MYTHS of the Middle East 

I've been quiet since Israel erupted in fighting spurred by disputes over the Temple Mount.  Until now, I haven't even bothered to say, "I told you so."  But I can't resist an longer.  I feel compelled to remind you of the column I wrote just a couple of weeks before the latest uprising.  Yeah, folks, I predicted it.  That's O.K. hold your applause.  After all, I wish I had been wrong. Many people have been killed since the current fighting in and around Jerusalem began.  And what for? Israel disputes Temple mount, middle east myths, Muslims holy city, Arab, Arabs America, Palestinians, Palestine, war middle east crisis
If you believe what you read in most  news sources, Palestinians want a homeland and Muslims want control over  sites they consider holy.   Simple, right?

Well, as an Arab American journalist who has spent some time in the Middle East dodging more than my share of rocks and mortar shells, I've got to tell you that these are just phony excuses for the rioting, trouble-making and land-grabbing.

Isn't it interesting that prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, there was no serious movement for a Palestinian homeland?  "Well, Farah," you might say, "that was before the Israelis seized the West Bank and Old Jerusalem.

That's true, In the Six-Day War, Israel captured Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem.  But they didn't capture these territories from Yasser Arafat.  They captured them from Jordan's King Hussein.  I can't help but wonder why all these Palestinians suddenly discovered their national identity after Israel won the war.  

The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never- Never Land.  The first time the name was used was in 70 A.D. when the Romans committed genocide against the Jews, smashed the Temple and declared the land of Israel would be no more.  From then on, the Romans promised it would be known as Palestine.  The name was derived from the Philistines, a Goliathian people conquered by the Jews centuries earlier.  It was a way for the Romans to add insult to injury.  They also tried to change the name of Jerusalem to Aelia  Capitolina, but that had even less staying power.

Palestine has never existed ~ before or since ~ as an autonomous entity.  It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I.  The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their homeland.   

There is no language known as Palestinian.  There is no distinct Palestinian culture.  There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians.  Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.  Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9% of the Middle East lands.  Israel represents one-tenth of one percent of the landmass.

But that's too much for the Arabs.  They want it all.  And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today.  Greed. Pride. Envy. Covetousness.  No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough.

What about Islam's holy sites?  There are none in Jerusalem.  Shocked?  You should be.  I don't expect you will ever hear the brutal truth from anyone else in the international media.  It's just not politically correct.   

I know what you're going to say: "Farah, the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dume of the Rock in Jerusalem represent Islam's third most holy sites.  Not true.  In fact, The Koran says nothing about Jerusalem.  It mentions Mecca hundreds of times.  It mentions Medina countless times.  It never mentions Jerusalem.  With good reason.  There is no historical evidence to suggest Mohammed ever visited Jerusalem.

So how did Jerusalem become the third holiest site of Islam?  Muslims today cite a vague passage in the Koran, the 17th Sura, entitled "The Night Journey." It relates that in a dream or a vision, Mohammed was carried by night, "from the sacred temple to the temple that is most remote, whose procinct we have blessed, that we might show him our signs. _"  In the seventh century, some Muslims identified  the two temples mentioned in this verse as being in  Mecca and Jerusalem.  And that's as close as Islam's connection with Jerusalem gets ~ myth , fantasy, wishful thinking.  Meanwhile, Jews can trace their roots in Jerusalem  back to the days of Abraham.  

One round of violence in Israel erupted when Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon tried to visit the Temple  built by Solomon.  It is the holiest site for Jews.  Sharon and his entourage were met with stones and threats.  I know what it's like.  I've been there.  Can you imagine what it is like for Jews to be threatened, stoned and physically kept out of the holiest site in Judaism?

So what's the solution to the Middle East mayhem?  Well, frankly, I don't think there is one, it needs to begin with truth.  Pretending will only lead to more chaos.  Treating a 5,000 year old birthright backed by overwhelming historical and archaeological evidence equally with illegitimate claims, wishes and wants give diplomacy and peacekeeping a bad name.    

My recent commentaries on the Middle East have touched off a virtual international firestorm on the Internet.

Since writing "Myths of the Middle East" ... I have been inundated with email from all over the world ~ at least 5,000 letters from Israel alone.  The article has been translated into a dozen languages.  It has been the subject of network television debates.  It has been read on Israeli national radio.  And, while most of the reaction has been passionately favorable, there have been threats on my life and the lives of my family members.  There have been vicious, obscene, vulgar and profane denunciations.

The reaction illustrates just how far apart the Arabs and Israelis are in the so-called "peace-process."  There has clearly been no progress since 1947.    

In fact, there is simple evidence that some Arab leaders are right now attempting to revise history in new ways that strongly suggest there is nothing Israel can ever do to appease the violence in their hearts.

In an interview, which Italian newspaper La Republica, March 24, 2001, Skeik Ikrama Sabri, the Palestine Authority's top Muslim figure in Jerusalem, decreed that the Western Wall, the last remnant of the Jewish Temple, has no religious significance to the Jews.

"Let it be clear:  the Wailing Wall is not a holy place of the Jews, it is an integral part of the mosque (grounds).  We call it al-Buraq, the name of the horse with which Mohammed ascended to heaven from Jerusalem,"  he said.  In fact, the Temple Mount area and the Western Wall are, according to Jewish scholars, the only true holy sites of Judaism.  

Yasser Arafat himself has made similar statements recently, claiming the city of Jerusalem has no real significance to Jews.  On Al-Jezira  television, June 28, 1998, he said, "Let me tell you something.  The issue of Jerusalem is not just a Palestianian issue.  It is a Palestinian, Arab, Islamic and Christian issue."  Asked by the interviewer if one could also say it is a Jewish issue, he replied, "No.  Allow me to be precise ~ they consider Hebron to be holier than Jerusalem."  Afarat is among those Arab leaders making the incredible suggestion that there was never a Jewish Temple on the site.  "Until now, all the excavations that have been carried out have failed to prove the location of the Temple, " he claims.  "It is 30 years since they captured the city and they have not succeeded in giving even one proof as the location of the Temple."  Do you really think there can be compromise with people this delusional? 

This was no casual remark by Arafat.  In an earlier speech broadcast on Voice of the Palestine, Oct 10, 1996, he said, "Let us begin from the holy Buraq wall.  It is called the holy Buraq  wall, not the Wailing Wall.  We do not say this.  After the holy Buraq revolution in 1929 ... the Shaw International Committee said this is a holy wall for Muslims.  This wall ends at the Via Dolorosa.  These are our Christian and Muslim holy places."

Now, perhaps you understand why even today the Muslim police known as the Waqf attempt to deny Jews and other non-Muslims access to these sites.  Now, perhaps you understand why, during times when Jerusalem has been occupied by Muslims, Christian churches and Jewish synagogues were destroyed or desecrated.     

This alone should demonstrate conclusively to any non-biased observer that the troubles in the Middle East today will not be solved by the creation of a "Palestinian state."  It's time to point out to those who do not yet know that the leader of this movement ~ Afafat ~ is not a "Palestinian" at all.  Indeed, he was born in Egypt.

But his family does have some history in the area ~ though he's not likely to acknowledge it on ABC's Nightline or CNN.  You see, it was Arafat's uncle who served as the grand mufri of Jerusalem in the 1910's and 1930's.  It was his uncle who concluded, for the first time, that Mohammed had ascended into heaven from the site known as Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount.  And it was his uncle who, in an unholy alliance with Adolf Hitler, condemned the Jews and their designs on their eternal capital city.   

The truth is that Jerusalem has a unique importance to Jews.  It has always been a place described and revered in Jewish law.  For centuries since the Diaspora, Jews around the world have prayed toward Jerusalem, mourned the destruction of their Temple and hopefully repeated the phrase, "Next year in Jerusalem."

Again, I say, until all the parties to war and peace in the Middle East acknowledge basic history, and archaeology, there is little point in pretending that peripheral land concessions can bring peace. ~
                                        Reprinted with permission