“Only Israel can stop this vandalism…60,000 tombstones in the Mount of Olives Cemetery were desecrated and destroyed, dozens of synagogues were razed, the western wall was converted into a stable…”
60,000 ancient Jewish tombstones in Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives Cemetery desecrated. This is not “occupied Palestinian land”. Arabs try to erase history
by Ezequiel Doiny
On October 13, 2016 Ynet reported that “The United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passed a draft resolution on Thursday that failed to acknowledge the Jewish people’s ties to the Temple Mount, raising ire in Israel.
The proposal “strongly condemns the Israeli escalating aggressions and illegal measures against the Waqf Department and its personnel, and against the freedom of worship and Muslims’ access to their Holy Site Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al Sharif, and requests Israel, the Occupying Power, to respect the historic Status Quo and to immediately stop these measures.”
It omits the Jewish name for the holy site—the Temple Mount—and instead refers to it only by its Muslim name—Al-Haram Al Sharif.
…The draft resolution, submitted by Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, and Sudan, will be referred to UNESCO’s executive board for formal approval next week.
Twenty-four countries voted in favor of the proposal: Algeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chad, China, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Mauritius, Mexico, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan and Vietnam.
…the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has released a pamphlet of the historical Jewish connection to Jerusalem, which has been distributed to all 120 permanent delegates to UNESCO whose countries have diplomatic relations with Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the decision to adopt the resolution, saying “The theatre of the absurd continues with UNESCO and today the organization has made its most bizarre decision by saying the people of Israel have no connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.”
“Obviously they have never read the Bible,” he continued, “but I would advise UNESCO members to visit the Arch of Titus in Rome, where they can see what the Romans brought to Rome after they destroyed and looted the Temple Mount two thousand years ago. One can see engraved on the arch the seven-branched menorah, which is the symbol of the Jewish people as well as the symbol of the Jewish State today.”
http://www.ynetnews.comarticles/0,7340,L-4866113,00.html
The UNESCO’s guidelines instruct that all UN documents refer to Temple Mount by the Arabic “Haram Al-Sharif” and to the Wailing Wall by the Arabic “Buraq Plaza”. Will they also ban the Hebrew name “Jerusalem” and replace it with the Arabic “Al-Quds”?
David Pryce Jones reported in the National Review “What is it about Jews that compels non-Jews to concoct boundless fantasies about them? UNESCO, the body that is supposed to look after culture for the United Nations, has come up with a magnificent example of these fantasies, decreeing that Jews have no connection with the Temple Mount. One fine afternoon, supposedly educated representatives of their countries find it in them to wave farewell to King Solomon and King David, to the historian Josephus and Herod and the Maccabees, farewell to the Emperor Vespasian and his son Titus, and farewell to Warren and Robinson who excavated the Temple, and farewell to 2000 years of Jewish worship at the Wailing Wall. UNESCO cancels the Wailing Wall altogether, renaming it the Buraq Plaza, after the winged horse that the Prophet Mohammad is supposed to have mounted on that spot. UNESCO can surely find a few witnesses of that ride into the skies. Re-invention of reality on this farcical scale brings to mind a play by the Hungarian Ferenc Molnar in which some dispossessed aristocrats are discussing what is wrong with the world, and one of them says, “It is all Napoleon’s fault, but I have just read a book which proves that Napoleon never existed.” Perhaps UNESCO’s next step is to discover that Jews never existed.”
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/441050/
Jews were a majority in East Jerusalem when they were expelled by the Jordanian Arab Legion in 1948. In 1948 British General Glubb Pasha lead the Jordanian Arab Legion to expel all the Jews from Hebron, Jerusalem and the West Bank. Not only they did ethnic cleansing but they destroyed dozens of ancient synagogues and 60,000 Ancient Jewish Tombstones in the Sacred Ancient Jewish Cemetery of Mount of Olives to try to erase all evidence of Jewish History in the West Bank. (In 1956, after his service in Jordan, the criminal General Glubb, responsible for ethnic cleansing of Jews and destruction for thousands of ancient Jewish tombs in East Jerusalem, was appointed Knight Commander of The Order of Bath by Queen Elizabeth.)
After the Jordanian Arab Legion expelled Jews from East Jerusalem, between 1948 and 1967, 60,000 tombstones in the Mount of Olives Cemetery, the Jewish most ancient cemetery, were desecrated and destroyed, dozens of synagogues were razed, the western wall was converted into a stable.
This is an excerpt from Mark Twain’s “The Innocents Abroad” when he visited the Mosque of Omar and the AlAqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in 1867:
“Everywhere about the Mosque of Omar are portions of pillars, curiously wrought altars, and fragments of elegantly carved marble – the precious remains of Salomon’s Temple…see the costly marbles that once adorned the inner Temple…the designs wrought upon these fragments are all quaint and peculiar…one meets with these venerable scraps at every turn, specially in the neighboring mosque El Aqsa, into whose inner walls a very large number of them are carefully built for preservation. These pieces of stone, stained and dusty with age, dimly hint at a grandeur we have all been taught to regard as the princiliest ever seen on earth; and they call up pictures of a pageant that is familiar to all imaginations – camels laden with spices and treasure – beautiful slaves, presents for Salomon’s harem – a long cavalgade of richly caparisoned beasts and warriors – and Sheba’s Queen in the van of this prison of Oriental Magnificence. These elegant fragments bear a richer interest than the solemn vastness of the stones the Jews kiss in the place of wailing can ever have for the heedless sinner.
Down in the hollow ground, underneath the olives and oranges trees that flourish in the court of the great mosque , is a wilderness of pillars – remains of the ancient Temple, they supported it. There are ponderous archways down there…we never dreamed we might see portions of the actual Temple of Salomon…”
If Mark Twain witnessed this in 1867 where are these remains now? The Palestinans probably destroyed them as they have been destroying all Jewish Archeological remains since 1948. Suzanne Singer, a contributing editor to the Biblicar Archeological Review reported about Palestinian destruction of Jewish Archeological remains in Temple Mount in September 2000 “Large-scale illegal construction on the Temple Mount and wholesale dumping of earth in the nearby Kidron Valley resumed this spring. The construction, which is being undertaken by the Waqf, the Muslim religious trust responsible for the Mount, is the continuation of work begun last winter to open what was supposed to be simply an emergency exit for the al-Marawani Mosque, located in an underground area popularly called Solomon’s Stables
… The Temple Mount is, of course, sacred to three great Western faiths and is part of the world’s cultural patrimony. Here may lie remnants from the time of the First Temple of Solomon, the Second Temple built by Herod, the Byzantine period and the early Islamic eras. Israeli excavations around the exterior of the Temple Mount since 1967 have found remains from all these periods, but the Mount itself has been terra incognita, protected by an understanding between Israel and the Waqf that says no construction will take place there…
…Last November, we reported that the Waqf, in the dead of night, had dumped hundreds of truckloads of earth from the Temple Mount into the Kidron Valley and municipal garbage dumps. About 6,000 tons of earth were removed to open an authorized emergency exit for the al-Marawani Mosque, creating a huge hole about 200 feet long and 75 feet wide. The exit, enlarged beyond the approved width, has become, in the words of the police commander of the Jerusalem district, “a monumental entry gate.” Despite the flagrant disregard by the Waqf of the requirement for IAA supervision, there was no serious response by Israeli authorities. Today the dumped earth is unprotected and is being covered with garbage, making it unlikely that the IAA will ever act on its announced intention to salvage artifacts by sifting through the piles.
…This spring and early summer, trucks and tractors returned to the Temple Mount, bringing building materials in and carting earth away through the Lions’ Gate, just north of the Temple Mount. For 200 yards along the inside of the Temple Mount’s eastern wall, from the al-Marawani Mosque’s new entrance to somewhat south of the Golden Gate, lie stacks of paving stones, scaffolding, wood and iron materials, along with large architectural fragments, such as pieces of ancient columns…
The Waqf’s plans for building on the Temple Mount are contained in a detailed report given to Barak and revealed on June 18 by Nadav Shragai, correspondent for the newspaper Ha’aretz. Shragai writes that a master plan includes erecting another Muslim prayer area on the Temple Mount, “along the eastern wall, a smaller version of the Ka’aba Mosque in Mecca.”
Hardly mentioned in press reports is the fact that there already is another Muslim prayer hall on the Temple Mount, inaccessible to all but a few visitors and also prepared without archaeological oversight by the IAA. This mosque is located in the only intact Herodian structure remaining on the Mount, an underground area with magnificent domes covered by geometric and floral designs. The area is inside the passageway of the Double Gate, which 2,000 years ago served as one of the main southern entrances to the Temple Mount. Today the gate is sealed and partially obscured by a medieval tower attached to the southern wall. This unique remnant has deteriorated over the millennia and is in need of preservation.
…The construction on the Temple Mount is only the latest, albeit perhaps the most egregious, example of the Waqf’s disregard for the protection of antiquities. In 1993 Israel’s Supreme Court found that the Waqf had violated the country’s antiquities laws no less than 35 times, with many of the violations causing the irreversible destruction of archaeological remains.
…Due to Prime Minister Barak’s concern for negotiations with the Palestinians, no effective archaeological oversight is taking place on the Temple Mount. No one halts the work so that potential damage can be assessed and prevented; as a result, heavy equipment is free to move about the Mount for projects that are neither approved nor supervised. The frequently heard view is that a tough stance by Israel will enflame the Palestinians and set back the peace talks…” (Published in Biblical Archeology Review, September/October 2000)
http://www.echad.info/templemount/bar1-9.html
But Palestinians not only destroy Jewish Archeological Remains in Temple Mount, Hamodia reported about the Palestinian desecration of Jewish tombs in the Ancient Jewish Cemetery in Mount of Olives.
“A dead donkey on the kever of Rabbeinu Ovadya of Bartenura. Broken matzeivos (tombstones) paving a soccer field. Garbage strewn among the graves. Cement blocks thrown at those accompanying the dead to their final resting place.
Yes, this is what has been taking place for years on Har Hazeisim. The Arabs who live on the mountain desecrate the graves and harm Jews who come to visit the place where their parents
and loved ones are buried. It’s devastating and shocking — but almost no one cares.
This huge cemetery contains over 150,000 kevarim, dating back 3,000 years to the Bayis Rishon era. No other Jewish cemetery is as old. And it is still in use today.
Jewish history and heritage lie between the clods of its earth.
Intimidated and fearful, we avoid visiting there, and that invites further Arab desecration.
It is a cycle that is only getting worse. Three months ago, a little before Purim, a child in
Yerushalayim tragically drowned in a bathtub. On Har Hazeisim, the levayah participants got a
taste of the terror the Arabs sow on the mountain and the roads leading to it.
“The levayah was held on the day of the petirah, as is the custom,” one participant related.
“We had only a short time to reach the kevurah before shkiah.
We were under pressure, but we hoped to arrive in time. We never imagined the nightmare it would
become.
“The trip to the mountain took a long time because of the guards and the traffic jams in the
area of the Old City. When we arrived at Har Hazeisim, we weren’t able to enter with a vehicle.
We took the aron and ran by foot to the grave site. Just six minutes before sunset, we managed
managed to conclude the burial.
“When we got up from shivah we went to set up a monument over the grave. Of course we
came with guards. We were shocked to find, opposite the grave where we had just buried
the child, a nearby matzeivah in pieces [and the grave itself ] strewn with bags of garbage.
“It’s impossible to let things go on like this. It’s such a holy place. The Ohr Hachaim, the Rashash,
Rabi Yehudah Hachassid and so many other revered people of our
nation are buried here; how can they leave it hefker?!
…“Over recent generations the Arabs have built on top of 40,000 graves! The Seven Arches Hotel they built when they ruled Yerushalayim is at the head of the mountain; part of its foundation
was built over 20,000 Jewish graves.”
http://harhazeisim.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Hamodia.pdf
Today Abbas and the Palestinian Authority continue their campaign to erase Jewish History from Jerusalem. The Jewish Press reported on september, 29, 2014 that “More than 40 graves were vandalized in the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives in eastern Jerusalem during the Rosh HaShana holiday. The vandalism occurred in the Ger Section cemetery, just in front of the “maarah” where the Bais Yisroel and the Lev Simcha, two rebbes of Ger, are interred…Dozens of masked and hooded Arab youths broke surveillance cameras on Friday afternoon, the second day of Rosh Hashanah, before turning their rampage on the gravestones and graves nearby. Amongst the graves that were desecrated were those of Harav Yitzchok Meir Levine and Harav Shaul Moshe Zilberman zt”l….Some of the gravestones appeared to be smashed with sledgehammers, while others were turned over in a scene that was reminiscent of some of the worst anti-Semitic acts on a Jewish cemetery…”
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/40-graves-in-mount-of-olives-cemetery-vandalized-during-rosh-hashanah/2014/09/30/
The State Department condemned Israel for building appartments in Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem claiming it “poisons” the peace talks. Why didn’t the State Department make a simmilar statement about the Palestinian continuing campaign to destroy Ancient Jewish Tombs in the Mount of Olives Cemetery? Why they never made a simmilar statement about the destruction of Jewish archeological remains in Temple Mount?
