“Now for the City of David,” he continues: “From 1000 to 586 BCE, this city was inhabited by the ancient Israelites, and we assume that most of the Bible was written in this place. Most of the archeological findings in the City of David are from the eighth to the sixth centuries BCE. But in some locations we have found evidence from the tenth to the eighth centuries BCE, which includes the Kingdom of David. Earlier findings were discovered in the Ophel Area, which is north of the City of David. Dr. Eilat Mazar of Hebrew Univeristy in Jerusalem, the granddaughter of Professor Benjamin Mazar, discovered fortifications from the tenth century BCE, which she calls the Wall of Solomon. She has also found the foundation of a huge building at the center of the City of David, which is from the tenth century BCE, and she theorizes that it is the palace of King David.”
The City of David, near the Western Wall/al-Aqsa, is a treasure trove for the Jews and a pain in the neck for the Arabs. A walk in this area seems to indeed corroborate various passages in the Bible, and people like Hanan Ashrawi are not happy. But while the Arabs cannot do anything in the City of David, as it is governed by Israel, they can do much in the al-Aqsa/Western Wall area, Israel having given all authority over it to the Waqf, the Islamic Religious Trust.
Old discoveries there, such as a Temple Mount stone with the inscription “To the Trumpet Blowing,” discovered by Benjamin Mazar decades earlier, are problematic for the Arabs, since they claim that al-Aqsa was not built over the ruins of a Jewish temple, and, Assaf tells me, whenever they can they destroy evidence of ancient Jewish life on the Holy Mountain.
He also cites the various maneuvers undertaken in the Western Wall/al-Aqsa area: in the late nineties, when the Waqf built an additional mosque in the al-Aqsa complex, they did excavations in the sensitive archeological area of the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa without any Israeli supervision. They then loaded tons of topsoil from the area on four-hundred trucks and dumped their contents in various locations. Some Israelis followed the trucks, to see where the soil was being dumped, and later Israel collected the dumped soil and deposited it in one location. Since then, and to this day, archeologists and their helpers are sifting the soil.
Dr. Eilat Mazar has made quite a number of discoveries not mentioned here, and which fellow archeologists from Tel Aviv University are partly disputing. The reason for their disagreement, as is often the case in science, is political and religious by nature: She is a Bible-inspired archeologist, which is not the case with the archeologists of Tel Aviv University.
During excavations at the foot of the Western Wall/al-Aqsa complex done earlier this year, she discovered thirty-six ancient coins, among them a gold medallion with the menorah (the Temple candelabrum) symbol on it, which archeologists date to the seventh century CE. A major discovery that, as far as I know, the Tel Aviv guys have not yet disputed.
Assaf offers to come with me on a tour of al-Aqsa, as he’d like to share with me some more archeological facts, and I accept. He asks that I show up before 7:30 a.m., when the “infidels” entrance to the complex opens. Assaf doesn’t wish to recite the Fatiha, the way I tried to do some months ago.
***
At 7:10 a.m. the following day Assaf is already standing next to the entrance of al-Aqsa and he looks eager to enter. He starts by telling me that the Western Wall is five hundred meters long, which I’ve already heard months ago, and that it was built by King Herod as part of the Temple around 20 BCE. That temple is also known as the Second Temple, Assaf says, since the First Temple was built by King Solomon. “We don’t know what this huge area was like before Herod’s construction, as we can hardly do any archeological work here.” As for the First Temple “it was built, according to biblical account, around 1000 BCE.”
By 7:30 a.m., around fifteen hundred tourists, of whom only about five are Jews, are standing in line. “The area is very sensitive today,” an Israeli policeman tells us before we enter.
Once we have entered I see Waqf guards all around. What’s the story? When they spot Jews, Assaf explains to me, a guard will trail them to make sure that they don’t pray here.
From I don’t know where I hear a group shouting “Allahu Akbar!” I thought only infidels were here at this time of day, but obviously I was wrong.
I see Arab women in a few parts of al-Aqsa and of the Dome of the Rock, just sitting. As we pass by the Dome, Assaf gets passionate. “The diameter of the Dome is exactly the same as that of the Holy Sepulcher,” he says, and immediately a Palestinian woman gets up from her seat and comes by to eavesdrop. In other places and under different circumstances this wouldn’t mean a thing, but nothing is normal in this place. She could be a Waqf employee, and if she hears anything contradicting the Islamic faith an international crisis could immediately develop. These things have happened before. To calm her down, I greet her in Arabic. She softens up at once. Where you from? She asks. Germany, I say. Welcome to al-Aqsa, she replies with a loving smile and walks away.
The God of Islam loves the Germans.
Now safe, Assaf continues: “Architecture-wise, the Dome is of a Byzantine structure, and octagonal, and it seems that the structure was a church before. Another important fact is that each side of the octagon measures twenty meters, exactly as in other churches in the area. During the British Mandate, the British found a Byzantine mosaic underneath al-Aqsa, suggesting that a church existed in the area at some time.” The Jewish Temple, he also tells me, “was exactly where the Dome is now, but there have been no scientific excavations done under the Dome at any period known to us.”
He stops talking as another round of Allahu Akbar! shouts is heard. This time the yelling is louder and seems to involve many more people. Reason? Three old Jewish ladies and a bare footed man, who seems to be their guide, are passing by. Three steps behind them, and trailing them wherever they go, is an Israeli policeman and a Waqf guard. Reason? If any of these four opens a Jewish book and prays, riots will start. And this must be prevented at all cost.
A cleaning lady comes out of the Dome to clean its entrance. This is a rare opportunity for me to walk by and take a glimpse. As I approach the Dome the lady runs fast inside, closes and locks the door, so that I am not able to see anything. A tour guide passing by me tells his group that inside the Dome there are three strands of hair from Prophet Muhammad’s beard.
A couple of steps from the Dome is a structure that Assaf calls a “baptismal font,” complete with what seems to be the sign of the cross. “Why is this here,” he asks, “if this was not a church?”
The truth is, the Crusaders who captured Jerusalem in 1099 CE, used this mosque as a church, and it could be that they also built the font. I don’t know.
The atmosphere around me is very tense, as if everybody was waiting for an explosion. You can sense the tension in the air. Frequent shouts of “Allahu Akbar” signify that a possible Jew is passing by.
That this is happening in Jerusalem, in the age of human rights, is frightening.
Assaf leaves and as I walk over to the public toilet, a few Waqf guards immediately get very busy. “Who is he?” one asks. “German,” answers the other. I’m allowed to pee in the al-Aqsa toilet. Finally!
***
Freshly relieved, I go to the Temple Institute in the Jewish Quarter, an organization “dedicated to every aspect of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.” The Temple Institute arranges tours in its building where a model of the temple, plus many items therein, are shown to interested individuals. This could be my opportunity to finally see the cherubs that I was kvetching about when I just arrived in Israel. And so I join a tour to the Holy of Holies exhibition, and yes! I get to see the two all-gold cherubs! The cherubs, as I see here, are two creatures both of which have a human face, one male and the other female, and they face each other. The rest of their bodies look like a combination of small animals and birds, and each has huge wings.
I won two of two today: the use of the al-Aqsa toilet and seeing the cherubs. Took me almost half a year!
The
cherubs, I hope I don’t offend either Arab or Jew, are quite similar to al-Buraq: half of one creature, half of the other. Before there was al-Aqsa, Assaf claims, there was a church. Before there was al-Buraq, I claim, there was a cherub.
I’m the only Master Agent on the planet so happy to have found two golden cherubs!
I leave the institute and later on go to meet Assaf again, this time in the City of David. Assaf shows me a replica of the “Shiloah Inscription,” the original of which was found in the City of David. The inscription, on a stone, was written in ancient Hebrew letters, dated 701 BCE. “Though Modern Hebrew and biblical Hebrew sound quite alike, the letters are very different. The Hebrew letters in use today,” Assaf tells me, “are Assyrian, in accordance with the writing used in Assyria, which is the Iran of today.”
The Shiloah Inscription describes the meeting point of two groups of tunnel diggers, each digging toward the other. One group was digging from the Gihon Spring and the other from the Shiloah in Jerusalem. King Hezekiah, who had anticipated an Assyrian siege of Jerusalem, built this tunnel in order to assure a flow of water into the city of Jerusalem. The Bible refers to this event in 2 Kings: “As for the other events of Hezekiah’s reign, all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the annals of the Kings of Judah?”
This is a major discovery that substantiates the Jewish historical claim to this land as it confirms the existence of an ancient Jewish kingdom here. It is an extremely important text in the annals of Jewish history, which is rare because so very little was written in those days.
Are the Jews happy? Well, not completely: They don’t possess the original stone.
Who does? Turkey. The Ottoman Empire, let’s not forget, once ruled this place.
The original of this inscription, Assaf tells me, is at the Istanbul Archeology Museum. Years ago, Israel tried to get it from the Turks but did not succeed. It is Turkey, a land of many Muslims, which owns one of the biggest proofs for Jewish history in Israel.
Assaf is a dark-skinned, really dark, man. He looks like the cliché of a leftist but talks like the cliché of a rightist. At times, though, he surprises me.
“When I see the Arabs,” he tells me, “sometimes I’m jealous. I see how they all say ‘hello’ to each other when they meet, how they hug each other, how they kiss each other. Sometimes you see them holding hands. They are one big family. This is the East. This is an Eastern culture. The West is different. The West is cold. Everyone to himself. There are very strong social differences between the two cultures and they don’t mix. Had Israel been an Eastern country culturally, I believe we could live with each other as one. My parents were born in India, but I am a Westerner. I understand the differences.”
As we speak, Arab kids play soccer and other games around us on the grounds of this archeological site. Assaf looks at them and says he’ll have to call the police to get the kids away. I see a guard at the entrance and ask Assaf why the guard has allowed the kids in. “Because he is afraid of the Arab kids,” he answers. Similar story, how strange, to the one in Hebron, where stone throwing kids scare the Israeli army.
Down the road is Silwan, an Arab neighborhood within Jerusalem. Silwan – its name derived from the Hebrew name Shiloah – is an interesting place. With the exception of two houses that are being protected by armed Israeli guards around the clock, no Jew steps a foot in there.
I go in. A big Palestinian flag hanging at Silwan’s center, as if to say that this is not Israel, greets me. As I walk, and without any warning sign, a group of Arab youngsters approaches me and one of them takes off my baseball cap. He wants to know, I guess, if there’s a skullcap under my hat.
He looks and he finds none, but still doesn’t give me back my hat and walks away with it. He looks back to see if I run after him, but I don’t. Running after him would be translated as fear. Not good here. Instead, I curse him and his group in Arabic.
This the kids did not expect. An Arab. Just like them. An older member of the group apologizes and I get back my hat.
Silwan, in the heart of Jerusalem, wants to be Judenfrei, like Nazareth, and various NGOs stand by their side. And as I keep on walking in Silwan, I think I finally understand why there are so many NGOs here. Where else could one practice his or her darkest wish for Judenfrei territories and still be considered liberal?
Does this my conclusion sound over-blown to you, too unreal, too judgmental? I wish that I were wrong. But if you come with me on a tour of this Silwan, and of this land, and walk with me in some of these places, where the NGOs rule and not even the Devil dares come, you will come to the same conclusion. Sorry.
Gate Fifty-One
A date with the Good Europeans: How good are they?
NES AMIM (MIRACLE OF NATIONS) IS A CHRISTIAN VILLAGE NEXT TO AKKO, A city on the sea near Haifa, founded a few decades ago for the explicit purpose of having Christians learn from Jews instead of criticizing them. I must find some good Europeans, I say to myself, and I go there.
It is Friday night, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath and these Christians, mostly Dutch and German, are going to show off what they have learned from the Jews. First off, they bless the Sabbath in Hebrew. Well, kind of. Their Hebrew sounds like another language, a language that doesn’t yet exist, but you must praise the attempt. Blessings done, food arrives. Food eaten, talk starts.
Nes Amim provides its facilities for “dialogue” groups, I learn. What kind of dialogues do they engage in? Arab-Jewish dialogues, for example. “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is my business,” a lady tells me.
How come?
“It is the UN that created Israel.”
So?
“We created Israel and we are responsible for what it does.”
The group agrees with this statement.
I guess that the “learn from Jews” statement of purpose of this village is just a statement.
I chat with a young German volunteer. He has been in Israel for three months and has learned a great deal. What have you learned so far? I ask him.
“That Israel implants mines next to Druze elementary schools.”
How touching.
***
In neighboring Akko’s Old City, also inside Israel proper, not one Jew lives. Road signs pointing to historical Jewish houses were taken away by the residents and replaced with signs containing Quranic verses. These residents and the people of Nes Amim are good, friendly neighbors.
It is on the streets of beautiful Akko that I meet a Swiss-German lady. “We have to remember what happened in WWII and we have to take responsibility. That is why I am here, to help the people,” she tells me.
By the power of my stupidity I get sucked into a conversation with her. Which people do you help?
“I work mostly with Israeli Jews.”
What do you do with them?
“We protect little Arab kids in Hebron from being stoned by Jewish settlers.”
This lady is probably with EAPPI. If she’s not, she should hook up with Michèle, they would make for a perfect couple.
Gate Fifty-Two
The legal system: Israeli parliament at work – the loudest mouths win.
AS AMERICAN SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY IS STEPPING UP HIS SHUTTLE diplomacy these days, landing in Israel every so often to pressure ministers, I choose to go to the Knesset repeatedly instead. No major policy change is going to take effect without the parliament’s approval; why not meet the MKs?
There is a committee meeting today discussing the Bedouins that I want to attend. I saw the Bedouins; now it’s time to see the parliamentarians decide about their fate.
A couple of years ago the so-called Prawer Commission, appointed by the Israeli government, issued its recommendations for various unrecognized Bedouin encampments in the Negev. The Prawer Plan suggested the relocation of some Bedouins to recognized settlements. The government appointed former minister Benny Begin, son of t
he late prime minister Menachem Begin, to look into it, and this resulted in some changes to the original Prawer Plan. The Prawer-Begin Plan, as it is now known, was issued earlier this year, and presently the Knesset is to decide whether to approve or disapprove of it.
In terms of people, this plan concerns the fate of about thirty thousand Bedouins who would be relocated. In terms of money, the government is offering to spend over two billion shekels in the process. In terms of living standards, this would solve the dire conditions some Bedouins are living under, as under this plan they will all from now on enjoy proper infrastructures in their communities. On the other hand, some encampments will have to be relocated and, even more importantly, if approved this plan will end the practice of building encampments in the Negev, which means that if anybody feels a special attachment to a mountain somewhere, he or she will no longer be able to just put up a shack or a tent and claim the mountain as their own.
How do I know all this? No, I’m not a Bedouin specialist, nor am I the legal adviser of any side to this dispute. The above is a compilation of literatures I got from both sides, mainly Adalah and Regavim. Truth be said, both sides assert in no uncertain terms that the Plan and its implications are hugely complex and complicated, but if you take the various lawyers and activists out of the equation and examine the story calmly, you’ll find that the issue is actually quite simple.
What is not very simple are the politics that work mightily underneath both the pro and con of this issue. Namely, the Bedouin issue could well transform itself into the “Second Coming” of the “Palestinian Rights” religion. Various Israeli governments have known this and they have all acted erratically on this issue. If history is any guide, no final Knesset vote on it will take place before both Jesus and Muhammad have arrived on the same camel at the gates of Jerusalem. But don’t tell this to anybody here, for they will be very offended.
Catch The Jew! Page 37