The World Keeps On Forgetting That Our Blood Runs Deep Here

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

Since entering Jerusalem in 1967, Jews are only allowed to pray here at the Western or Wailing Wall.  They are not allowed on the Temple Mount where a mosque has been built over Solomon's 2nd Temple.  Why is that, you ask?  Moshe Dayan allowed Jordan to have religious control on the Temple Mount after this Six Day War.  To keep the peace, is the answer.  Israel and he wanted the fighting to stop for all time, and this he did.  I don't think he realized how the Jordanians would treat Jews, as he wouldn't have done that if the shoe were on his foot.  

Every world power that has controlled and occupied the land of Israel has become a FORMER world power, or has lost power, such as Britain.     

The Jewish people have a 3,900-year history with the land of Israel and a 3,000-year connection with the city of Jerusalem.

                                                        

    Arch of Titus in Rome, depicting taking Jewish slaves from Jerusalem with loot from Temple

Jerusalem is mentioned 812 times in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.

"Jerusalem is mentioned 142 times in the New Testament, and none of the 16 various Arabic names for Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran. But in an expanded interpretation of the Koran from the 12th century, one passage is said to refer to Jerusalem,” The name, however, is not there, only a reference to it. Many Muslims are in denial of the Temples of Solomon's existence, despite the writings of such which do validate them. Is the Arch of Titus in Rome just telling a fairy-tale?   

                                                                        

Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount is the farthest mosque from Mecca.  It was built in the Jewish Temple Mount area of Jerusalem by the Caliph Abd el-Malik in the 8th century after Mohammad's death to mark the site of the legendary flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Jerusalem that is a part of their  religious history.  

May 14, 1948 was when Israel became a nation again, and since then her neighbors had instigated wars against her in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982 and then War changed a bit during the 2000-2004 Intifada.  It has changed again on Jerusalem Day 2021 in a new kind of War. 

 In-between these dates, Israel has endured shelling.  She's tried many tactics, only to find that her enemies only respect strength.  If she does not openly defend herself, they take her was being weak and hit her all the more.  They've had plenty of experience to know their enemy.  All the fighting Israel has had to endure has been done in defense of itself.  They have had plenty of experience with death from the Holocaust, and have only asked to be left in peace and to be able to live once and for all.  They have not been aggressors wanting more land.  They are a people who were to have the allotment from WWI that was promised only to see it shrink with an 80% of it being given to Jordan before they even started life.  Even that 20% left for them has been divided in half to make "The West Bank."  Now the sliver of land left is in jeopardy, and Jews shockingly were told by the Palestinians to get out of their country and that it belongs to the Palestinians or they will make it all "a hell."  Just tell me this:  "Who is in denial?"

Life changed after the Six Day War of 1967 in May.  The hostile forces of Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria surrounded Israel.  Egypt's President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, pledged 2 years earlier that "We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand.  We shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood."  

Syria frequently used the Golan Heights, which towers 3,000 feet above the Galilee, to shell Israeli farms and villages down below.  Arab terrorists stepped up their attacks against Israel from 35 in 1965 to 41 the following year, and 37 in just the 1st 4 months of 1967.  

Syria's continued shelling from the Golan Heights provoked a retaliatory strike, (note-one finally after  being hit 113 times!  Is that restraint or isn't it?  In Israel's one strike, their planes shot down 6 Syrian MiGs.  

Then, on May 15th, Israel's Independence Day, Egyptian troops began moving into the Sinai and massing near the Israeli border.  Nasser ordered the UN emergency Force (UNEF), stationed in the Sinai by the UN since 1956, to WITHDRW on May 16th.  without bringing the matter to the attention of the UN General Assembly, as his predecessor had promised, the Secretary-General U Thank complied with the demand. What good were they?  Well, they didn't want to get shot !!!

After that withdrawal, the voice of the Arabs proclaimed on May 18, 1967, the following:

"As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel.  We shall exercise patience no more.  We shall not complain anymore to the UN about Israel.  The sole method we  shall apply against Israel is TOTAL WAR, which will result in the EXTERMINATION of Zionist existence."  

    Promised to be the Jewish National Home in 1920-after World War I.  Converted to sq miles, that's 46.332.  After losing 80% right off the bat, that finally came down to 8,000 sq miles left for the Jews.  

                                                       

          The yellow area is Israel.  Gaza and the West Bank take up the purple.  Gaza has always been a problematic area but the West Bank is our ancient homeland.  Jerusalem sits in the top green circle.  

A Zionist is anyone-Jews in Israel-who think Jews had a right to go through the League of Nations and the United Nations after World War I when the Ottoman Empire and Germany had lost the war-the Axis group, and the Allies were in command of who got what land in the following partition.  Many changes were made since many lives were lost due to Germany's greed and disrespect of a country's rights to live in peace.  Jews went through a lot of meetings and discussions and were awarded land-land that started shrinking before even wearing it, but the Jews stuck it out and accepted the sliver finally offered to them.  We've seen what countries think of Jews and how they have treated Jews.                                                    

This was  instigated by a rumor of a threat to the Palestinians in East Jerusalem.  It's a matter to be determined by the courts.  All the Palestinians need is a good lawyer and a rightful case.  The threat to evict six families from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah had become a rallying cry for Palestinians.  According to the NY Times, the Israeli Court delayed expulsion of some Palestinian families in East Jerusalem.  The impending expulsion of 4 families has sparked protests and renewed clashes in Israel.

This is a matter that was scheduled to be heard in the courts.  It started  while in the aftermath of the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, the wider family was scattered between Gaza and neighboring Jordan. East Jerusalem and the West Bank were then administered by Jordan, which gradually resettled Palestinian refugees in new housing projects in Sheikh Jarrah under the auspices of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). In exchange, resettled families renounced their status as refugees. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel gained back land originally promised to them as it was, but gained it by rights of winning the 67 War,  and later annexed east Jerusalem.

The most recent eviction demands were filed by Nahalat Shimon, a right-wing nationalist settler organization registered in the United States. The group allegedly bought the land from two Jewish associations which assert having purchased the land at the end of the 19th century. For Jerusalem's deputy mayor and settler activist Aryeh King, the Palestinian families are simply "squatters."

THE violent skirmishes in recent weeks have added to long-standing legal battles between the residents of Sheikh Jarrah and Israeli settler organizations since evictions started in 2008. Over the last decade, both Palestinian and Jewish activists have demonstrated against expanding takeovers by settlers in the neighbourhood. But this time, many more people have joined the protests.

The line dividing areas is unbelievably close by.  Being either in or out of Jerusalem and being a settler is within a stone's throw.  The West Bank was divided up in the Oslo meetings, and one part is Jewish, another part is Palestinian and the 3rd is for both.  Palestinians have been building in the Jewish section and getting away with it.  

My grandmother came from Lazdijai, Suwalki, Lithuania, a border town between Lithuania and Poland, but there was a war and suddenly she found herself in Poland.  Her house didn't move but her government became different, and since she only spoke Yiddish, that served in both places.  This problem is slightly different.  The law is strict about Jewish rights in Judea-Samaria being there and not coming from Israel because of an unseen line in the ground.   Now the settlers want the rights of a buyer of land.  That's what courts are for.  

According to human rights organizations, the four families are among eight in the area who are currently under a threat of immediate eviction claims filed by settler organizations. The other four families could be evicted by August, with more households in various stages of the legal process. In addition, several families in the neighbourhood of Silwan, to the south of the Old City, are also facing expulsion.

"The land belongs to Jews for almost a hundred years. Jews lived there, and Jews own the land since then," said King. Dismissing the simmering tensions, he hopes that the court will soon decide to evict the families. "It's a local conflict, it's not affecting all of Israel or Jerusalem, it's a few Arab families that decided to break the law," he added.

So it's going to court; a battle of land rights using maps, etc, and only a rumor of eviction.  There's nothing here that says that there has already been a ruling.  There is a problem that should be solved legally.  However, the Palestinians have used it to start this War against Israel that I claim has been planned way in advance, but just hoping for a problem like this to use as a pretext as if Jerusalem Day wasn't enough of one.  Over a real-estate error or possibility or rumor; War has burst forth in its stead.  What can happen to those homes now?                       

We had a similar circumstance in Portland, Oregon when I was young.  Portland wanted to build a freeway  and change SW Portland, but our Neveh Zedek Synagogue lay in the way, so it had to go.  Our synagogue was destroyed to make room for a freeway that didn't want any curves in it.  That involved all the families attending that synagogue.  My Rabbi, named Phillip Kleinman, would serve at the synagogue from 1937 to 1956. That was almost the same length that I was there as a student.  Life presents all kinds of changes that people have to meet face on without adding more problems such as rioting. 

Resource:

Book: Eye to Eye by William Koenig

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/09/world/middleeast/israeli-court-palestinian-families-east-jerusalem.html

https://www.dw.com/en/with-jerusalem-on-edge-palestinian-families-face-eviction/a-57471530

https://www.newagebd.net/article/137758/with-jerusalem-on-edge-palestinian-families-face-eviction