At The Center Of The World

During two Holy Land pilgrimages and the 18 months in between, pilgrim Andy and I have been carrying on a conversation about the Middle East. It hasn't really been a debate, since we're both strong supporters of Israel who are working to deepen our appreciation of the immense complexities of the issue and of the necessity for a just provision for Palestinians' right of self-determination.

We rarely have the opportunity we did today to conduct our discussion at the epicenter of the crisis. We were standing with our fellow pilgrims inside the Jerusalem Archaeological Park, on steps leading to a walled-up spot that was once an entrance to the Second Temple. The towering wall at our back faces south. You can see Herodian (which is to say time of Jesus Christ) stones at the bottom and the windows and blue dome of the al-Aqsa mosque on top. Could Jesus have climbed these steps on one of his visits to the temple from Bethany, on the Mount of Olives (to our left)? Pretty likely. So you have 2,500 years of religious history and explosive interfaith rivalry inside a few square feet. For the faithfully political (or the politically faithful), it's pretty much the center of the world.

Since pilgrim Kathy, junior archaeologist, was helping injured pilgrim Pam prepare for her much-regretted early departure for the U.S. tonight, she didn't go with our group this morning. I retraced our footsteps with her this afternoon. That's she amid the massive stones that Roman soldiers threw down from the Temple Mount when they destroyed the Second Temple in A.D. 70 -- the very ones of which Jesus said in Mark 13:2b, "Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down." You can't get much closer to history than that, in this place where peace sometimes feels as far away as it can be.

The Al-Aqsa mosque and Mount of Olives, from the Jerusalem Archaeological Park

More Palestinian Wallowing

Unconstructive Jewish temple denial by Palestinians, who've issued a new report claiming that Jerusalem's Western Wall is part of the Al-Aqsa mosque and not a remnant of Herod the Great's expansion of the Second Temple. According to the Jerusalem Post, the official who wrote the report says "that the Jews had never used the site for worship until the Balfour Declaration of 1917."

The argument doesn't wash. Excavations in and around the Old City have revealed many other Herodian structures, including further remnants of his wall. Besides, as we read in Wikipedia:

It has been a site for Jewish prayer and pilgrimage for centuries, the earliest source mentioning Jewish attachment to the site dating from the 4th century.

That would be at least 200 years before Muhammad and Islam.

Some Palestinian experts confine themselves to the more elegant and also scripturally sound argument that their forebears the Canaanites were probably worshiping in the Jebusite city now known as Jerusalem long before the Jews even got there. As for proving Jewish provenance on the Temple Mount, all we have to do is excavate beneath it, which I doubt the Muslim authorities would countenance.

AP (Or Yahoo) Editors' Call To Prayer

The Yahoo page carrying an Associated Press story about a clash between Muslim demonstrators and Israeli police on the Temple Mount bears this questionable headline:

Violent clashes erupt at Jerusalem's holiest site

The demonstrators were holed up for a while tonight in the al-Aqsa mosque, which together with the neighboring Dome of the Rock (shown here) comprises only the third holiest site in the world among Muslims. As the site of the Second Temple (specious Temple-denying to the contrary), the Temple Mount is unquestionably the holiest site for Jews. Also in Jerusalem, but not on the Temple Mount, is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, by far the holiest site for Christians. However you slice it, you can't write that headline without seeming to play favorites.

The body of the story calls the Temple Mount Jerusalem's most volatile site, about which there's little doubt. Reporter Matti Friedman attributes today's violence to understandable Muslim frustration at the stalled peace talks and unsubstantiated rumors spread by clerics that Jews were planning to disrupt or damage their holy sites. It's been an especially tense place since former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a provocative visit in 2000. While many fault him for doing so, he said at the time that Jews should feel free to visit, since their temples had stood on the same territory on and off for roughly 1,600 years. With the Muslim conquest of the holy city in the seventh century, the site became what today's Palestinians might call occupied territory. Although under Israeli political and security control, the Temple Mount is administered by an Islamic council.

As noted, it's becoming fashionable in some circles to assert the Jewish temples never existed, which would seem to make it all the more vital for Jews to put in appearances. It's also important for Christians to go, as I did in pilgrim groups in 2007 and again in July. During this year's trip, we were 20 mild-mannered pilgrims with an Arab Anglican guide and a famous Arab Muslim anthropology professor. After we were settled on an empty patch of grass, a Muslim women brought her children to sit near us (as in almost leaning against my right shoulder) and began to talk loudly to another woman, which effectively drowned out our soft-spoken speaker. We learned later that she felt we were sitting in the wrong place, that we should have listened to the professor's talk at a spot closer to the exit. This occurred after a member of our party had been castigated for her allegedly immodest dress.

Perhaps the woman had a legitimate beef against Jews, Christians, or Episcopalians. Sorry to have offended you, my sister. But it's our spiritual home, too. Someplace beneath our feet, a 12-year-old Jesus had sat at the feet of the priests, and the fully grown Messiah had done some Temple-cleansing. It also seemed odd that Temple Mount authorities still weren't permitting non-Muslims to visit the Al-Aqsa mosque or the Dome of the Rock. Why not, exactly? Because Sharon showed up nine years ago?

As for the stalled talks, the Israelis refused to stop West Bank settlements without confidence-building measures from the Arabs, while Arabs refused to make any such gestures until Israel stopped the settlements. Who is to blame? Not one or the other. That's too easy. Neither, or both.

Hat tip to Mike Cheever

We First

Daniel Levin summarizes Muslim ideologues' claims that there was never a Jewish temple in Jerusalem, part and parcel of some Palestinians' refusal to acknowledge that Israel is a Jewish state.

You and I both know the temple was there. But politics has its own imperatives. If the Muslim revisionists are serious about proving their point, the obvious solution is internationally supervised archaeological digs under the Temple Mount, but it's hard to imagine them being authorized by the custodians of the Al-Aqsa mosque, Dome of the Rock, and other more recent (aka 1300 years old) arrivals to the neighborhood. They should dig up or shut up.

Ironic that Palestinians are playing me-first just as we learn that most of them have Jewish ancestors. Besides, the more elegant argument is the one we St. John's pilgrims heard from a Palestinian scholar during our August pilgrimage: That Palestine's indigenous people, the Canaanites, were worshiping in Jerusalem long before Jews arrived and built their temples. None of which helps Israel and Palestinians live in peace today.

Hat tip to Mike Cheever