What restores peace for Jerusalem’s Old City
What restores peace for Jerusalem’s Old City
July 25, 2017 — In most religions, sacred shrines are meant to remind the faithful of the promise of peace. But for Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem’s Old City, that promise seemed illusive this month. A series of killings, which began at the Temple Mount on July 14, set off the worst violence between Israelis and Palestinians in years. The potential of a major conflict forced emergency intervention by the United Nations Security Council and the United States.
The relative calm that was restored by July 25 speaks to the wisdom of a few Israeli and Arab leaders who put peace above any contest over religious identity, which has long been the issue in determining access to Jerusalem’s holy sites.
The string of violence began when three Arab residents of Israel used concealed guns to fatally shoot two Israeli police officers guarding the Al-Aqsa mosque in the Haram al-Sharif compound (or Temple Mount). Israel then set up metal detectors to check Muslims seeking to pray at the mosque. But it did so without consulting the Jordanian-controlled Islamic trust that administers the site. This was seen as a new assertion of sovereignty by Israel over what Muslims consider to be their third-holiest shrine.
Israel backed down after further violence and dismantled the detectors. It now seeks to install “smart” cameras that can detect guns. That action may not ultimately satisfy Jordan and the trust overseeing the mosque. But Israel’s concession at least shows its sensitivities to Muslim feeling and its own interest in peace above demanding total sovereignty.
Control over the Temple Mount has required a delicate balance of interests between Jordan and Israel since the 1967 war that saw Israel take over East Jerusalem. That balance rests on a mutual recognition of freedom of worship – at least in separate areas – and a desire to keep the peace. The fact that Muslims and Jews have generally accepted this balance shows that they can agree on something. More important, they rise above their respective identities as either Muslim or Jew to embrace a common identity in maintaining peace.
The peace that allows Muslims and Jews to pray at their respective sites is a transcendent significance far beyond that attached to their physical shrines. When violence erupts over control of the sites, it often takes only a reminder of that common bond to restore the calm – and allow worship to go on.
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Since the historic people of Israel and the historic people of Palestine are essentially the same people, one has to wonder what has caused all this hate. Religion is the cause but also perhaps the cure, at least according to the Christian Science Monitor.
A new coexistence project entitled Enemies by Swiss artist Olivier Suter seeks to show how people define the "other." Suter noticed that in many conflicts people come to hate and stereotype an "other" and ascribe all sorts of differences, particularly ethnic ones, to their enemy. He believes that if he can show that most people locked in deadly conflict look alike they will have no reason to be enemies. Towards that end he received backing from Charlatan, a Swiss-based artists collective, to publish an advertisement in March 2008 showing eight unidentified people and asking readers to submit photos of anyone who looked like them. He had chosen eight Palestinians and by publishing his "wanted" ad in Haaretz he was hoping to get pictures of Israeli Jews.
Sure enough he received many of them. His final selection included a picture of an Israeli girl who remarkably resembles, almost identically, a Palestinian boy from Beit Hanina. The project is not limited to Israel. He intends to embark on a similar stunt in Belgium, showing that Flemish and French speakers look alike. Next he is going to Africa and will prove that Hutus and Tutsis, the latter the victim of the Rwandan genocide, look alike. The implication is clear: Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, look alike.
Since we look alike there is no reason for a conflict. Suter asks, "Can two people who look so similar that they could be mistaken for identical twins really be enemies?"
"Religion is the cause but also perhaps the cure, at least according to the Christian Science Monitor."
The CSM is trying desperately to try to be fair, but that statement is utopian. I know of NOTHING in Judaism that is anything like this, and the violence it begets.
Of course it is totally irrational for Israel to place detectors of weapons at the entrances to the Temple Mount. After all, the Palestinians should be allowed to bring their weapons there to rain death and destruction on the Jews entering the holiest site in their religion. /s
The UNESCO ignores the fact that the site of David's Temple could possibly be important enough not to be attributed to Islam (which did not exist until long after) by giving it and referring to it by an Islamic name. also s/
IMO it was a tragic error for Moshe Dayan and the Israeli government to give control of the Temple Mount to Jordan.
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What could start like this:
and develop like this:
to end up like this:
Will NOT happen as long as the Palestinians and the Muslim Imams teach and preach hatred and glorify and pay those who murder innocent Jews.
My son, as a counsellor for two years at the Seeds of Peace Camp in Maine helped it to happen and saw it happen there. Palestinian and Israeli children arrived at the camp fearing and hating each other, and at the end of camp tearfully bid each other farewell with hugs and kisses, promising to write and visit each other (and many did).
Teach Your Children Well (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young)
You who are on the road
Must have a code, you try to live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a goodbye
Teach your children well
Their father's hell did slowly go by
Feed them on your dreams
The one they fix, the one you'll know by
That balance rests on a mutual recognition of freedom of worship – at least in separate areas – and a desire to keep the peace. The fact that Muslims and Jews have generally accepted this balance shows that they can agree on something. More important, they rise above their respective identities as either Muslim or Jew to embrace a common identity in maintaining peace.
Maintaining peace? If so, why did the border fence have to be erected, and proven to be fairly effective? Don't forget, John, that you have not been to Israel. I have actually witnessed terrorism in Israel and the results of it. Both my son and my daughter in separate incidents just escaped being killed by Palestinian terrorism. At least I'm not naive about the reality there.