US Supreme Court is to decide whether an American Jew born in Jerusalem can list Jerusalem, Israel as his place of birth on his US passport.
If Jews don't have a right to Jerusalem in spite of their thousands-of-years-old connection to that city, why would descendants from Muslim invaders from the Saudi peninsula have more rights to it?
Lawyers for the Obama administration compared Israel's ownership of Jerusalem to the Russian takeover of Crimea - in spite of the 3700 years of continuous Jewish relationship with Jerusalem.
In other words, the White House is legitimizing the invasion and occupation by Romans, Byzantines, Arabs and Turks - and delegitimizing the true owner of the land all along: the Jews.
Thus we have a the absurdity of a government ruling a country with only a few hundred years of history, built on native land, telling the Jews that they don't have the right to their ancient capital, Jerusalem.
In a rather bizarre turn Judge Sotomayor appeared to argue that president Obama's belief that Jerusalem does not belong to Israel supersedes the central argument of whether Jerusalem is Israeli or not. She said putting Israel as country of birth would imply the president was lying, since he does not believe it.
The irony: The current US administration has countered that allowing to put Jerusalem, Israel as place of birth on passports, would harm President Obama’s “credibility” in global affairs - naively implying that there is still any credibility left to protect, after the abysmal failure to protect minorities being ethnically cleansed all over the Mideast. and the increasing mistrust of the US in that part of the world.
Video - JERUSALEM - 4000 years of history in five minutes
Lawyers for the Obama administration compared Israel’s control of Jerusalem to Russian claims over the Ukrainian territory of Crimea during oral arguments this week before the Supreme Court in a case concerning the rights of U.S. citizens to list Jerusalem as part of Israel on their passports.
The Zivotofsky family
U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who is rumored to be in the running to replace outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, drew the comparison on Monday while he attempted to convince the Supreme Court that Jerusalem is not officially part of Israel.
The controversial case hinges around Menachem Zivotofsky, who was born in Jerusalem in 2002.
Zivotofsky’s parents requested that Menachem’s U.S. passport bear “Jerusalem, Israel” as his place of birth, a request that was denied by the Obama administration on the basis of its longstanding policy to not recognize the holy city as part of Israel.
The Zivotofsky family sued following the decision and the case has been stuck in judicial limbo since. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and initial arguments by both sides were presented this week.
Read more about this case, an outline of the history of Jerusalem, and whether Islam has any legitimate claim to the city.
No, this is not a joke. I repeat: this is not a joke.
In a world that maims, kills and destroys - Israel is condemned for building homes
UNSC to hold 'emergency meeting' in response to Jordanian request after Israel announces new Jewish homes in Jerusalem.
With all the major crises going on in the world right this minute, the United Nations finds time and resources to discuss Jews building homes in their own capital, Jerusalem.
Furthermore, much of the oppression, violation of human rights, mayhem and carnage occurring in the world today is being caused by the religion of peace - Islam. But the UN does not have time to deal with that.
And we should also mention the ongoing violent persecution of Christians and other minorities in Muslim-dominated areas. The UN does not have time to deal with that either.
News report: The UN Security Council will hold an "emergency meeting" on Wednesday to discuss Israeli plans to build more Jewish homes in Jerusalem, diplomats said. The "urgent" talks were requested by Jordan following a letter from Palestinian Authority envoy Riyad Mansour who called on the 15-member council to "address this crisis situation in occupied east Jerusalem."
Netanyahu said the international community remains quiet when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “incites to the murder of Jews in Jerusalem,” but strongly condemns Israel when it builds in Jerusalem. I don't accept that double standard. We built in Jerusalem, we build in Jerusalem, and we will continue to build in Jerusalem.” "The French build in Paris, the English build in London - that's the same as Israel building in Jerusalem. We will continue to build in Jerusalem."
Time to refresh our memories regarding the discriminatory and often violent treatment Jordan has inflicted on Palestinians.
Jordan turns away Palestinians fleeing violence in Syria
August 7, 2014 news report by Human Rights Watch:
(Amman) – Jordan refuses entry to or forcibly deports Palestinian refugees escaping Syria, in clear breach of its international obligations, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Jordan has officially banned entry to Palestinians from Syria since January 2013 and has forcibly deported over 100 who managed to enter the country since mid-2012, including women and children.
1967: Jordan refused to allow Gazans who came after the Six Day War to become Jordanian citizens. Todaysome 165,000 Palestinians in Jordan cannot become citizens and get no government services. 1970: 3500-5000 Palestinians killedand 20,000 Palestinians expelled, their camps demolished, in the Black September events.
1988:Jordanrevoked citizenship for millions of West Bank Palestinians as they declared "independence." As usual, this move was justified as being for their own good.
Jordanian government massacre of thousands of Palestinians during the Black September operation
Estimates of Palestinian dead goes from 3000 to 5000.
This did not happen out of the blue. Palestinians had been trying to topple the king and take over the country. Wherever Palestinians live, they engage in violence. Arab governments deal with them in a much more drastic manner than Israel ever would.
As a matter of fact, after the liberation of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) Jordan dissociated itself from the area, not wanting it as part of Jordan anymore (particularly all the Palestinians living there), but as a separate country. Jordan even went as far as revoking Jordanian citizenship for Arabs living in the Palestinian Authority. Jordan is very clear: it does not want anything to do with them, except as tools for the destruction of Israel.
2013 Amnesty International Human Rights Report on JORDAN
Summary: The security forces used excessive force and arrested hundreds of peaceful and other demonstrators calling for reform. They maintained tight restrictions on freedoms of expression, association and assembly, and imposed new restrictions on electronic media.
There were reports of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees. Unfair trials continued before the State Security Court (SSC). Hundreds, possibly thousands, of criminal suspects were detained indefinitely without charge or trial.
Women faced discrimination and violence; at least ten were reported to be victims of “honour” killings. Migrant domestic workers were exploited and abused. There were reports that some refugees were forcibly returned to Syria. At least 16 people were sentenced to death; there were no executions.
Jordan violated all kinds of international agreements and standards when it desecrated every holy Jewish site in Jerusalem during their occupation of the city, which ended with Jerusalem's liberation in 1967.
Jordan destroyed synagogues, and used Mount of Olives cemetery tombstones as latrines and for road construction.
Jordan's desecration of Jewish sacred sites in Jerusalem during their occupation before 1967
Before the United Nations voted in favor of the Patition Plan on November 29, 1947, the Arab Legion of Jordan (created by the British) attacked Jerusalem. Their forces blocked Jerusalem's roads and cut off the city's access to water.
After bitter fighting, the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City fell to the vastly superior arms and numbers of the Arab Legion. The surviving Jewish inhabitants fled to the "New City," the four-fifths of the capital that Israel successfully held.
The Old City, including the Jewish Quarter, officially fell to Jordan on May 27, 1948.
Nearly twenty years later, during the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel's army liberated Jerusalem's Old City, finding the area completely neglected and virtually destroyed.
All but one of the thirty five synagogues within the Old City were destroyed.
Those note completely devastated had been used as hen houses and stables filled with dung-heaps, garbage and carcasses.
The revered Jewish graveyard on the Mount of Olives was in complete disarray with tens of thousands of tombstones broken into pieces to be used as building materials.
Large areas of the cemetery were leveled to provide a short-cut to a new hotel.
Hundreds of Torah scrolls and thousands of holy books had been plundered and burned to ashes.
Jerusalem Synagogue destroyed by Jordan
Mount of Olives Jewish cemetery gravestones used by Jordan as building material
"ISRAEL IS THE ONLY SAFE PLACE FOR CHRISTIANS IN THE MIDDLE EAST" says Father Gabriel Nadaf, leader of Christian Aramaeans in Israel, who recently rejected their "ARAB" designation, in favor of ARAMAEAN. Father Nadaf gave speech at the United Nations UNHCR headquarters, defending Israel and calling for an end to the witch hunt against Israel.
Scholar and human rights advocate Anne Bayefsky speaks at the United Nations
She accuses the United Nations of being the leading purveyor of anti-Semitism in the world, by inciting hatred against Jews and conducting an unremitting campaign against Israel.
Read also the time when one of the UN translators inadvertently spoke on an open mike calling into question the UN obsessive bullying of Israel
Australia could face trade sanctions by Arab nations over its decision to stop using the term "occupied" when referring to East Jerusalem, the head of the Palestinian delegation to Canberra warned Friday.
Izzat Abdulhadi said Australia's new stance on East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel in a move never recognized by the international community, was a "substantial policy shift."
"We think that it's very provocative and unuseful, and it's not appropriate," Abdulhadi told AFP.
His comments came after 18 diplomats from countries including Indonesia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia protested to Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra on Thursday.
Australia said last week it would no longer refer to East Jerusalem as "occupied" because the term carries pejorative implications and was neither appropriate or useful.
Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Quran and Mohammed never set foot on Its soil.
Despite 1,300 years of Muslim Arab rule, Jerusalem was never the capital of an Arab entity, nor was it ever mentioned in the Palestine Liberation Organization’s covenant until Israel regained control of East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967. Overall, the role of Jerusalem in Islam is best understood as the outcome of political exigencies impacting religious belief.
Mohammed, who founded Islam in 622 CE, was born and raised in present-day Saudi Arabia and never set foot in Jerusalem. His connection to the city came years after his death when the Dome of the Rock shrine and the al-Aqsa mosque were built in 688 and 691, respectively, their construction spurred by political and religious rivalries.
In 638 CE, the Caliph (or successor to Mohammed) Omar and his invading armies captured Jerusalem from the Byzantine Empire.
In 638 CE, the Caliph (or successor to Mohammed) Omar and his invading armies captured Jerusalem from the Byzantine Empire.
Kotel at sunrise
One reason they wanted to erect a holy structure in Jerusalem was to proclaim Islam’s supremacy over Christianity and its most important shrine, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
More important was the power struggle within Islam itself. The Damascus-based Umayyad Caliphs who controlled Jerusalem wanted to establish an alternative holy site if their rivals blocked access to Mecca.
That was important because the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, was (and remains today) one of the Five Pillars of Islam. As a result, they built what became known as the Dome of the Rock shrine and the adjacent mosque.
To enhance the prestige of the ‘substitute Mecca,’ the Jerusalem mosque was named al-Aqsa. It means ‘the furthest mosque’ in Arabic, but has far broader implications, since it is the same phrase used in a key passage of the Quran called “The Night Journey.”
In that passage, Mohammed arrives at ‘al-Aqsa’ on a winged steed accompanied by the Archangel Gabriel; from there they ascend into heaven for a divine meeting with Allah, after which Mohammed returns to Mecca.
Naming the Jerusalem mosque al-Aqsa was an attempt to say the Dome of the Rock was the very spot from which Mohammed ascended to heaven, thus tying Jerusalem to divine revelation in Islamic belief.
The problem however, is that Mohammed died in the year 632, nearly 50 years before the first construction of the al-Aqsa Mosque was completed.
Jerusalem never replaced the importance of Mecca in the Islamic world. When the Umayyad dynasty fell in 750, Jerusalem also fell into near obscurity for 350 years, until the Crusades. During those centuries, many Islamic sites in Jerusalem fell into disrepair and in 1016 the Dome of the Rock collapsed.
Still, for 1,300 years, various Islamic dynasties (Syrian, Egyptian and Turkish) continued to govern Jerusalem as part of their overall control of the Land of Israel, disrupted only by the Crusaders.
What is amazing is that over that period, not one Islamic dynasty ever made Jerusalem its capital.
By the 19th century Jerusalem had been so neglected by Islamic rulers that several prominent Western writers who visited Jerusalem were moved to write about it.
French writer Gustav Flaubert, for example, found “ruins everywhere” during his visit in 1850 when it was part of the Turkish Empire (1516-1917).
Seventeen years later Mark Twain wrote that Jerusalem had “become a pauper village.”
Indeed, Jerusalem’s importance in the Islamic world only appears evident when non-Muslims (including the Crusaders, the British and the Jews) control or capture the city. Only at those points in history did Islamic leaders claim Jerusalem as their third most holy city after Mecca and Medina.
That was again the case in 1967, when Israel captured Jordanian-controlled East Jerusalem (and the Old City) during the 1967 Six-Day War.
Oddly, the PLO’s National Covenant, written in 1964, never mentioned Jerusalem.
Only after Israel regained control of the entire city did the PLO ‘update’ its Covenant to include Jerusalem.
Author Eli E. Hertz is the president of Myths and Facts, an organization devoted to research and publication of information regarding US interests in the world and particularly in the Middle East. Mr. Hertz served as Chairman of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting.
Recommended:Short and factual video about the fundamental significance of Jerusalem and Temple Mount for Jews and its very weak link to Islam- in history and doctrine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU9CauJP4Pg
