WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: With Jews in U.S. political and liberal religious leadership failing our Jewish homeland’s Jewish and territorial integrity, Christians’ stake in preserving Israel intact is critical for us as well as for them.
Christians, as Well as Jews, Have a Stake in Preserving Israeli Jerusalem and Judea-Samaria
On Saturday, May 22, 2021, Israeli police reopened the Temple Mount to Jews, having temporarily closed it only to Jews in response to Muslim violence thereon. On that day, 250 Jews peacefully ascended the Temple Mount plaza. On Monday morning, May 24, my hometown paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, headlined: “Mosque Visits Resume.” In case you missed the Inq’s point, the most extreme Muslim claim to that place is that its entirety, not just the al-Aqsa Mosque at the Mount’s southern end, is a mosque, and not just a mosque but the mosque that’s Islam’s “third holiest site.” This American newspaper’s endorsement of the Muslims’ maximal claim to our Jewish people’s own holiest site sold out more than us Jews.
It was a sellout of Christians as well. Let one telling illustration suffice. Israeli archeologist Meir Ben-Dov, in his In the Shadow of the Temple: The Discovery of Ancient Jerusalem (pp. 112-113), tells of an incident in the post-Six Day War excavations just south of the Temple Mount, which he was directing. The archeologists were uncovering the broad set of steps leading up to the Mount’s southern wall Double Gates. An incident occurred revealing the significance of this excavation to Christians:
“The patriarch of the Ethiopian Church happened to visit the dig soon after we had uncovered these steps. ‘Is it possible that Jesus and the Apostles walked up these steps?’ he asked. ‘There’s no doubt about it,’ I told him. ‘This is the main staircase that led to the Temple Mount, and it was the only one used by pilgrims bound for the Temple.’ Upon hearing my answer, a wave of emotion swept over the patriarch and his retinue, and we paused so that they could offer up prayers on the spot.”
President Biden says Senator Schumer on Thursday “made a good speech.” It will not surprise you I disagree, not just over his saying Bibi “has lost his way” and is “an obstacle to peace,” etc., but with his saying, as the ZOA (press release, 3/15/24. “ZOA is Horrified by Schumer Treating U.S. Ally Israel Like a Banana Republic Demanding Replacement of Israel’s Democratically Elected Govt’) put it:
“Further interfering with Israeli democracy, sovereignty and safety, Schumer called for the U.S. and Arab nations to pressure Israel to give up her lawful land to create what would be a Palestinian-Iranian-proxy terror state that endangers Israel’s continuing existence (the so-called ‘two-state solution’). Schumer threatened to cut off U.S. support if Israel did not comply, saying: ‘the U.S. Government should DEMAND that Israel conduct itself with a future two-state solution in mind. [minute 36:05] We should not be forced into a position of unequivocally supporting the actions of an Israeli government that include bigots who reject the idea of a Palestinian state.’ Thus, according to Schumer, anyone who sensibly rejects creating a Palestinian terror state on Israel’s land is a ‘bigot.’ This means that Schumer is calling 85% of Israelis and a high percentage of Americans ‘bigots.’”
It’s not just Schumer. JNS headlined 1/20/24: Jewish Dems Slam Netanyahu Over Apparent Rejection of ‘Palestinian State.’ “’We strongly disagree with the Prime Minister,’ 15 [Jewish Democratic] members of Congress said in a brief statement. ‘A two-state solution’ is the path forward.”
And here’s how Jewish U.S. Secretary of State Blinken put it in meeting with P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah in November, that the U.S. is committed
“to working toward the realization of the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations for the establishment of a Palestinian state.” (JNS, 11/8/23, “US Wants Gaza Under Palestinian Authority”)
And not just our Jewish political leaders. On 2/6/24, the ZOA issued a press release:
“ZOA Condemns URJ Head Rick Jacobs & Other Reform Jewish Leaders’ Statement Demanding a Palestinian State/etc. – Rewards Massacre, Endangers Israel, Defames Israel, Will Lead to More Anti-Israel Terror”
Perhaps you remember last fall when I pleaded with you Gentle Readers to go see former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman’s moving movie, Route 60: The Biblical Highway, which only played for a week but “sold more tickets on its first two nights than any other American film” (Jerusalem Post, 9/21/23). I talked about David Friedman’s moving explanations of the many meaningful Jewish religious and historical sites along this route through Samaria, Jerusalem and Judea. What brought the crowds, I think, was Mike Pompeo, a devout Christian, talking about the many meaningful Christian sites on that route.
My opposition to “two-states” is not exclusively that it would be militarily existentially fatal to Israel, but that these lands, Judea-Samaria, and places, historic Jerusalem, Temple Mount and all, by history and international treaty, the Palestine Mandate, are ours, indeed the heart & soul of our Jewish homeland of Israel. Beyond which, I just re-read Herbert Agar’s The Saving Remnant. Ben-Gurion was right when he said that “when this Second World War will be over, our war will not be over.” Europe was never a home for its Jews, and nor were Muslim lands where we were “dhimmis.” We American Jews may be safe here, but our people needs our small homeland of Israel, secure and intact, for our Sabras and for our Exiles.
In these days of howling in the streets that “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” (i.e., all Arab, with “Palestinians” not just in Jordan and Gaza but in what had been Israel, and Jews where?, in the Sea or in exile), we grassroots U.S. Jews need to discuss with our Christian social and business relations that it’s Christian as well as Jewish heritage and sites (some of them the same sites, e.g., Temple Mount), preservation and free access thereto, that are threatened by a “two-state solution” that regards every inch beyond the old defunct 1949 ceasefire lines to be “occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem,” UNSC 2334).