Denial Spreads
- 11.16.2007 - 11:38 AMThroughout the Muslim world, history is being retold. The most notorious example, of course, is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s claim that the Holocaust is a “myth,” which has given new credibility to a conspiracy theory that has long circulated among Muslim publics. However, thanks to the constant attention the Western press has afforded Ahmadinejad’s lies, this is old news. Yet the Western media has failed to cover another distortion of history that is suddenly gaining traction even within the most liberal, Western-friendly of Muslim states: that Jewish historical ties to Jerusalem have no basis in reality, having been fabricated as part of a broader Zionist conspiracy.
This lie found a new venue yesterday in Istanbul, where the three-day Al-Quds International Forum opened. Within the Arab press, this was a top news item, with conference participants’ denials of Jerusalem’s Jewish historical ties a prominent theme. Al-Jazeera’s headline declared “International Al-Quds Forum Opens With a Call to Resist Judaization,” while the state-controlled Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) similarly announced that “The Al-Quds Forum Calls for the Necessity of Liberating Jerusalem and Opposes Plans to Judaize It.” In fairness to the Western press, it’s a story that would have been easy to miss: the English-language headlines regarding the Al-Quds Forum were more benign, while Al-Jazeera English typically declined to mention it.
Whether or not it ever appears in the New York Times, make no mistake: this conference is deeply significant. The charge that Israel is “Judaizing” Jerusalem through archaeology or maintenance of religious sites is deeply rooted in Palestinian political discourse. Yasir Arafat and Hanan Ashrawi invoked the terminology of “Judaization” in 1996, after Israel opened Hasmonean Tunnel in the Old City, which revealed the foundations of the Second Temple. This past February, Palestinians used “Judaization” charges to protest Israel’s repair of an access ramp to the Mughrabi Gate, which leads to the Dome of the Rock; one Fatah spokesperson accused Israel of trying to replace the mosque with a “Jewish Temple.” At the time, these charges resonated sufficiently among Muslim publics that Israel installed webcams to prove that they were not damaging Muslim holy sites. The furor seemed to have cooled thereafter.
But conspiracy theories don’t die easily in the Middle East. The charge of Jerusalem’s “Judaization” has thus officially moved beyond the Palestinian territories. The Al-Quds Forum in Istanbul—and the overwhelmingly positive press it is receiving throughout the Muslim world—shows that denial of Jewish historical ties to Jerusalem has attained disturbing legitimacy.
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November 16th, 2007 at 12:20 PM
Re Eric Trager’s article. The suiccess of Luslim distortion of Jerusalem history is in large measure due to the failure of Israel’s government to defend the Temple Mount from desecration. The passive attitude of Israel to underground and surface destruction ongoing for decades is ample proof in Islamic eyes..It is understandable..
November 16th, 2007 at 12:37 PM
Unless I misunderstood my history lessons and basic Bible studies, there was never any doubt concerning the Jewish presence in Jerusalem going back thousands of years. I never heard any questioning of that fact, until the recent “big lie” of the attempt to create Islamic hegemony over the entire area. However, I do not believe that Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran (or perhaps only in a minor way). It does not say that Mohammed traveled to Jersulem and ascended to heaven. He allegedly went to the “far temple” for his big event. Where is the far temple? It is assumed to be Jerusalem. Where is the support for that proposition.?
By the way the Israeli’s are unable to work in the Area of the Temple mount because they are accused of attempted desecration of the area. The Arabs are to busy fighting Israel and among themselves to deal with Archeological problems.
November 16th, 2007 at 2:13 PM
They now have Barnard College as their partners in revisionist history now that tenure has been granted to Nadia Abu El-Haj (Anthropology Department) whose claim to fame is her book Facts on the Ground: Archeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society that questions the historical existence of a Jewish link to Israel. American academia will be giving more and more credibility to this new great lie!
November 16th, 2007 at 2:41 PM
LewH - Jerusalem has a significant presence in early Islam. In the earliest days of Islam, adherents were told to pray in Jerusalem’s direction for their devotions. Then, with the advent of the Satanic Verses episode, the prayer destination was changed to Mecca. The impetus was that Satan had told Muhammed to pray in the direction of Jerusalem, and that heaven’s angels corrected the error when Muhammed preached devotions towards Mecca.
November 16th, 2007 at 8:21 PM
Rob Small - How does this make Jerusalem the “third most holy place”in Islam”? If anything, it makes Jerusalem demonic and not worthy of worship or holiness. It would seem to remove Jerusalem from any basis for veneration by Moslems.
November 16th, 2007 at 9:18 PM
Eric,
Where in any of those links is there an assertion “that Jewish historical ties to Jerusalem have no basis in reality, having been fabricated as part of a broader Zionist conspiracy”?
November 17th, 2007 at 5:37 AM
Matt: The Palestinian campaign to question a Jewish connection to holy sites like the Temple Mount and the Cave of Machpelah and even to deny that Jerusalem was ever inhabited by Jews is real enough.
Article 18 of the Palestinian Charter of 1964 states:
In 1996 a PLO spokesman, Walid M. Awad, declared:
In 1997 the Palestinian Information ministry announced:
At Camp David Yaser Arafat told President Clinton, Solomon’s Temple stood in Nablus not in Jerusalem.
In 2004 the head of the Palestinian Authorities Library system, Dr. Jarir Al-Qidwah, explained on television:
A 2004 study of Palestinian textbooks for the US State Department found:
Even in New York City, Barnard College Assistant Professor Nadia Abu El Haj has asserted that the origins of the Jewish people in the land of Israel is a mere “belief,” an “ideological assertion,” a “pure political fabrication.”
In Beirut University a archeology professor, Kamal Salibi, claims that the ancient Jews did not live in Israel and that the events depicted in the Old Testament took place in Arabia.
But I for one take a certain satisfaction in this absurd twisting of history. It demonstrates the rash confidence with which Israel’s opponents now wield their lies and the foolishness for which they grown to expect complicity.
(Those quotes come out of Wikipedia.)
November 17th, 2007 at 3:28 PM
NaCl,
I’m aware that Palestinians, including Arafat, have denied the Jewish connection to Jerusalem (just as many Israeli propagandists have denied the Palestinian connection to Jerusalem, and even the existence of the Palestinians as a distinct people.) However, Eric Trager wrote:
And followed this up with numerous links, none of which apparently offered any evidence of this claim even being made, let alone “suddenly gaining traction.”
November 18th, 2007 at 3:00 PM
Matt:
Trager documented the anti-Zionist allegation of a Holocaust myth invented to compensate for the alleged absence of historically valid Jewish links to Jerusalem and Israel. He documented the former. You yourself say, you were already aware of the latter.
But you now equate that denial of a Jewish connection to the Holy Land with the denial that a Palestinian people existed before the 1970s, and of their claim to Jerusalem.
Be clear, all the time the Muslim world controlled Jerusalem, and that goes back to 640 and includes the 400 years the Ottomans ran the region and the 19 years after 1948, there was never a claim by a Palestinian people to nationhood, or to Jerusalem. The Muslim world revered the Haram al Sharif (the Temple Mount) with its al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, but it never looked twice at the city itself. Jerusalem never became an Arab capital and was never cherished and carefully maintained as reverenced places invariably are. In fact, as Mark Twain noted when he visited around 135 years ago, the city had shrunk and deteriorate into a dismal collection of hovels.
As to the “propaganda” that the Palestinians did not exist as a unique people before the 1970s, you are wrong. It is propaganda to claim that they did exist.
Show me one text of Palestinian history, or any book on their literature, their politics, their sports, their customs, their dress, their recipes, their jokes, etc, written before the 1970s. Where is there a book on the poetry of Palestine, on their legends, their children’s fables, their songs? Is it possible for a unique people to exist who do not leave a record of themselves in some such way? But in fact, that record only came into being after 1967 when Israel conquered the territories. Only then did the Arabs of the area first begin to speak of themselves as Palestinians, as a unique people deprived of their nation.
November 19th, 2007 at 12:07 PM
It has been three days since this article was posted and I have not seen any Justification for “Palestinian” ownership of Jerusalem. I also note that during my recent visit to Israel, I and, I assume, anyone else, could enter churches and synagogues including the Western wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchcre and the Church of the Nativity (the Holiest places of both religions), but could not enter any of the Moslem holy places. It this a sign of what would happen if Jerusalem became a Moslem jurisdiction. By the way, any non-moslems been to Mecca lately?