Jerusalem - Cauldron of the Conflict

"Pray for the well-being of Jerusalem;
May those who love you be at peace".
(PSALMS 122,6)
By Alan Elsner
National Correspondent

The late Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai once wrote that holiness hung in the sky above Jerusalem like industrial pollution over other cities. The air, he said, was "filled with prayers and dreams . hard to breath." He added that in Jerusalem, "the right to vote is granted even to the dead."

History lives in Jerusalem as in no other city. The rhythms and cadences of the city may alter over time, yet the echoes of the past are still heard. In Jewish neighborhoods on Friday afternoons, an air raid siren announces the beginning of the Sabbath when much of the city shuts down. Two thousand years ago, as reported by the historian Josephus, a trumpeter on the Temple Mount would sound a blast to announce the Sabbath. Now, of course, all too often the Sabbath siren competes with the screams and wails of fire trucks and ambulances rushing to the scene of the latest act of violence.

There is no consensus on the past in Jerusalem. The warring parties squabble as much over what may or may not have happened 5,000 years ago as they do over what happened last week or what should happen next year. Meron Benvinisti, a former deputy mayor, wrote: "The chronicles of Jerusalem are a gigantic quarry from which each side has mined stones for the construction of its myths - and for throwing at each other."

Jerusalem was present at the birth of two major religions -- Judaism and Christianity -- and plays a major role for a third, Islam. For Jews, Jerusalem is the place where King Solomon built the Temple. At the heart of the Temple complex was the Holy of Holies, the only place on earth where a human stood fully in the presence of God and from which God's presence, they believe, has not departed.

Christians revere Jerusalem as the site of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. Rival Christian sects have often fought bitterly for control over the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built on the traditional site of Golgotha, the place of skulls, where the Romans crucified Jesus, and where he was entombed. In the middle of the 19th century, a bitter dispute between Greek Orthodox and Catholic monks over who had the right to clean a step in the forecourt of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher contributed to the outbreak of the Crimean War, which pitted Britain and France against Russia. That tension eventually resolved into a tenuous agreement, known as the Status Quo, in which ownership and cleaning rights of every single object in the church and every inch of its structure are set down. Today, the Catholics sweep the step at sunrise, the Orthodox sweep it when it is their turn to sweep the forecourt. Still, occasionally new disputes arise.

For Muslims, Jerusalem is called Al Quds, the Holy City. The Temple Mount, which Islam knows as the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, is their third holiest site, after Mecca and Medina. A 35-acre, not quite rectangular, enclosure on the southeast corner of the Old City, this is surely the most embattled, most fiercely contested plot of land on earth. So much sanctity in so small a space: it is almost like the compressed energy inside an atom. Any spark can trigger a chain reaction unleashing enormous destructive force. When adherents of each faith insist that they alone are right, it becomes difficult for them to share such a confined space as good neighbors.

Muslims believe Muhammad had a vision in which he made a supernatural night journey to the city astride a winged beast and then ascended to heaven. The site now contains the silver domed Al Aksa Mosque and the glorious golden dome of the Mosque of Umar, also known as the Dome of the Rock, the city's most recognizable landmark. It is built around the so-called Foundation Stone, a large rock that may have marked the site of the Holy of Holies within the Biblical Temple. Over the centuries, more and more legends have attached themselves to this rock. Some believe that the world itself was created around this rock, that Adam was born here, that Cain and Abel made their sacrifices here and that God called out to Abraham, stopping him from sacrificing Isaac here. Adherents of each faith not only believe that the world was created in Jerusalem but also that it will end there. The dead will rise on the Mount of Olives, humankind will be judged in a valley below the city walls, final battles will be fought, good will conquer evil.

Though most religious Jews believe the Temple will only rise again when the Messiah comes, a small but vociferous group of right-wingers wants to destroy the mosques and begin construction immediately. Some American Christian fundamentalist groups support them out of a belief that rebuilding the Temple is an essential precondition for the Second Coming of Jesus. For Muslims, such words merely confirm their fears that Israel and its American backers intend to throw them off the Temple Mount and raze their holy mosques. One group of Israeli militants in the early 1980s did develop a detailed plot to blow up the mosques. The group carried out a number of attacks on Palestinian politicians and civilians before being uncovered, arrested and brought to trial by the Israeli authorities. Most drew relatively light sentences or were pardoned and released a few years later.

Despite its blood-drenched history, Jerusalem has stood throughout the centuries as a metaphor of perfection for visionaries and poets of far away who would never set eyes on the city. The 19th century English poet William Blake dreamed of building Jerusalem amid the "dark, satanic mills" of industrial England. At around that same time, in 1832, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, had a vision in which he was commanded to build a "new Jerusalem" in Independence, Missouri.

To them, Jerusalem symbolized an ideal peace, but the city also has far ghastlier associations. The gates of hell -- in Hebrew "Gehenna" -- are said to be in the Valley of Hinnom, just outside the city walls in a place once associated with human sacrifice. Formal religious sacrifice may have ended long ago, but the city continues to claim its bloody offerings. Jerusalem has experienced at least 40 wars and sieges in its history.

"It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of slain without horror. Everywhere lay fragments of human bodies and the very ground was covered by the blood of the slain," wrote William of Tyre, an eyewitness to the slaughter that followed the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, when the victorious legions of Christ massacred some 30,000 Muslim and Jewish residents of the city in a killing spree that lasted until there was no-one left to kill. Limbs lay rotting in the streets for weeks afterwards. Today, in the aftermath of suicide bombings of cafes and restaurants, rescue squads and rabbis collect the body parts immediately.

When a Persian army conquered Jerusalem in 614 BCE, the monk Antiochus Strategos said their soldiers rushed into the city hissing and roaring like wild boars, killing Christian men, women and children -- a total, he estimated, of 66,555.

In 70 BCE when the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, Josephus described the scene in words that still shock. "The Temple Mount, enveloped in flames from top to bottom, appeared to be boiling up from its very roots, yet the sea of flames was nothing to the ocean of blood."

Again Yehuda Amichai said it best: In Jerusalem, he wrote, numbers do not refer to bus routes, as in other cities, but to years in history: "70 after, 1917, 500 B.C., Forty-Eight. These are the lines you really travel on."

If Jerusalem were only about religion, the situation would be difficult enough. But over the centuries, competing nationalist designs have been welded to religious symbols, turning the struggle for control into a clash of nations. In Jerusalem, everything counts. What in other places would be mundane municipal matters, such as the building of roads and hospitals and laying water and electricity lines become charged with symbolic, even spiritual meaning in Jerusalem.

The disputes even extend underground. Palestinians accuse Israeli archaeologists of burrowing down under their sacred sites to undermine them. Israelis accuse Palestinian archaeologists of destroying the rich historical record of Jewish settlement in ancient Jerusalem.

History in Jerusalem has a way of repackaging itself. A government official decides to pay a visit to the Temple Mount. His arrival sparks a riot among native residents who regard the intruder as foreign and view the incursion as sacrilege as well as a deadly threat to their tenuous control. This happened in the year 180 BCE, when the appearance of a Greek government figure named Heliodorus sparked fury among the beleaguered Jews fighting to hold fast to their holy Temple. It happened again almost 2,200 years later when then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon decided to pay a symbolic visit to the Temple Mount. The furious reaction among Palestinian Muslims marked the beginning of the Al Aksa Intifada, or uprising, which still rages.

No group has been spared suffering and bloodshed in Jerusalem, yet members of each group often see their own suffering as special, conferring on them a unique relationship with the city that eclipses all other claims.

When Israel organized in 1995 a celebration marking what it said was the 3,000th anniversary of the establishment of Jerusalem as capital of the Kingdom of Israel, the official program stated: "No other people designated Jerusalem as its capital in such an absolute and binding manner. Jerusalem is the concrete historical expression of the Jewish religion and its heritage on the one hand and the independence and sovereignty of the Jewish people on the other. Jerusalem's identity as a spiritual and national symbol at one and the same time has forged the unique and eternal bond between this city and the Jewish people, a bond that has no parallel in the annals of the nations."

At the same time, a textbook used in Palestinian schools in the West Bank harks back to the period before King David, when the city was ruled by a Canaanite tribe called the Jebusites: "The Jebusites, a Canaanite people, are the ancestors of the Palestinians. Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian but a believer in one God .. Jerusalem has been the capital of our Palestinian Arab homeland ever since it was built by our ancestors, the Jebusites and the Arab Canaanites, in the heart of Falastin. The Arab presence in Jerusalem was never interrupted in contrast to the Jewish presence which disappeared."

A leaflet given to tourists by the Waqf, the Islamic religious authority that controls the Haram al-Sharif questions that a Jewish temple ever stood on the site: "Some believe it was the site of the Temple of Solomon, peace be upon him ... or the site for the Second Temple ... although no documented historical or archaeological evidence exists to support this," the pamphlet states.

Yasser Arafat himself stated that there had never been a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount in front of President Bill Clinton and others at Camp David in 2000. He said whatever Jewish temple might have existed was located in Nablus and Jesus was never in Jerusalem. Bemused American and Israeli negotiators brought in the Encyclopedia Britannica as a "neutral text" to dispute this point, but Arafat remained unconvinced.

For both sides, it sometimes seem that the other does not truly exist. In 1967, a few weeks before the Six Day War, the Israeli songwriter Naomi Shemer wrote a song, "Jerusalem of Gold" that remains an Israeli classic. "Jerusalem of gold, and of bronze and of light. Behold, I am a violin for all your songs," she sang.

And in the third verse, singing of the Old City, then ruled by Jordan, from which Jews were barred: "The market place is empty, and no-one frequents the Temple Mount." The phrase "Jerusalem of Gold" is a 2000-year-old term for a woman's tiara, of the kind a wealthy man might give his bride. Shemer's song conveyed the illusion that the Old City had remained empty since the Jews were expelled in 1948, and was waiting for the beloved to return. She was expressing the frustration borne of a situation in which Jews were denied access to their holiest site. But in doing so, she simply did not see those who were there.

Just weeks after the song was first performed, Israeli troops captured East Jerusalem. It was the first time Jews had controlled the Old City, including the holy places, since the year 70 CE.

Historically, the first surviving archaeological find mentioning the city that would become Jerusalem was found in an inscription on a shattered Egyptian vase that has been dated to the reign of Pharaoh Sestoris III (1878-1842 BCE). The city, called "Rushalimum" was one of 19 Canaanite cities said to be enemies of Egypt. The first Biblical mention is in Genesis, (chapter 14:18-20) when Melchizedek, king of the Canaanite city of Shalem, blesses Abraham. Shalem, the Hebrew word at the root of Jerusalem, may have been the name of a Syrian god identified with the evening star or the setting sun. The Hebrew word means "wholeness or perfection." The same word also gives rise to the Hebrew "shalom" and the Arabic "salaam" meaning peace. Thus Jerusalem is associated both with oneness and with peace - yet it enjoys neither.

The city's real appearance in history began with a political decision when King David conquered the city from the Jebusites and declared it his capital. Striving to unite the tribes of Israel into one kingdom, he carefully selected a site located on the border of the southern and northern tribes but held by neither of them. Similar considerations prompted the selection of Washington D.C. as capital of the United States many centuries later.

Throughout history, successive rulers sought to impress themselves upon the city through the construction of mighty religious edifices. Thus, David's son, King Solomon, built the first Temple to house the Ark of the Covenant, the dwelling place for the Almighty on earth. The High Priest, in a state of ritual purity, was the only person allowed to enter the sanctuary once a year on the Day of Atonement. When the city fell to the Babylonians in the year 586 BCE, the Temple was destroyed. But Jews were allowed to return within 60 years and the Second Temple was dedicated in 520 BCE. This was the structure vastly expanded and improved upon five centuries later by King Herod, who built the massive retaining walls, one of which still stands - the Western Wall constructed of giant slabs weighing up to five tons each. Forbidden to enter the Temple Mount itself for fear of unwittingly desecrating the spot where the Holy of Holies once stood, Jews have made this wall their principal prayer site in the city.

Muslims refer to the Western Wall as Al Buraq al Sharif, and believe it is the spot where the Prophet tethered his supernatural steed, Buraq, during the night journey. Buraq means "lightning" - the same root as the Hebrew name of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who made a journey to meet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David in the summer of 2000. Their failure to agree on a final peace settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict set off a new chain of violence that has written yet another horrific chapter in the city's bloody story.

In Jerusalem, buildings have always been political statements. When the Roman Empire adopted Christianity in the 2nd century BCE, Christians embarked on a massive church building program. The edifice now known as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher towered above the desecrated Temple Mount, a physical symbol of Christianity's dominance over Judaism. Jews were forbidden to live in the city and the site of the former Temple became a garbage dump.

When in 639 CE, the Caliph Umar conquered the city in the name of Islam, he was horrified to see the centuries of filth that had piled up on the Temple Mount and ordered the site cleared. Half a century later, the magnificent Dome of the Rock rose to challenge the towering Christian churches. A second mosque, the silver-domed Al Aksa, was built in close proximity.

The inscriptions on the Dome of Rock were specifically directed at Christians. They proclaim that God is one and never fathered a child. "So believe in God and all the messengers and stop talking about a Trinity."

The transformation of Jerusalem into a sacred place for Muslims is an interesting example of how history, myth and faith combine to produce a sacred bond. The Qu'ran never mentions Jerusalem and never specifically says that Muhammad's night journey was to the city. The text states: "Glorified be He who carried His servant by night from the Holy Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, the precincts whereof we have blessed." (Qur'an, sura 17:1). The Arabic for "farthest mosque" is Al Aksa but it was only after a mosque was built in Jerusalem years after Muhammad's death and named Al Aksa that the city became associated with the night journey.

When the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem, they placed a giant cross on top of the Dome of the Rock, covered up the inscriptions and turned Al Aksa into the military headquarters of the Knight Templar, while massively rebuilding the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. But 89 years later, the Crusaders were defeated and the city fell back into Muslim hands. Today, some Palestinians look back to the defeat of the Crusaders for inspiration. Choosing the view the Israelis as foreign interlopers, they believe that if only they remain steadfast and patient, the Jewish state may last no longer than the Crusader kingdom.

The first thing the Israelis did on capturing the Old City in 1967 was to tear down all the houses adjacent to the Western Wall, displacing around 600 people who were given three hours to clear out of their homes. Bulldozers worked all night to level the historic Maghribi quarter, which was transformed into the giant plaza that visitors to the Wall see today. Before that, access to the Wall was on a narrow strip of pavement hemmed in by buildings.

But Defense Minister Moshe Dayan also made the crucial decision that the Haram would remain a Muslim site to be run by Muslims. Jews would be allowed to enter the Temple Mount if they wished but would not be permitted to pray there. For Jewish prayer, the focus would be the Wall. His hope was that with some physical separation, the adherents of both faiths could get along.

For a time, this succeeded but in recent years the clashes have grown more severe and more frequent.

After 1967, Israel also embarked on an ambitious building project aimed at solidifying its control over the entire city and cementing a large Jewish majority. New neighborhoods were built on expropriated land ringing the city with high-rise apartments, encircling Arab enclaves with Jewish suburbs. High-rise office blocks thrust their way into the famous city skyline once dominated by the Dome of the Rock and graceful church spires. On Mount Scopus, they built a new campus for the Hebrew University that resembles a kind of modern fortress, bristling with faux towers and fortifications. In doing this, the Israelis were simply following the example of so many of Jerusalem's past rulers.

Yet despite all their efforts, the Israelis failed to truly unite the city. Demographically, they have had some success. Jews have been a majority in Jerusalem since the middle of the 19th century and now comprise around two thirds of the population of around 633,000, even though the Palestinian birthrate continues to exceed the Israeli birthrate. However, politically the Israelis have not succeeded. The two communities remained separate. There is scarcely a mixed street, let alone a mixed neighborhood, in the entire city. The violence that has rocked the city in recent years has only deepened this separation. Jerusalem today is like two separate geographies superimposed one upon the other. How to disentangle them so that both Israelis and Palestinians can establish the city as their functional capitals remains perhaps the greatest challenge to any potential Middle East peacemaker.

If there is one thing to emerge from history, it is that no victory in Jerusalem has been permanent. Today's victors may emerge centuries later as tomorrow's vanquished. There have been a few periods in Jerusalem's history when different groups have managed to coexist and when minorities have been treated with dignity, though rarely if ever as equals. Nobody can doubt that Jerusalem can and does inspire deep love among its adherents. The question is, can it also inspire tolerance?