Introducing Rashid Rida on Zionism

Anyone who follows pro-'Palestine' Islamic propaganda will recognzie in the excerpts below the source material for the virulent antisemitism, exaggerations and misrepresentations emanating from the Palestinian National Authgority official bodies as well as activists on behalf on 'Palestine'.

They originate from Rashid Rida.

Another scholar claims "As one of the most influential advocates of Arab nationalism and pan-Islamism, we shall argue, Riḍā’s critiques of Zionism and Jewish expansion in Palestine were part of his anti-colonial activities against the ‘Christian’ west." Nevertheless, he notes that Rida asserted as to Jewish goals, "allegedly, they schemed to possess Jerusalem and its neighbouring regions to establish their Kingdom of Israel and turn it into the Temple of Solomon, against the desire of Christians and Muslims (ʿAbduh and Riḍā [1328] 1910, V:139–140)."

He further quotes Rida "Under the title “King of the Jews, their Temple, their Messiah and the True Messiah,” Riḍā stated that the Jews arrogantly disobeyed their prophets, who regularly warned them against God’s punishment if they abandoned His commandments (Al-Manār 30/7: 546–556)."

And Rida becomes starkly clear in this excerpt:

One of Islam’s greatest manifestations, according to Riḍā, was the confirmation of glad tidings of Jesus as a prophet of God and not his son. In this reading, God entitled Muslims to inherit the Holy Land and to build the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the place of the destroyed temple in order to establish the worship of God alone. Riḍā repeated the traditional Muslim view that God placed those who believe in Jesus above the unbelievers (Qur’an Āl ʿImrān 3:55), but that He had struck the Jews with humiliation by making them lose their kingdom until the Day of Resurrection. The Jews, Riḍā said, would follow the Antichrist as their assumed king fighting under his banner in the Holy Land, but Muslims would finally achieve victory upon them and kill them, and the true Messiah would appear and reveal the truth by destroying the Antichrist (Al-Manār 30/7: 554).

And in this:

Muslims did not persecute the Jews but treated them with justice and mercy. He observed that the Jews started to permit each other to reside in Jerusalem around the western side of the wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque (Al-Buraq), performing the rituals and sacrifices against the will of Muslims and Christians in the world. They had strong hope to multiply their numbers to own the Holy City and the rest of Palestine in preparation for the appearance of the Messiah again as the King of Israel (Al-Manār 30/5: 391). 

Rida also employed the term nakba already in early 1935:

A few months before Riḍā’s death, the Egyptian historian and religious scholar ʻAbd al-Wahhāb al-Najjār (1862–1941) gave a lecture at Jamʿiyyat al-Shubbān al-Muslimīn (Association of Young Muslim Men) in which he maintained that the Jewish Zionist presence in Palestine was to be like a short “summer cloud” that would clear up soon after a great shock, followed by the defeat of the Jews after the restoration of the kingdom of David and the appearance of the Messiah (Al-Manār 34/8: 607–612)...After the lecture, Riḍā stood up and disagreed with al-Najjār in his arguments. Instead of following this apocalyptic way of thinking, Riḍā requested Arabs and Muslims to “take admonition in the Jewish Zionist nakba (catastrophe) by means of the worldly affairs and social natural laws” (Al-Manār 34/8: 608). By this he urged his Muslim readers not to see the Jewish success on the basis of their religious zeal but due to their work to achieve their political goals. 

Rida "called upon Arab Christians and Arab Muslims, supported by other Muslims in the world, to get the benefit of uniting themselves against the growing power of the Jews. In his own words: The doctrine of the Jews in restoring the King of Israel by means of the Messiah is [39] a denial of the religion of Islam and a clear rejection of Christ Jesus, Son of Mary, may blessings and peace be upon him. It was, however, Christ with whom their prophets had preached, but they had denied him. It was also him who warned them against the ruin of their Temple of Solomon so that there would not remain any stone of it."

Here are more excerpts of another researcher:

A reading of Rida’s depictions of Jews as the embodiment of vices and the orchestrators of global-scale conspiracies is useful to the broader discussion on the proliferation of anti-Semitic ideas in the contemporary Arab world. Translations of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion have been available in Arabic since the mid-1920s, and by the late 1920s they were already incorporated as an argument against Zionism. Following the 1948 war, the Protocols proliferated as an explanation for the Arab defeat. However, Rida viewed Jews as the masters of anti-Christian and anti-Muslim conspiracies already at the turn of the century, with no experience of defeat in mind and no foundational hateful European textbook to guide him. It appears that he was acquainted, albeit not through primary sources, with French anti-Semitic expressions as well as with their refutations in France. Anti-Semitic allegations in Istanbul also did not escape him. Ironically and to a large measure, Rida’s developed anti-Semitism reads as accommodation of his original admiration of Jewish virtues with his realization that Zionism was a serious threat...

...Under the title “The Life of a Nation after Its Death: The Zionist Association of the Jews,” Rida revised his earliest impression of Jewish nationalism, and, always the journalist, flattered himself (without justification in this case), for having already written about the Zionist movement in 1898, “when no one else took notice of it.” His analysis failed to distinguish between Zionists and Jews, and disclosed that he was unaware that the movement had won the hearts of only a minority of Jews around the world....

...Apparently confusing, at least in part, Herzl (whose name was not mentioned in the entire article) with the British-Jewish author and Zionist leader Israel Zangwill (1864 – 1926), Rida wrote that Zangwill had recently negotiated the purchase of Jerusalem as well as predicted a massive Jewish return to Palestine and the transformation of the land by the people of Israel into a shining lighthouse in all fields – social, political, judicial, cultural, and agricultural. Rida went as far as positing that Zangwill was wrong in reprimanding the rich Jews for not donating to Zionism...

In 1903, Rida addressed the Jews again...He wrote that no people in the world demonstrated such communal unity and ethnic solidarity as the People of Israel (Sha‘b Isra’il); however, he added that the Jews tended to divert the resources of the nations among which they lived to their own benefit, and harmed themselves by their excessive egotism. This, he argued, was the reason for the persecution of the Jews and their expulsion by all the peoples and nations. Hinting at Jewish ungratefulness, he concluded that while they could find a safe haven only in the Ottoman Empire, they now sought to gain independence and renew their sovereignty in Palestine...

...On January 1908, following a long period of silence, Rida addressed Zionism again, although indirectly. In a Quran exegesis, he disputed the Jewish hope for a Messiah who would renew Jewish sovereignty. He also suggested that the Jews’ dispersion throughout the world, their lack of expertise in warfare and agriculture, and their focus on professions that required little effort, like charging interest-based loans, were impediments that would prevent the realization of their dream of renewed sovereignty. The weakness of the Jews, he argued, was a punishment from God for their infidelity. Only two years later, Rida changed his mind about the potential of Zionism...In December 1910, he presented the Zionist danger in even graver terms: should the Jews realize their plan to take over alAqsa, they would expel the Muslims and the Christians from the Holy Land...

...[In 1914 he wrote] that if Zionist ambitions were ever realized, they would not allow a single Muslim or Christian to remain in Palestine, as they believed that it belonged to the Israelites alone. Furthermore, the Promised Land that the Zionists sought to conquer was not what Muslims defined as Palestine; rather, according to Jewish scriptures and conventions, Palestine stretched to Syria and the Euphrates. Rida based his warning of the prospect of ethnic cleansing on the argument that in the book of Deuteronomy God ordered the Jews not to spare a single soul upon entering the land...

...in an appendix to a Quranic exegesis from 1924, he cautioned that the “Arabs of Palestine,” who were confronted by “two of the world’s strongest nations [the British and the Jews],” could only be saved if they united with the rest of the Arab peoples and tribes to defend Palestine as well as the holy shrines in Mecca and Medina. Yet the underlying objective of this warning – in itself exceptional for his writing during the early 1920s – was not to call for action, but to denounce Sharif Hussein and his family and praise the Sa‘uds. Rida portrayed Hussein’s family as supporters of those who were seeking to implement the “satanic plan” to deprive the Palestinians of their land, i.e., the British and the Zionists. He cautioned the Palestinians against cooperating with the Sharifian family, explaining that while they could boast a distinguished lineage (as descendents of the Prophet Muhammad), they lacked knowledge and honesty...

...until mid-1920...he noted, in an objective manner, that the Jews considered Palestine as their sacred, ancestral land, but neither debated that claim nor insisted that Palestine was a Muslim land that must never be conceded to the Jews as such. That changed in 1924, but in a way that was far from affirming that Muslims were the rightful owners of the land or would eventually have the upper hand against the Zionists. In a Quranic exegesis, Rida suggested in an almost even-handed manner that God had promised the land to both the Israelite sons of Abraham and to the Arab sons of Abraham, who had also been promised additional lands. The promises were kept for both Israelites and Arabs when they acted righteously, but when they sinned they were punished and the land was taken from them...

...Already in October 1928, only days after the tensions over the Wailing Wall began, Rida portrayed events in Palestine as a struggle between Judaism and Islam, as well as between Britain and Islam. In this struggle, the British were assisting the Jews as part of Britains’s “ambitious” and uncharacteristically illconceived plan to subordinate the Arab nation and impose British rule on the Arabian Peninsula and the three holiest shrines – in Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. In this struggle, the ultimate goal of the Jews was the destruction of al-Aqsa, the third holiest shrine in Islam, and its replacement with a new Jewish temple...

...Rida elaborated [in December 1929] on the prophecies of a Muslim victory over the Jews, reiterating that those were more reliable than the Jewish prophets’ prophecies of Jewish victory. He mentioned the prophecy that the Jews would give fanatic loyalty to the Dajal, a false Messiah, fight against Muslims and Christians in Palestine and other lands, and be defeated, as well as the Prophet’s words, narrated by ‘Abdullah b. ‘Umar: “I heard Allah’s Messenger saying, ‘The Jews will fight with you, and you will be given victory over them so that a stone will say, ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew behind me, kill him!’”...Zionism, he argued, was a striking example of Western moral corruption, because in Palestine the English had done something they had not done anywhere else: they had created a new people based on the ingathering of a rabble from all corners of the earth, allowing the rabble to usurp the land of another people and to exploit and discriminate against the population in a historically unprecedented way. Thus, for the first time, in late 1929, the Jews were denied in Rida’s journal not only a right to Palestine, but also the right to be considered a nation.

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"Disproving", Well, Everything Jewish

Historian and researcher Issam Sakhnin (1938-2019) has had a third edition of his book, “Jerusalem: Hijacked History and Forged Antiquities” published by Al-A’idoun Publishing and Distribution House in Amman. His biography includes that Sakhnini contributed to the establishing of the “Palestinian Research Center” in Beirut in 1965, and served as Deputy Director General of the Center between 1971 and 1978. 

The biography relates he "sought to collect documents related to the Arab-Zionist conflict, prepare field studies and research on the Palestinian issue, and spread knowledge of the Israeli enemy in Palestinian and Arab circles.

One of his books, “The Holy Crime: Genocide from the Ideology of the Hebrew Book to the Zionist Project” (2012), presents a reading of the Zionist project, based on an analysis of its genocidal structure, whether in its origins, purpose, process, or outcomes. The Zionist project is a colonial/settler project based on the doctrine of genocide. Moreover, "the roots of the Jewish faith [are] represented by the blood-soaked God Yahweh, who commands his disciples to shed blood and annihilate other humans and animals as well. He also addresses the Zionist genocide discourse, which borrows the provisions of Jewish law to justify the genocide that it committed, and continues to commit, against the Palestinian Arabs. Ethnic cleansing is an essential feature of the Zionist discourse".

In “Jerusalem has a hijacked history and forged antiquities” Al-Sakhnini "refutes Zionism’s claims". The book, which was published as part of the publications of the Royal Commission for Jerusalem Affairs, Dr. Sakhnin "reveals the distortions, falsifications, and falsifications that befell the history of Jerusalem, beginning with the stories of the Hebrew Bible and continuing with the myths founding the foundation of contemporary Zionist thought."

The book came in four chapters. The first discussed the falsification of the history of Palestine in general, in order to understand the dimensions of the falsification of the history of Jerusalem and the sources and references of this falsification. The second chapter was devoted to researching the myths and legends from which the forged history of Jerusalem was derived and the facts that archeology has revealed that contradict it. These are basically myths. In the third chapter, Sakhnini discussed the issue of the “Temple” as it is in the riddles and riddles that were invented and whose futility modern research shows, and in the fourth chapter he discussed the processes of forging antiquities with the intention of proving the authenticity of stories about the city’s history.

Secretary-General of the Royal Commission for Jerusalem Affairs, Dr. Abdullah Kanaan, wrote an introduction to the book in which he says, “The book by history professor Dr. Issam Sakhnin is a “true scientific and historical treasure.” It embodies the saying, “From your mouth I condemn you.” In this book, Sakhnin refutes the claims of Zionism that aim to Complete control over all aspects of community life in the Holy City and its Islamic sanctities.”

Kanaan continued, “Sakhnini, in this book, exposes and exposes all the Zionist plans and Israel’s policy that aims to Judaize the city of Jerusalem with the aim of imposing “new facts and data,” enabling it to perpetuate its occupation of Jerusalem and perpetuate its usurpation so that it remains a unified and eternal capital of Zionism, in contravention of international law and relevant international legitimacy resolutions. The connection to the Palestinian issue and Jerusalem.

He points out that the issue of Jerusalem, in its past, present and future history, was the focus of attention of the Arab and Islamic nations in particular, and of all those who love peace in the world in general. It was self-evident that the Royal Commission for Jerusalem Affairs would work to direct those with pens, bright minds, and scientific and research abilities and capabilities, towards studying Sources that serve the cause of Jerusalem, and keep it alive in the Arab and Islamic mind and conscience, generation after generation, until it returns to its Arab people, the legitimate owners of the right, as it has always been throughout history.

Kanaan believes that Jerusalem has continued to occupy a prominent place in the mind and conscience of the Arab and Islamic worlds. It was and still is the focus of interest of researchers and historians who have dealt with it through monitoring, research and analysis in all its historical, anthropological, demographic and spiritual dimensions, relying in this on the most important books, references and the results of Arab and foreign archaeological investigations, ancient and modern. .

Dr. Sakhnini, in the introduction to the book, emphasizes that the intention of this book is not to present an ancient history of the city of Jerusalem, as the breadth of this chronological history, with its unparalleled rich diversity, cannot be comprehended in such a book, which is limited in size. Rather, “what we aimed for from this book was to reveal the distortions, falsifications, and falsifications that occurred in the history of Jerusalem, which began with the stories of the Hebrew Bible, and continued with the myths founding the foundations of contemporary Zionist thought.

In this context, a replacement occupation invasion took place on this history, with its temporal and spatial memories, and all the facts witnessed in the city’s past were excluded from it if they contradicted the narratives of those stories and legends, or were forcibly silenced, or were falsified and terribly deviated from their historical meanings.” .

Sakhnini confirms that the focus of the book is “forgery operations,” indicating that it may be in the form of an introduction to rewriting the history of ancient Jerusalem, getting rid of myths and legends, and relying exclusively on what modern sciences provide, especially the sciences of archeology and anthropology, of means by which Access to historical truth. Pointing out that he benefited from the data of archeology and the historical facts it reveals, but without delving into his techniques, in order to destroy all that mythical heritage in which he placed the ancient history of Jerusalem in its chains.

Sakhnini says, “No history has been subjected to falsification as the history of ancient Palestine in general and the history of Jerusalem in particular has been subjected to it,” indicating that “history in one of its meanings is the past, but the past here is not what has passed and gone with its ancient time, but rather it is an extended, untruncated past that flows.” In the present, he creates its content, features, and signs that indicate it, so that the past becomes the present, articulated on its feet and attached to all its aspects.

He points out that Zionism started from this understanding, and its concern was to own and monopolize the past, because whoever owns the past owns the present and the future as well. Palestine's past or ancient history is what is concerned here. That history, as is the objective, scientific view of it, which is consistent with the Arab view, is rich in its ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity, as the Canaanites, Edomites, and ancient Palestinians succeeded in its era.

Sakhnini believes that Zionism has stripped all of that rich past of its historicity, indicating that the history of ancient Palestine, which it wants to be its present and future as well, is the history formulated by “biblical” tales and legends that separated the history of ancient Palestine into stages that are exclusively the stages of the history of the children of Israel in it.

He says that Zionism sought to exclude the name Palestine from geographical-historical memory, and replaced it with the name “Land of Israel.” This was based on the premise that made the name have a political-ideological function whose goal was to show an alleged connection extending throughout history, linking the Jews to this place in their past, present, and future. More than that, this connection in the custom of Zionism, with its contents derived from Jewish theology, is a manifestation of a divine will that willed there to be a predestined relationship between four hypostases: “the God of Israel, the children of Israel, the land of Israel, and the history of the children of Israel.” .

Sakhnini concluded that no history has ever been subjected to the Jewish robberies that the ancient history of Palestine was subjected to, and thus Zionism actively sought to silence it, considering that a necessary condition for owning it, and thus owning the present and the future, and for monopolizing the land that is the geographical framework of that history. In these robberies, Zionism reaped a valuable spoil by granting it a right to present Palestine, based on an alleged history, and in recognition of its possession of the place on which a state was created.

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The Exact Uri Tzvi Greenberg Temple Mount Quotation

Many quote from a speech Uri Tzvi Greenberg, then a MK representing Herut, 

during a Knesset plenum debate but 'enhance' it.

Here is the headline from the Herut newspaper two days after, March 11, 1949:

and it reads:

"He who rules in Jerusalem, rules in Tel Aviv".

And from the Knesset record:

It need be recalled that at that time, Jerusalem was not yet the official capital of Israel. It became so only in December 1949 when David Ben-Gurion passed a government decision. That was why he mentioned Tel Aviv.

Another section of the speech:

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The Year Non-Moslem Entrance to the Temple Mount Became the Status Quo

On February 18, 1229, at the end of the Sixth Crusade, the Treaty of Jaffa was signed between Sultan al-Kamil and Frederick II which permitted Christians to reoccupy the holy places of Jerusalem, except for the Temple area which remained under the control of the Moslem religious authorities.

Jerusalem was handed over to Christian rule for ten years, with Moslems denied access to all but the al-Aqsa enclave in the city which was to remain in Moslem hands and where Moslem religious observances would be allowed to continue unobstructedal. The historical record has Kamil saying:

‘We have allowed only ruined churches and monasteries. The al-Aqsa enclave and what is in it consisting of the Dome of the Rock and the rest of shrines are in the hands of the Muslims as before and the sign of Islam is on what is there [al-Aqsa enclave].

Pope Gregory IX wrote to Duke Leopold of Austria (and other prelates and rulers), denouncing Frederick II’s treaty with al-Kamil (18th July 1229):

Secondly, and even more disgraceful and to be abhorred and greeted with astonishment, he has impudently and irreverently ejected that same [faith] from the Temple of God, in which Christ was given and where he established his first cathedral seat when he sat in the midst of the doctors, replying to them, and in His seat he has placed that lost man Mahomed, allowing his evil doctrine and law to be preached and proclaimed in the Temple of God. He has imposed silence on the herald teaching the truth, and entrusted guard on that temple and the keys of His enclosure to the Saracens. He has decreed that no Christian shall enter it, unless having first been questioned from the Temple mount he shall reveal his faith to a pagan. From this it is manifestly clear that it is left to the judgement of a Saracen whether a Christian ought to enter the Temple of God.

1229 - the year non-Moslem entrance to the Temple Mount became the status quo.

^ 

Jerusalem's Demography 1880-1948

Is Jerusalem a 'Jewish city'?

Today's anti/non-Zionists refuse to acknowledge Jerusalem's Jewish history and status or the fact that a concept of "East/West Jerusalem", at the most, was a 19 year aberration in the city's 3000 year history.

One measure is demography. What was the percentage of the city's Jewish community amongst the various populations prior to the city becoming "Israeli"? The city, by 1870, already had a Jewish plurality. And the succeeding years?

For reference:

The first table presents the growth of Jerusalem's population and as it is in Hebrew, we need read from right to left.

The years are 1880, 1900, 1910, 1931 and 1948.

In the walled Old City, the population dropped from 19,000 to 2,000 and of course, on May 28, 1948, the Jewish Quarter, the last of the areas where Jews still lived, surrendered.

In the New City, the Jewish population grew from 2,000 to 98,000.

The lower table focuses on the Old City with its Jewish and Arab population in 1880, 1910, 1922 and 1931, the last two years from the official British census counts (here and here). hy there are slight differences,  do not know.

In any case, the Arab terror riots of 1929 and then 1936-39 quite clearly caused an ethnic cleansing result of Jews from the city where Jews had lived consistently since the 12th century and in previous centuries, from 135 CE, at the will of foreign subjugators and rulers as feasible.

A second reference source of Jerusalem populations figures broken down to Arabs and Jews:

The figures are in the 1000s.

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A German Knight Learns Hebrew - in 15th Century Jerusalem

From

The Pilgrimage of Arnold von Harff / Knight / from Cologne, through Italy, Syria, Egypt, Arabia, Ethiopia, Nubia, Palestine, Turkey, France and Spain, which he Accomplished in the years 1496-1499 / Translated from the German and edited with notes and an introduction / by Malcolm Letts. 1946. Pages xxxv, 325

Page 218-219

I found also three German Jews in Jerusalem, as also in all heathen and T urkish places. I kept company with them often on account of the language and learnt to write the alphabet, and retained also certain words from their daily speech, as they are written here:

hee delech gymel hath aleph 

pe ayn samech nun nun 

men men lamed kafif kaff 

taff schyn resz kuff 

zodick zodick ffe 

leherxi, 

jojen, 

moim, 

boissar, 

befinna, 

betzim, 

hometz, 

semeii, 

tangol, 

taiigoles, 

daegim, 

meela, 

toeff, 

va, 

onoge, 

emmes, 

kysiff, 

Arnold von Harff (1471 in Castell Harff, Bedburg – January 1505) was a German traveler from the 15th century, from Köln. He went on pilgrimage to many countries, collecting both languages and cultural information.

^

An American Jewish Zionist Forgotten Hero

Some two years ago, the Jewish Press published an appeal of mine:

Among the Jewish seven [six] killed victims listed in the newspaper report was an American Rabbi it seems, Yehudah Leib Lozovsky or a phonetic variety of that spelling [Lazovsky].

No other information about the Rabbi is available. It would be fitting that he be remembered.

I am asking the readers of JewishPress.com to assist with locating biographical information about the Rabbi. If you are aware of any details that could help, please contact...

I was unsuccessful.

I have now read a letter that has appeared in HaUmma quarterly, No. 222 by Moshe Ehrenfeld, an historian of the Haredi community's role in the 1948 fighting, relating that Lazovsky, an American, who was killed on April 6.

Lazovsky had immigrated to Eretz-Yisrael some ten years earlier from America. He was an amateur geographer and researcher of the land's antiquities. He was in the house of Shmuel Eliezer Zilberman where, for three days, they held off the Arab rioters. At one point, he crawled out above the barriaded entrance and fired off some shots from a small Browning pistol he had.

The Arabs complained to the British troops in the area, who were Indian Moslems (those soldiers had been brought in earlier to guard the Haram A-Sharif). They tried to enter the buidling but were repulsed and then shot through the door and killed Rabbi Lazovsky and Zilberman.

They are buried on the Mount of Olives with the other casualties. Their graves are also, like Itzkkowitz, not in the best condition. Here is Zilberman's gravestone from several years ago:

Lazovsky's is also in bad condition and cannot be identified as which one in that row.

Worse, he is not yet (!) recognized by the National Insurance Institute. And, of course, as he was not a soldier or a member of an underground, not by the Ministry of Defense.

Lazovsky, an American Jewish Zionist. Little is known about him.

And a forgotten hero.

_________

UPDATE:

A new gravestone is in place (courtesy of Sarah Barnea):

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The Ottoman Empire Revivalist Campaign

 On July 10, 2002, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. declared

The resurrection of Hagia Sophia is the harbinger of the Masjid al-Aqsa's freedom. The resurrection of Hagia Sophia is the footsteps of the will of Muslims all over the world to exit the interregnum...The resurrection of Hagia Sophia is the symbol of the re-rise of our civilization sun.

Moreover  The President of the Jerusalem Islamic Foundations Council, Sheikh Abdulazim Selheb, Masjid al-Aqsa Imam Sheikh Ikrime Sabri and Sheikh Kemal al-Hatib, the vice-president of the northern wing of the 1948 Palestine Islamic Movement, 

expressed their satisfaction with the opening of Hagia Sophia as a mosque.

Selheb was told by Erdogan

Masjid al-Aqsa is under occupation. The occupation state is trying to Judaize the first kiblah of Muslims and the holy city of Jerusalem. However, I tell the invaders from here that you will not be able to achieve this as long as the ummah has such men."

This is all part of the Ottoman Empire revivalist campaign, to restore that grand enterprise. First was the Mavi Marmara, then the sponsoring of Hamas, then support for Jerusalem property purchases and now directly aimed at the Temple Mount. 

We have been warned.

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Who Assisted in the Release of Rabbi M.M. Shklov from Arrest?

Back in 2009, in a comment, I wrote:

If Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklov, disciple of the Vilna Gaon and leader of the perushim in Jerusalem in the 1830s, could invite a missionary into his home to discuss religion but use him to advance the redemption process of Jews (see here)...

This was responding to those who then, and still do, hold to a belief that Christians volunteering in Judea and Samaria, as well as others who are advancing the cause of Zionism and Israel throughout the Land of Israel, are sinister missionaries.

I was using the example of Menachem Mendel of Shklov as an observant Jew who saw the usefulness of Jews and non-Jews working politically, diplmatically and practically for a common goal: the restoring of Jews to Eretz-Yisrael, the flowering of the Land and the furthering of the redemptive process.

Despite these Christians who he worked with, some Jews who had converted, that is, apostates, he had them in his house, discussed theology and Bible with them and sought them out. He had, as far as we know, no compunctions.

As is my wont, searching for material on another topic, connected to Yemin Moshe, I came across an article* that also included a short chapter on Menachem Mendel's life in Jerusalem.

He is considered as the renewer of the Ashkenazi Jewish community in Jerusalem after a century's hiatus.

As part of his activity to reverse the existing non-legal status of the residence of the Ashkenazim in the city, he, together with his son, were detained by the Pasha.

To whom did he turn?

Menachem Mendel, writing to Amsterdam, considered it a miracle that he was released, the day being the Seventh Day of Passover 1825. And his freedom was the result of two Christian missionaries, W.B. Lewis and a Dr. Dalton of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews (and see here; their headquarters were at "Palestine Place", Bethnal Green). That organization was qute assertive and determined by the Rabbi from Shklov was undetered and not frightened. He may have even thought that God was providing his divine assistance in the form of...Christian missionaries. He certainly did so in seeking to assure that Britain would establish a consulate presence in Jerusalem that would make it easier for the Jews to increase the likelihood of a future Jewish state and an ingathering of the Jews.

Think about that.

And think about today's reality.

Of course there is a threat. No one denies or belittles that. But, obviously, it is possible for one to be discerning, selective and, depending on the circumstances, cooperative with such Christians.

* I found this material in an article in Cathedra of the Yad Ben-Zvi. 

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How Many Jews Reside in Post-67 Jerusalem?

I have posted about this before but as a figure of 325,000 has been published, I think a review of the most up-to-date figures should be reviewed.

From the Jerusalem Institute Yearbook for 2019, with 2017 figures (Jewish growth rate is 1.5% annually).

Their over all figure is 215,900.

Their breakdown by neighborhoods:

I can't come up with more than 225,000 Jews, even rounding off upwards.

I think a detailed explanation is required to justify a difference of some 100,000 Jews.

And don't get me wrong. I hope I am proven wrong.


^

The Quran and the Jewish Temple

Did you know that the Quran confirms the existence of the Jewish Temples?

Here, at Sura 17:7

Whenever you did good, it was to your own advantage; and whenever you committed evil, it was to your own disadvantage. So, when the time of the fulfillment of the second promise arrived, (We raised other enemies that would) disfigure your faces and enter the Temple (of Jerusalem) as they had entered the first time, and destroy whatever they could lay their hands on

And here are excerpts from a commentary,:

The historical background of the second degeneration and its chastisement is as follows: The moral and religious fervor with which the Maccabees had started their movement gradually cooled down and was replaced by love of the world and empty external form. A split appeared among them and they themselves invited the Roman General, Pompey, to come to Palestine. Pompey turned his attention to this land in 63 B.C. By taking Jerusalem he put an end to the political freedom of the Jews. But the Roman conquerors preferred to rule their dominions through the agency of the local chiefs rather than by direct control. Therefore, a local government was set up in Palestine which eventually passed into the hand of Herod, a clever Jew, in 40 B.C. This ruler is well known as Herod the Great. He ruled over the entire Palestine and Jordan from 40 to 4 B.C. On the one hand, Herod patronized the religious leaders to please the Jews, and on the other, he propagated the Roman culture and won the goodwill of Caesar by showing his loyalty and faithfulness to the Roman Empire. During, his reign, the Jews degenerated and fell to the lowest ebb of moral and religious life.

...In order to have a correct estimate of the condition of the common Jews and their religious leaders, one should study the criticisms leveled by Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) on them in his sermons contained in the four Gospels...when Pontius Pilate asked these depraved people, which condemned prisoner he should release, according to the custom, at Passover, Jesus or Barabbas the robber, they all cried with one voice Barabbas. This was indeed the last chance Allah gave to the Jews, and then their fate was sealed.

Not long after this, a serious conflict started between the Jews and the Romans, which developed into an open revolt by the former between A.D. 64 and 66. Both Herod Agrippa II and the Roman procurator Floris failed to put down the rebellion. At last, the Romans crushed it by a strong military action and in A.D. 70 Titus took Jerusalem by force. About 133000 people were put to the sword. Sixty seven thousand made slaves, and thousands sent to work in the Egyptian mines and to other cities so that they could be used in amphitheaters for being torn by wild beasts or become the practice target for the sword fighters. All the tall and beautiful girls were picked out for the army of conquest and the Holy City of Jerusalem and the Temple were pulled down to the ground. After this the Jewish influence so disappeared from Palestine that the Jews could not regain power for two thousand years and the Holy Temple could never be rebuilt. Afterward the Roman Emperor, Hadrian, restored Jerusalem but renamed it Aelia. The Jews, however, were not allowed to enter it for centuries. This was the calamity that the Jews suffered on account of their degeneration for the second time.

Jewish history, Jewish sovereignty confirmed.

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Kissinger Tells a Joke

Found here, p. 458, in a discussion of the Arab boycott and a problem that developed in getting up contracts with Saudi businesses to tighten or U.S.-Saudi relations

Minutes of the Secretary of State’s Staff Meeting

Washington, February 26, 1975, 8 a.m. 

MR. ROBINSON: We have the Saudi Arabian Commission meeting starting here in a few minutes. We have run into a problem. The problem is developing over the exclusion of Jews from any of these contractual arrangements. We are going to have to try to work it out. And I think there are solutions. But it is going to create— 

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Like what? Like Faisal converting? That way he can also go to Jerusalem...

...SECRETARY KISSINGER: Get that word around, will you, McCloskey. We are against discrimination on the grounds of race and religion. 

MR. ROBINSON: It is going to be a problem.

Of course, as Kissinger should have known, and Sadat's 1977 visit later proved it, there was no problem with the King visiting Jerusalem.

There is, however, still is a problem with Jews visiting Mecca, not to mention the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

__________

P.S.

Two pages later, we read:

Congressman Waxman, who was not a member of the House Foreign Armed Forces Committee, got onto the Committee’s tour of the Middle East apparently solely to raise the question of visas for Jews. He asked King Faisal why Jews were not permitted freely into the Kingdom and the King asked why they would want to come. Most Jews, said the King, support Israel.

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More Jordanian Provocation

Alerted by ThisOngoingWar, I found this from December 5, translated from the Arabic:

Al-Aqsa Conference aims to support the steadfastness of Jerusalemites

The story:

The Hashemite Guardianship is a historical right to the Islamic and Christian holy sites in the city which will be launched with the participation of about 1,000 participants
The Minister of Awqaf, Islamic Affairs and Holy shrines, Dr. Abdul Nasser Abu Al-Basal said that the conference "cry of the Al-Aqsa Mosque" is the second conference of the road to Jerusalem.He explained in a press conference held yesterday to talk about the conference will start on 20 of this month [December] Arab and Islamic countries and the world and Islamic Christians to support the steadfastness of the sanctified Jerusalem and the assertion of [the Hashemite] guardianship...Chairman of the Palestine Committee in the House of Representatives Yahya Saud, it became necessary to have a conferenceInternational Islamic world to mobilize the defense of Jerusalem and Islamic and Christian sanctuaries.
He said that the visit to Jerusalem does not mean normalization with Israel, it strengthens the steadfastness of our brothers in Jerusalem.
He stressed that the Hashemite guardianship of the Islamic and Christian holy sites is a historical right of the Hashemites...
Incursions into it in addition to the existence of a new approach by the occupation authorities towards the Al-Aqsa Mosque.  The Judaization of the holy sites and the division of them into time and place.He said that we need to stand up all the Islamic world and free to assert our right in Jerusalem and holy places and not to leave...We want to leave al-Aqsa mosque alone or leave the holy ones alone.
...The identity of the Holy Mosque on the entire Haram al-Sharif 144 acres and a quarter above the ground and underground is counted as the biggest challenges before us, we will not accept partnership, negotiation and division neither under nor above the ground.In addition to restoring the custody of the age of the mind in all its details and dimensions and importance...Al-Saud said that the Hashemite guardianship of the holy sites in Jerusalem is a historical right of the Hashemites since 1924...

And mentioned in the Jordan Times.

This is in violation of Article 9 of the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty with regard to places of religious significance so:-

1. Each party will provide freedom of access to places of religious and historical significance...3. The Parties will act together to promote interfaith relations among the three monotheistic religions, with the aim of working towards religious understanding, moral commitment, freedom of religious worship, and tolerance and peace.

Previous provocations:

here,

and here.

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When the US Information Agency Referred to "Palestine"

As I, and others, have consistently pointed out, the United Nations SC Resolution 242 does not mention "Palestine" as a state.

It does mention "the refugee problem" but without characterizing any specific nationality.  As we now know, some 60,000 Jews were cause to be refugees as a result of the 1947-49 hostilities, initiated by the Arabs, not to mention several thousands more expelled and ethnically cleansed from their homes in locations throughout Judea, Samaria and Gaza during the Mandate years, also by Arabs in a terror campaign.

Below, I have found, perhaps, the first mention of "Palestine" in what could be called, in a very qualified manner, a "state".  

The document is a "talking points" summary, dated August 7, 1967. It was composed or at least authorized by Leonard Marks, director of the US Information Agency at the time.*  It was presented to Averell Harriman, Ambassador at Large, under cover of an attached August 9 typewritten note informing him that the Talking Paper had been “released for us in all posts on the U.S. position in the Middle East.” The note indicates that copies of the Talking Paper were also sent to Walt Rostow and Eugene Rostow.

The questions he poses, and then provides answers for, are illuminating in that they largely reveal that rumor, bias and misinformation seems always to be at the basis of attacks on Israel.

The 18th question is formulated:

What about the Arab refugees from Palestine?

That might, to some people, to indicate a state of "Palestine" existed.

But reading the answer, it is obvious that that is not the case:

ANSWER: Secretary of State Rusk proposed that the refugees have a free and private choice of their future. The U.S. is firmly opposed to permanent eviction of the refugees, and to barring their return.

It is probable that not all would want to return to the Palestine area—especially if they were offered an opportunity for resettlement, with the required financial backing, in other Arab states.

It should be remembered that the United States has contributed over a third of a billion dollars to Palestinian refugee relief since 1950. This is about 70 per cent of the total funds made available for this purpose. So it cannot be said that the U.S. is not interested in the welfare of the refugees, or in a permanent solution of their problems.

In other words, the "Palestine" referred to is just an "area" and it is obviously the former Mandate area. "Arab states" are mentioned, but not a "Palestine". Moreover, the only framework for discussing those persons from an area called "Palestine" are "refugees".

Incidentally, question 19, deals with Jerusalem.  The question is phrased

The U.S. didn’t vote for condemnation of the Israeli annexation of Jerusalem by the U.N. General Assembly. Does this mean the U.S. concurs in the Israeli annexation?

The talking point reply notes that 

The United States has made it clear that the U.S. will not accept Israel’s unilateral action as a determinant of the future of Jerusalem.

However, it also notes that

The Israeli Government has said that its arrangements for the administration of Jerusalem were not an annexation. It seemed to the United States that the proposed U.N.G.A. resolution, which condemned annexation and called for its recision, was not directed to the situation on the ground.

On that, see here where official US statements are quoted, among them

On June 19, President said: “There must be adequate recognition of the special interest of the three great religions in the Holy Places of Jerusalem”. A White House statement on June 28 said that the President “assumes that before any unilateral action is taken on the status of Jerusalem there will be appropriate consultation with religious leaders and others who are deeply concerned … The world must find an answer that is fair and recognized to be fair. That could not be achieved by hasty unilateral action and the President is confident that the wisdom and good judgment of those in control of Jerusalem will prevent any such action.” 

Interestingly, the religious rather than the political and diplomatic aspects are paramount.

That is evident in the words of UN Ambassador Goldberg quoted there:

“During my own statement to the General Assembly on July 3, I said . . . the safeguarding of the holy places and freedom of access to them for all should be internationally guaranteed and the status of Jerusalem in relation to them should be decided not unilaterally but in consultation with all concerned. These statements represent the considered and continuing policy of the United States Government.”

There is there, however, this, too:

We do not recognize Israeli measures as having effected changes in formal status of Jerusalem.(a)Israelis are in that city, as they are in other recently occupied territory, as a result of hostilities last month.(b)Israel may thus be said to be an occupying power with duty under international law to conform its administration as closely as possible to existing local law.(c)Israeli action to establish a unified municipal administration of Jerusalem cannot be regarded and will not be recognized as a valid annexation, or a permanent change in legal status of Jerusalem in any sense.(d)It should be considered an interim administrative measure to provide a more convenient and efficient occupation regime for area formerly under Jordanian control, using Jordanian police and other officials wherever possible.(e)Government of Israel has made it clear that it does not claim that its unified administration of Jerusalem is an annexation.

President Trump's decision altered that policy, but not completely.

P.S.  Already way back when, they knew internationalization was wrong for Jerusalem and the Partition Plan was really dead.


_____________________________
* By the way, Marks foresaw the rise of alternative media in that 

he once implemented an unusual plan to explain US policy directly to the Vietnamese.

He wrote in his 2004 memoir, ``The President Is Calling," that ``the Vietnamese household was well served with gossip and information when the women gathered each morning at the fish market and swapped stories about local events. At the suggestion of one of our employees, I retained the services of talented storytellers who, each day, would compose stories describing the issues of the Vietnam conflict and report on the progress being made in repulsing the communist invaders.

``At night, singing troubadours would go to Vietnamese guesthouses, churches, and other gathering places. We eliminated daily newspapers and replaced them with live fish market correspondents."

^

The Arabs Started Shooting on November 30, 1947

The newspapers in Mandate Palestine reported in the editions of December 1, 1947 that the previous evening Arabs had attacked Jews, shooting and killing and injuring them.

In Jerusalem, as Davar reported, at 8:45 PM, nurses being transported to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus were shot at while driving through the Nashashibi neighborhood:

The bus was riddled with eight bullets. The Nashashibi neighborhood is today's Sheikh Jarrah. The first Nashashibi clan house was built where now the Ambassador Hotel stands. They were driving along the road that later would be the site of the Hadassah Convoy Massacre, now called Derech Har HaZeitim*.

The Palestine Post reports, it would seem, an additional incident in Jerusalem as well as the major terror attack on Tel Aviv's border with Jaffa:

*
There were Nashashibi houses near St. Stephens' (Flowers) Gate so it may have been along today's Suleiman Sultan Street.

^

Women Gain Entry Rights at The Temple (And Need A Temple Be Destroyed?)

Wait.

This is not about the Temple Mount, or the egalitarian Western Wall pray area in Jerusalem.

But it is riveting.

A two-year old ruling is coming to a clash in India.  We learn that

Tensions mount after India’s top court revokes ban on women’s temple entry

NEW DELHI — Thousands of devotees joined street marches in southern India on Monday as tensions mounted over a recent Supreme Court verdict revoking a ban on women entering a famous Hindu temple.

The Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala — considered one of the holiest for Hindus — in Kerala state has traditionally barred all women of menstruating age, between 10 and 50.

But India’s top court revoked the ban on women entering the temple in September...Those protesting against the court’s decision on Monday, including hundreds of women, warned they would step up their protests before the temple reopens on Wednesday, when it will have to allow all women entry as per the court order.

...“We will meet each villager in Kerala and chalk out a massive agitation plan to protect the temple, its centuries-old traditions and sentiments of Lord Ayyappa devotees,” Kerala BJP president P.S Sreedharan Pillai told NDTV.

Millions of devotees visit the temple every year to seek the blessings of Ayyappa, the presiding deity who is believed to be celibate. According to the temple website, pilgrims have to observe celibacy for 41 days before entering the shrine. 

And on Tuesday

India deployed hundreds of police Tuesday in southern Kerala state where protesters have threatened to stop women from entering a Hindu temple, despite a court ruling they can pray there. India's Supreme Court in September overturned a prohibition on women of menstruating age, between 10 and 50, from entering a temple for the deity Ayyappa.
Activists have said the long-standing ban reflected an old but still prevalent belief that menstruating women were impure.

By the way, there is another Temple problem there:

Rajasthan BJP today condemned Congress lawmaker Shashi Tharoor's remarks that no good Hindu would want the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, by destroying somebody else's place of worship and asked the opposition party to clarify its stand on the issue....

...Mr Tharoor, who is Congress legislator from Thiruvananthapuram, made the controversial comments at an event in Chennai on Sunday.
"As a Hindu, obviously, I am conscious that a vast majority of my fellow Hindus believe that that (Ayodhya) was the specific birthplace of Ram," Mr Tharoor had said.
"For this reason, most good Hindus would want to see a Ram temple at the site where Ram was supposed to be (have been) born. But I also believe that no good Hindu would have wanted that a temple be built by demolishing somebody else's place (of worship)," he had said.
However, he later claimed that his remarks were distorted out of malice. 
"I condemn the malicious distortion of my words by some media in the service of political masters. I said: most Hindus would want a temple at what they believe to be Ram's birthplace. But no good Hindu would want it to be built by destroying another's place of worship," he tweeted.

Does UNESCO need to get involved? 

___________________________

UPDATE:

Crowds of agitated protesters in Kerala attacked female devotees, many of whom turned back as a result. Several people including an old woman were injured as crowds threw stones at vehicles and attacked police officers.The Sabarimala temple has historically been closed to women of "menstruating age".Hinduism regards menstruating women as unclean and bars them from participating in religious rituals.

2nd UPDATE

Suspected Hindu radicals attacked a spiritual retreat founded by a preacher who backed letting women enter a renowned Indian temple, police said. The incident heightened tensions in southern India where police have rounded up more than 2,000 people suspected of taking part in protests to stop women from worshipping at the Sabrimala shrine.

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