origins of the faith. From beginning to end the Christian bible maintains a geographical consistency, that is, all the events described take place within the limited areas of what was known then as; Judea & Samaria.
Jesus is born in the city of Bethlehem in Judea. The same city in which the biblical Book of Ruth, story of his grandmother takes place. He is born to a family from the city of Nazareth, in the Galilee region of Samaria. His most famous miracle takes place at the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, (in Hebrew Yam HaKineret). You can go there today and see the remains of the city, Kfar Nahum, Cappernaum, where he preached, and next door the Church of the Loves & Fishes. Above that the north west is the Mount of the Beatitudes, where he delivered his famous Sermon on the Mount.
The crescendo of His life, the high point of His mission takes place in Jerusalem. Along with throngs of Jews from all over the land and the diaspora, Jesus makes the obligatory annual festival pilgrimage to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem where he continues his mission. He and his Jewish disciples fulfill the Passover festival requirement of a ceremoniously meal, during which four glasses of wine are ritually drunk and the Pascal lamb is ingested, in the vicinity of the walls of Jerusalem.
When he and his students retire after the meal they do so in the garden of Gethsemane, immediately to the East of the city wall.
His betrayal, trial, crucifixion and resurrection all occur within the limited area of Jerusalem, the ancient capital of the Jewish nation which at that time was under the occupation of the Roman state.
Absent the events surrounding and within the Holy Temple of Jerusalem also known as Herod’s Temple, there is no Christianity.
So when Yassar Arifat denied the existence of a Jewish temple in Jerusalem to US President Bill Clinton during the Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David in 2000, there was great surprise on the part of the American president, well known for his strong Christian beliefs.
Within the Palestinian leadership it is not only Yassar Arafat who does not recognize the existence in antiquity of the Holy Temple of the Jewish people in Jerusalem. It is a matter of policy and belief by the leadership, supported by the media and educated intellectuals, that no other religion or tradition has held the Temple Mount as holy, other than the Muslims. Some Muslim scholars even claim that the site of the El-Aksa was sacred already at the time of Adam.
The name Jerusalem appears in the Jewish Bible 669 times and Zion (which usually means Jerusalem, sometimes the Land of Israel) 154 times, or 823 times in all. (NOTE: Israel is another biblical name for the Jewish people) The Christian Bible mentions Jerusalem 154 times and Zion 7.
The columnist Moshe Kohn notes, Jerusalem and Zion appear as frequently in the Qur’an “as they do in the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita, the Taoist Tao-Te Ching, the Buddhist Dhamapada and the Zoroastrian Zend Avesta”—which is to say, not once.
Jerusalem and the holy temple are refereed to in the writings of the early Muslim commentator At-Tabari as the “Holy House in Jerusalem”. What could that “holy house” have been other than the Temple of Solomon itself.
“He chose the Holy House in Jerusalem in order that the People of the Book [i.e., Jews] would be conciliated,” notes At-Tabari, an early Muslim commentator on the Qur’an, ” Another phrase, “furthest mosque” has also been interpenetrate to be a reference to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
As recently as 1924, the temple mount was acknowledged to have been the site of the Jewish Temple by the Supreme Moslem Council, which that year published an English-language tourist guide to the Temple Mount entitled “A Brief Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif,” which stated: “The site is one of the oldest in the world. Its sanctity dates from the earliest times. Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.”
In 1998 the goal of this historical revision as a political strategy was first expressed publicly at a conference of Palestinian historians, when rewriting history was linked to the political goal of denying Israel’s right to exist:
“Dr. Yussuf Alzamili [Chairman History Department, Khan Yunis Educational College] called on all universities and colleges to write the history of Palestine and to guard it, and not to enable the [foreign] implants and enemies to distort it or to legitimize the existence of Jews on this land… [History lecturer Abu Amar] clarified that there is no connection between the ancient generation of Jews and the new generation.” [Al-Ayyam, Dec. 4, 1998].
This anti-historical belief has been promoted ever since. There are many pseudo-scientific/historical statements by a variety of so called academic scholars.
An example: “Dr. Yussuf Alzamili [Chairman History Department, Khan Yunis Educational College] called on all universities and colleges to write the history of Palestine and to guard it, and not to enable the [foreign] implants and enemies to distort it or to legitimize the existence of Jews on this land… [History lecturer Abu Amar] clarified that there is no connection between the ancient generation of Jews and the new generation.” [Al-Ayyam, Dec. 4, 1998].
and again: Lecturer, Urban Planning, Bir-Zeit University, Dr. Jamal Amar:
“There is a view that where it [the Dome of the Rock] stands was the Holy of Holies of the fictitious Temple – and by the way, that is merely an illusion. There is no remnant of it. It’s a myth. A story of no value, like the Arabian Nights, and other legends… Only in Palestine… [after] 60 years of digging, and they’ve found nothing at all. Not a water jug, not a coin, not any earthen vessel, no bronze weapons, no piece of metal, absolutely nothing of this myth, because it’s a myth and a lie. This digging has not left a single meter [unturned], but it has achieved absolutely nothing.” [PATV, June 23, 2009]
What makes this particular example of historical denial especially infuriating is the reference to the lack of archeological evidence of any earlier structures where the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aksa mosque stand today. In 2009 IsraelSeen.com published an audio interview/report on the attempts to salvage archeological material from the debris resulting from the gross construction/excavation process carried out on the Temple Mount by the Muslim Wafk. (https://israelseen.com/2009/03/08/revealing-history-in-the-debris/) They were constructing an underground Mosque at the southern edge of the mount itself, in the area known as Solomon’s Stables. The universally accepted standard for scientific archeological digs are carried out with the up most care for the placement of the finds resulting in the greatest possible accuracy in the interpretation of the objects. The Wafk chose instead to carry out the excavations with bulldozers and removed the debrees of antiquity into dump trucks. It is so perfect. The Muslim officials controlling the Temple Mount refuse to allow an orderly scientific archeological excavation to be carried out. Then when they excavate with bulldozers they in effect destroy any archeological evidence there might be. And finally they deny that any evidence existed.
The Palestinians constantly refer to the Jewish Temple, as “your imaginary Temple”. If as the Palestinians also claim, “there was no Jewish temple in Jerusalem” then, what are the many Christians holy sites; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; The Room of the Last Supper etc, doing there? (http://www.sacred-destinations.com/israel/jerusalem-christian-sites)
It is “Killing two birds with one stone”. One statement of their belief and they get rid of the two competing groups for claims in the same territory; both Jews and Christians
I believe Christians and others of faith should also be aware that PA leaders repeatedly define Jesus as a Palestinian who preached Islam, thus denying not only Jewish history, but also the history and legitimacy of Christianity itself.
Economic/intellectual efficiency is also achieved by virtue of calling into question the religious integrity and legitimacy of the two competing monotheistic faiths. It is a total denial and rejection of the idea of respect for others.
It is a kind of historical, geographic, retroactive apartheid. Only we Muslims were were here, only we have rights, only our religion is legitimate, only we can claim a past in this land. They even claim the Philistines as Muslim Arabs, as well as the Canaanites.
Any personality of note in Jewish religious antiquity was a Muslim. Abraham, his wife and children. Even Jesus was a Muslim.
There is over a million years of human history here, between the river and the sea. And it was all Muslim history. (1496)
Additional interesting material on this historical distortion has been gathered by Palestinian Media Watch at:http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=487
and Daniel Pipes at http://www.danielpipes.org/84/the-muslim-claim-to-jerusalem
