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Part Seven - The Diplomatic Plan - Making Israel a Jewish State
Jerusalem – Goals and Policy (2/2)
Heart of the City – Temple Mount
"Who rules the Mount – Rules the Land." –Uri Zvi Greenberg[32].
The Temple Mount is not a "Holy Basin" and a "source of religious conflict" for the people of Israel. The Temple Mount is the holiest place in the world. This is the place where God chose to place His Presence in His world, the place where physics and meta-physics connect – the place where Adam was created and our father Yitzchak was bound, the place where life and the nation were molded, the place where our first Temple and our second temple stood – and as most of the prophecies regarding the return to Zion were fulfilled miraculously, so will the remainder be fulfilled, and when the time comes, our third Temple will stand on the mountain forever.
The Temple Mount is the beating heart of the country. The poet Uri Zvi Greenberg rightly recognized in our hold on the Mount the measure of Israeli sovereignty over the entire land. When we lose our grip on the mountain, the heart sickens, the blood flow decreases, and the organs dwindle. When control of the mountain is effectively handed over to the Jordanian Waqf, Jerusalem is divided again, and the cities of Israel are become accustomed to rocket attacks. There is a direct line between the abandonment of the Mount and the questioning of the legitimacy of the very existence of a Jewish state, anywhere in the land – an question that is now arising in the most respectable and enlightened countries.
When we say through our actions that we have no part in the Mount, the world says it at UNESCO, and when the world says this, the legitimacy of our hold on the land is lost, and when the legitimacy of our hold on the land is lost, the legitimacy of attacking us and our lack of legitimacy in defending ourselves is cast. Giving up the mountain does not prevent war, but rather brings it.
The "strategy" of Israeli governments since the Six-Day War is to renounce the realization of sovereignty over the Mount and to push the "problem" onto future generations. This "strategy" led to the continued lessening of the status of the city, its de facto re-division, and the transfer of sovereignty over the majority of the heart of the capital of Israel – the Temple Mount – to the Jordanian Waqf.
Today, in places where Jewish children played safely in the eastern part of the city, no Jew sets foot, it is impossible to build a house in Jerusalem without the personal approval of the prime minister, and UNESCO turns Israel's practical policy into an essential international decision, and determines that there is no connection between Israel and the Temple Mount.
The decision to hand over the keys of the Mount to the Muslims immediately upon its liberation was marketed as a political wisdom, as the realpolitik of then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. But the truth is that this was not a matter of necessity, but of strategy. Already in the War of Independence, a deliberate strategy led to the fall of the Jewish Quarter and the loss of the opportunity to liberate the Mount and all Judea and Samaria. Before the Six-Day War, Dayan, as well as the NRP ministers, opposed the liberation of the Old City, and even the commander of the paratroopers, Motta Gur, was convinced that within a short time the Mount would be returned to the Jordanians.
Israeliness did not want "all this Vatican" – in the words of Moshe Dayan. Nor did religion want the Mount that brings the Torah back from the personal-religious dimension of the Diaspora to the dimension of national culture – and this is the root of the Haredi opposition to the return of the Jews to the Mount today. There is nothing more anti-"religious" and anti-exile than the Temple Mount and the Temple.
Jerusalem is a bubble of the internal identity conflict within Israeli society. The conflict between Israeli identity and Jewish identity. The Mount is given, and the city is divided because the Israeli/religious identity is running away from the return to Jewish/cultural identity. Returning to the Mount is the connection between these cultures.
The Arabs are not the reason, the Arabs are only the means of this internal conflict. Israel sanctifies the Mount to Muslims in order to escape from it itself. The result is the loss of the foundation rock of the justification of our existence in the land at all, and the turning of humanity against us. In the sanctification of the Mount to Muslims, Israel brings war upon itself.
There is no Jerusalem without the Mount. The only sovereign on the Temple Mount will be the State of Israel, through the Israel Police, and a special guard to establish security, order, and sanctity of the place[33]. Every foreign element, in uniform and out, will be permanently removed from the Mount.
Temple Mount policy in practice
The Temple Mount is "also" a holy place
The Temple Mount will be opened for Jewish prayer and will be placed at the top of the list of places holy to Judaism – a list from which it is absent meanwhile, something which is surprising only those who ignore what has been described above. Under the Protection of Holy Places Law, it will be handed over to the Chief Rabbinate or a special body that it designates to for this, which will also be able to regulate the ascent and prayer of Jews on the Mount within the framework of Jewish law to permitted areas and to mark them on the ground. A Jewish synagogue will be built on the Mount, as per the various plans raised for this over the years.
Archeology
The Temple Mount will be opened for archaeological research. The archaeological damage caused by the abandonment of the Temple Mount to the Jordanian Waqf is immeasurable, and what has been done cannot be undone. 6000 tons of archeological material from the Temple Mount were deliberately destroyed by the Waqf during the illegal construction of underground mosques on the Mount, in order to prevent the discovery of artifacts that attest to the Jewish past of the Mount. The very possibility of talking about the absence of Temple remains on the Temple Mount is the result of a policy that has banned archeological research on the Mount itself for 50 years, forcing archaeologists to work around the Mount only[34].
Sovereignty
The Jordanian Waqf will lose all political status on the Mount. The Israeli police will be stationed on the Mount on a permanent basis, and not at the margins as is currently being done. Visits to the Temple Mount will be permitted at all hours of the day without restriction, and the security of the citizens of Israel on the Temple Mount will be assured absolutely, with all necessary police forces being allocated. Access to the Temple Mount for Jews will be permitted from all the gates of the Temple Mount without reservation.
Muslims will be allowed to continue praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque (built from the outset outside the boundaries of the original Mount , which is sacred for Jews). It goes without saying that any attempt to turn the prayers into a nationalist event will be dealt with severely. The approach to the Temple Mount will be improved and replaced entirely, as is appropriate for a place that is "the heart of the world." The flag of Israel will once again be permanently raised on the Temple Mount as an expression of absolute Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount, and as an expression of the Jewish identity which originates from the Temple Mount, to which it returns, and from which it lives.
Happy is he who awaits, who arrives, and who sees
The ascent of your light when your dawn breaks upon him,
Who sees the good of your chosen, who exults in your joy
As you return to the days of your youth![35]
[32] He was quoted by many as saying this immediately after the Six-Day War, and it appears almost in this version in "The Book of the Columns" (all of the writings of Uri Zvi Greenberg, published by the Bialik Institute). Thanks to Yehuda Etzion, who is an expert in his writings and teachings, and who referred to the written version.
[33] Similar to the organizers and security guards of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation who currently operate in the Western Wall plaza.
[34] The same is true, albeit to a lesser extent, for all archeology in Judea and Samaria.
[35] "O Zion, Will You Not Ask!", Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi.
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