Shamelessness at the UN
[Salim Mansur is a Pakistani Muslim who has lived his adult life in Canada. He teaches at the U of Western Ontario and is a syndicated columnists. He often writes in defense of Jews and Israel.]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the assembled representatives of the UN member states in New York this week, “Have you no shame? No decency?”
The answer is “no”. For in inviting once again holocaust-denier and Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address the General Assembly, the majority of member states confirmed how greatly anti-Semitism is now institutionalized at the UN.
Only a few representatives led by Canadian delegates walked out on Ahmadinejad’s speech and, thereby, “stood up for moral clarity” in Netanyahu’s words.
But finding moral clarity in the UN, as surely Netanyahu and his people know, would be as rare as stumbling upon a virgin in a brothel.
It is no secret that the UN culture is soaked in the world’s oldest and most persistent bigotry against one people, the Jews. This bigotry was given official expression — “Zionism is racism” — in the notorious General Assembly resolution 3379 of November 1975, and while the resolution was eventually revoked in 1991 the bigotry remains entrenched at the UN.
Behind the cover of supporting Arab-Palestinian rights in historic Palestine anti-Semites everywhere, given new lease after the Holocaust by anti-Jewish bigotry of the Arab-Muslim world, are joined together to cause irreparable injury to Israel. They have succeeded this far in bending the UN to become complicit in their evil purpose.
Any decent human being, including Muslims, should ask the simple question what is the basis of Arab claim to historic Palestine with Jerusalem as its political and spiritual centre? The answer is transparently simple.
Arab rights to historic Palestine rest on the force of arms and military conquest. But what is garnered by sword may also be taken away by sword.
If the claim is to be justified on the basis that Arabs and Muslims (Ottoman Turks) held on to historic Palestine for more than a millennium between 637 and 1918 — save for the period 1099-1187 when the Christian Crusaders took Jerusalem from Arab rulers — then for a period far exceeding that of Arab-Muslim rule this territory was inseparable from Jewish history.
Jerusalem
The Arab-Muslim claim to Jerusalem and historic Palestine on religious grounds is an invention with no basis in Islam’s sacred text, the Qur’an. The only religious claim sanctioned by the Qur’an is for Mecca as Islam’s temporal centre, while Jerusalem indisputably was and remains exclusively the holy city for Jews.
Two years after Sir Arthur Balfour signed the declaration bearing his name promising to Jews Britain’s assistance in establishing their home in historic Palestine, he wrote: “The four great powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.”
Balfour was right in 1919, and he would be right today if the West had not gone wobbly and its leaders not lost their sense of history, morality and obligation to Jews to whom they, and much of the world where decency may still matter, owe immensely for wrongs done to them.
A shameless UN, however, cannot advance justice or lay the grounds for peace in Palestine.
That’s not quite true. Christians ruled Jerusalem also from about 325 CE to 637 CE, except for a short period of Zoroastrian rule. The largely Frankish Christian crusaders ruled for some 90 years from Jerusalem — the only people other than the Jews and Jebusites to rule from that city. The British, of course, were also Christians. They ruled about 30 years.
The Kingdom of Israel ruled in Jerusalem from the tenth century to early in the sixth century CE, sometimes as a tributary to Egypt, Assyria or Babylon. — less than 400 years, total. Before then, Jerusalem was ruled by the Jebusites and the rest of Israel was alternately controlled by the Philistines, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Canaanites and indivitual Israelite tribes (usually in a loose confederation). The Jews again held power for over a hundred years under the Macabbees, then fell under pagan Roman domination for over 300 years, until the Romans became Christians. Counting the current State of Israel, Jews have ruled Jerusalem for a total of over 500 years, but during a good part of this time it was not Judaism but Ba’al worship that was the state cult.
The Moslems therefore, who ruled Jerusalem for some 1200 years, have ruled for more than twice as long as any other religion except perhaps for the pagan Jebusites. Of the Moslem rulers, the Ottoman Turks win the longevity prize, holding Jerusalem some 400 years. Other conquerors included of course the Arabs, under the Umayyads and Abbasids (from Mecca, then Damascus, then Baghdad); also taking their turns were the Seljuk Turks, the Kurdish Ayyubids, the Berber Fatimids and the mercenary Mamlukes.
The idea of ANYONE claiming a “historical right” to Jerusalem or the land of Israel, is therefore ludicrous. Owning land in Israel is somewhat akin to owning real estate that is under water much of the time, or in the middle of a freeway. This is where God commanded His temple to be built, to be a house of prayer for all nations. He knew what He was doing.
Bland, you have it wrong.
1. Mansur is not talking about periods of time different peoples held dominion and control over Israel, but rather the relative period time that the land of Israel and that includes Judea and Samaria has been inseparable from Jewish history.
2. The Temple in Jerusalem was not for all nations to pray, but only for Jews to pray.
I suggest you read Mansur’s article again, but slowly this time so you don’t miss the point he is making.
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Even though Jews were only sovereign for about 5 hundred years and were a vassal state autonomous or other, nobody contended that the Land was not the Land of the Jewish or Hebrew People. With Jews political sovereignty always came second to religious freedom and in fact in three or 4 historical instances we lost our political freedom because of Jews like Narvey and Ted.
An old Midrashic legend states that because Jews spent their time tilling the hills and mountains of other peoples, G-d removed His presence from our two mountains, Mt. Sinai and the Temple Mount (Mount Moriah), and today both are and abandoned. For those who prefer the metaphor in simpler language: because what is called “Zionism” got sidetracked with other ideologies the two basic ideas were left behind: Torah and Malchut (Majesty). As Mount Sinai and the Temple Mount remained outside our legal borders, the ideas they represent, Torah and Malchut , remained outside our lives.
Included among the causes that sidetracked us not only socialism and Marxism, but such “kosher” and honorable ideas as “in-gathering of the Exiles” and a “state of expression of the independence” and “freedom of the individual.” All these and their like may be fine mountains pleasing to the eye and heart, but they are not more than false gods when compared to the one mount, the Temple Mount, which took for itself much if not all of the glory and mystery of Mount Sinai.
The Temple Mount, referred to in the Book of Deuteronomy tens of times as “The place the L-rd will choose,” called the ritual center by Biblical scientists, and of which was said in the beautiful, the mother of all prayers, of Solomon of the Temple (1 Kings:8) “The L-rd said that the He would dwell in, a settled place for you to abide forever.” As if Solomon were saying to G-d that “as long as you are obscured there cannot be any contact between us. I am building you a tangible, clear, geographic home in which you can receive the prayers of your people Israel and the prayers of any who wish to pray to you,” for “your eyes to be open toward this house night and day.” A request for G-d to center his prayer-accepting heart around this house. “What prayer and supplication be made by any man, or by all your people Israel… and he shall spread forth his hands toward this House.”
“And also the foreigner who is not of your People Israel…when he shall come and pray toward this House, and you shall hear.”
“If your people go out to battle against their enemy, and they shall pray to the L-rd toward the City which you have chosen and the House I have built for your name.”
And so all, individual and collective, Hebrew and non-Jew, shall find the way to G-d only through this House. Not only by entering it, for those far away too, there is no other way to the Heavens: “If they sin against you, and their captors carry them away to the land of their enemy, and pray to you toward their Land which you gave to their fathers, the City which you have chosen and the House I have built for your name, and you will hear.”
The imagery and phrasing of this prayer are so concrete and concise that they make it the ultimate expression of Hebrew belief. It rises above all that philosophers and theologians and even prophets have written in all the generations that followed. The localization of the Temple, despite Solomon’s full knowledge that “not even the Heavens can contain you,” and the idea is wider and more open than pantheism, yet nonetheless, or perhaps precisely because of this, there is a need for tying to this one spot a gate open to foreigners.
As for the location of this spot, let artists try to explain it with their paint brushes. Let strategists expound, geopolitists and geologists and archeologists exigise. This is not our business. What is our concern is that this spot, with no possibility of change is “the place that is chosen.” No apparent “rationalism,” no “enlightened” philosophy can change this, nor move even one square meter of the mount.
And especially he who believes most deeply in the oneness, the all-encompassing-ness, the infinity of G-d, as every believing Jew, he will be most adamant about this oneness, this unique example in time and space; Temple Mount. No other Temple is acceptable, no matter how beautiful, if it is not on this Mount. Nor is this Mount acceptable without the “Great and Holy Temple” standing on it. Great and holy, both symbolizing the unification and synthesis of the material basis, the great foundation in the land that surrounds it, with the quality of Holiness. Temple Mount In Ruins
by Dr. Israel Eldad http://www.saveisrael.com/eldad/saveisraeleldad.htm
WRONG AGAIN NARVEY!!!
Yamit as I read your sources, what you have proven, if indeed that is all there is to say on the subject, is that the Temple was built primarily for Jews to pray, but non-Jews were welcome to also come to pray and receive the Jewish God’s blessing. That small qualification to my statement does not change the fact that the primary purpose of the Temple was the house of worship for the Jews.
There is no commandment I am aware of that Jews must go forth to convert non-Jews to Judaism (and to pray in the jewish God’s temple) as is the case in the Koran that commands Muslims to force conversion, death or subjugation upon non-Muslims.
It seems you have gone to an awful lot of trouble to confirm a small qualification to what I said. That is hardly reason for you to end your disseration with your smugly gloating exclamatory “WRONG AGAIN NARVEY!!!”. Then again petty victories, get some people off and I guess that includes you. It is however very debateable whether this small qualification to what I said that you uncovered even rises to the level of a petty victory.
Surely Yamit there are far more important things to occupy your time with, then trying to show me up.
Yamit my friend (Uncle Nahum), G-d bless you and the family on this Holy Observance of Yom Kippur.
Everyone I talk to agrees that Obama’s treatment of Israel is off the wall. He is painting himself a true anti-Semite.
I hope and pray the Israeli leadership pays no attention to him and they go about doing what is best for Israel.
Why even meet with Palestinians when they have Obama (dark skin Carter) in their corner. It’s a stacked deck with the ace of spade on top. Now they are using the race card if you disagree with him or his policies. Bull
Narvey I am not a teacher or rabbi and lack the patience to educate Jewish ignoramuses, especially middle aged apostates. What you call small qualification is core Jewish thought and core to understanding Judaism.
Here you go again and are personally internalizing correction of fact to your comments, as a personal attack if not an affront. I don’t care about what you think personally. Seems your inflated ego is your most dominant personality characteristic and also weakness.
I would gladly relinquish my self appointed role of defender of Judaism on this site if someone else would step up. Apparently most are as ignorant as you are. I hope you were a better Lawyer than you are a Jew.
Yamit, why deny the undeniable? You do look for things to take issue with me on.
Why that is, I don’t know.
It is your ego and not mine that has proven very thin skinned. Your continuing to assail me in that regard only proves my point. Note, I rarely impute psychological failings to you when I take you to task on some point. Your imputing psycological failings to me however is one of your typical and frequent retorts to my disagreeing with you.
Take your own advice Yamit and stop interpreting my disagreements with you as personal attacks. They aren’t!
As for your treatises on Jewish history and Israeli politics, I find much of it very informative except for the spin you put on it, which I often find myself at odds with, even accepting the history and facts you cite as fair or correct.
I have no problem with you appointing yourself as a defender of Judaism on this site and am glad you have assumed that role. My disagreements with you take nothing away from you in that regard.
In conclusion, yamit lighten up. I am on your side even when I disagree with you.
Yamit my friend (Uncle Nahum),
Thanks Ron, I don’t care so much about Hussein, he is more your problem than ours. Our problem remains BB and his circle of pygmy yes men. If BB behaves and acts as an Israeli patriot with our best interests at the forefront he and we will be alright, if not then Hussein also becomes our problem and direct adversary and so will BB. BB we can dispose of, Hussein is another story. He can do a lot of damage in the next 3 years.
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