Nebi Musa Massacre - The Postulate of Illegitimacy, Then and Now

...Considering their penchant for distorting history, Israel’s detractors are doubtless tempted to describe 1920’s predators as oppressed Palestinian peasants protesting against usurper Jews. It must, therefore, be a whopping downer to discover that none of this homicidal fury was unleashed on behalf of Palestine. The Arabs loathed the very name introduced to this country by its new British overlords.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
04 April '14..

Something strikingly dramatic happened in this country exactly on this day 94 years ago. Cries of Itbach el-Yahud(slaughter the Jews) filled the air. It was the first coordinated mass-murder offensive launched by infamous Jerusalem Mufti Haj-Amin el-Husseini (who would in time become an avid Nazi collaborator, Hitler’s personal guest in Berlin during WWII and a wanted war-criminal).

Ever since, this land shook fitfully as rounds of massacres and wars followed each other in breathless succession. The past mustn’t be consigned to irrelevance. Unbroken historical continuities contextualize current events. Nothing springs forth from a vacuum. What now transpires began back then.

The pivotal murder-drive of 1920 and its aftermath are vital for understanding why John Kerry’s peace pageant is a flop and why Israel so profoundly displeases him, his boss Barack Obama and their pet-Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas. It established the prototype whereby Jews are punished for Arab crimes against Jews. It highlights the pattern of appeasing Arab wrath and of Jews paying – as if Jewish existence is in and of itself a casus belli.

The bias maddeningly came into play already in 1920. It’s the bias that has today burgeoned into the escalating extortion and shameless expectation that Israel release convicted murderers as a matter of course and injure its own interests to keep its enemies sweet. It’s as if Israel has no valid interests, no rights. This is the postulate of illegitimacy.

Western antipathy to Jewish self-preservation was already gallingly evident in 1920, as was indulgent acquiescence to Arab aggression. It’s scary to realize how little has actually changed.

Those deadly landmark rampages were kick started on April 4, 1920, exploiting Muslim celebrations to rally thousands of raiders at Nebi Musa in the Judean Desert. Serially inflamed by Husseini’s vitriolic harangues, they poured into Jerusalem, descended upon the Old City’s Jewish Quarter and began butchering, raping, pillaging and burning – all in the name of their God.

The premeditated atrocity lasted four days. Even passing reflections on its overlooked anniversary (it’s so uncool to recall crimes against Jews), can contribute considerably to our present-day perspectives.

This unprovoked killing-spree was launched before any of the excuses for Arab bloodlust – now so conveniently and commonly cited – had existed. There was no Jewish state to fulminate against and no Israeli occupation with which to justify any outrage against Jews in the Jewish homeland.

There was no hint of what the Palestinians market so effectively as their nakba – catastrophe. There wasn’t a single Arab refugee. There was no war, no displacement, no reason to rage.

The 1920 victims were largely members of the old-time, traditional, pre-Zionist Jewish community that had long before then constituted Jerusalem’s outright majority. Yet this ancient community was deemed fair game. The subtext was that Jews have no rights – not even indigenous non-Zionists.

Considering their penchant for distorting history, Israel’s detractors are doubtless tempted to describe 1920’s predators as oppressed Palestinian peasants protesting against usurper Jews. It must, therefore, be a whopping downer to discover that none of this homicidal fury was unleashed on behalf of Palestine. The Arabs loathed the very name introduced to this country by its new British overlords.

Ironically, it was the Jews who became known throughout the first half of the 20th century as Palestinians and it was the Arabs who scornfully rejected the moniker.

From amid the turmoil, the Hurva and Tiferet Yisrael synagogues rise again

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
25 December '12..

On Friday, May 25, 1948 (Iyyar 12, 5709), several hours before the onset of Shabbat, the Nissan Beck (Tiferet Yisrael) Synagogue collapsed into ruins, along with its beautiful dome. Plumes of fire and smoke ascended upward, and a large cloud of dust at first obscured the destruction. Arab terrorists had managed to hide a large explosive device under the synagogue and detonate it.

Esther Cailingold and a handful of comrades were defending the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City on behalf of the Haganah. They watched tearfully as one of the outstanding symbols of Jerusalem's Old Yishuv collapsed. Nevertheless, the fighting continued around it.

The Jewish Quarter's children, some of them just 9 and 10 years old, were there too. The younger ones strengthened fortifications. Children of 12 and older acted as liaisons, passing along messages, food and even weapons and ammunition to the fighters.

Some of these children took active part in the fighting and were killed, including Yaffa Harush, 16, and Nissim Gini, 10, the youngest person to fall in battle in Israeli history. Four days before the Jewish Quarter fell, at the Karaite site next to the synagogue, Esther Cailingold sustained serious injuries.

She was carried to the Armenian monastery. While on her deathbed, she wrote these final words to her parents in England: "I am writing to beg you that whatever may have happened to me, you will make the effort to take it in the spirit I want. We had a difficult fight. I have tasted hell but it has been worthwhile because I am convinced the end will see a Jewish state and all our longings ... I want you to remember that we were soldiers and had the greatest and noblest cause to fight for ... I have lived my life fully, and very sweet it has been to be here in our land ... I hope one day soon you will all come and enjoy the fruits of that for which we are fighting. Be happy and remember me only in happiness. Shalom, Esther."

At the beginning of this month, the state paid off another debt to Cailingold and 66 other fighters and civilians who fell defending the Jewish Quarter in 1948. It approved a plan of the Company for the Reconstruction and Development of the Jewish Quarter to rebuild the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue. Like its twin, the Hurva Synagogue, which was restored to its original glory several years ago, Tiferet Yisrael's restoration will be faithful to the original. The ruins of the old structure, including the western facade, the southern facade and the ritual baths will be incorporated into the new building.

Yes, still another false-moderation-of-Palestinian-leadership hoax

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
09 July '10

Doesn't the West ever learn?

Step 1: Al-Hayat reports that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas offers to give Israel the Jewish Quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem and the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple to Israel in a peace agreement.

Step 2: Media covers this extensively as great concession and proof that the Palestinian Authority wants peace.

Step 3: PA spokesman denies it.

And I happen to know for a fact that this story wasn't true.

Over and over and over and over and over again.

PA prime minister Salam Fayad says Jewish settlers welcome to stay in Palestinian state. This contradicted every statement the PA and its leaders ever made. Media coverage. Denial.

A lone Palestinian whom nobody knows claims Israel committed massacre in Jenin. Media goes wild though there's no proof. UN disproves allegation. (Some still believe it.)

PA parliament stages hoax, holding a session during broad daylight with curtains closed to "prove" Israel has shut off power. Shown to be false.

Multiple examples of altered photographs, false atrocity stories, etc.

Would it be beneficial if I listed a hundred such examples? Many of these are deliberately engineered, usually to claim falsely Israel has commited some crime, more rarely to exaggerate Arab or Palestinian moderation.

Remember that reporters demand daily that the Israeli government prove that it didn't do something or other. Either there's no time to look into the issue, meaning there is no denial or disproof, or a lot of effort is put into disproving the lies, which takes up the energy of a limited staff and, by the time an authoritative answer is documented, the media ignores it any way.

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Is Temple Mount in our hands?

Renouncing Jewish right for Mount paves way to losing right for entire land


Efraim Halevy
Israel Opinion/Ynet
08 July "10

The many statements recently issued by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas included one where he expressed his willingness to let Israel maintain its control over Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall. Various Palestinian spokespeople and Knesset Member Dr. Ahmed Tibi were quick to stress that this willingness comes with an unequivocal Palestinian position demanding full, exclusive sovereignty over the Temple Mount.

Whatever Israel’s position on other territorial issues, we must warn against such a “deal” with the Palestinians. Moreover, during negotiations with the Palestinians in the framework of the Geneva Accord, they fought for ensuring that the term “Kotel” refer only to part of the Western Wall – the small section where Jews pray today. Hence, Abbas’ words only refer to the limited plaza at the Wailing Wall and not to the entire Western Wall, let alone the Kotel tunnels.

Israel’s demand for the Western Wall is not premised on the Kotel being a holy Jewish site in and of itself. The demand is premised on the Kotel being a remnant of our Temple. Anyone recognizing our right for the Western Wall must recognize the fact that the Kotel is part of a structure or several structures that Jews have no less attachment to than the Muslims. One who has no right for the structure has no right for any wall of that structure.

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New Revelations about Old City in Ha'aretz Editorial

Ha'aretz: The Jewish Quarter is a "disputed area disputed area

. . . on the agenda during negotiations with the Palestinians"

Tamar Sternthal
CAMERA/Snapshots
16 May '10

Ha'aretz readers were treated to an eye-opening editorial on Thursday about the Israeli government's alleged incitement concerning Jerusalem. The prime example of governmental incitement, according to the esteemed Ha'aretz editors, is the following:

The greatest achievement of all, however, belongs to Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, who has doubled the number of schoolchildren visiting the Temple Mount and the City of David, from 200,000 two years ago to 400,000 since the start of the current school year. Under a new program drafted by the Education Ministry on the minister's orders, students are obligated to visit Jerusalem at least three times during their 12 years of school.

In theory, there is nothing wrong with this. Yet the visits tend to focus on sites like the Old City's Jewish Quarter, the Western Wall tunnels, Zion Gate and the archaeological excavations of the Temple Mount's southern wall - all disputed areas that are on the agenda during negotiations with the Palestinians, and are also associated with new Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem. Moreover, the tours, which are led by guides from the extreme right-wing organization Elad, blatantly ignore the Palestinians' existence and bear the clear stamp of religious nationalist indoctrination.

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NYT Blames Israel For Palestinian Incitement

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
16 March '10

The Hurva Synagogue was the premier Jewish place of worship in Jerusalem's Old City in the 19th and early 20th Centuries -- until Jordanian troops destroyed it in 1948. On March 15, after several years of painstaking restoration, it came to life again -- an exact replica of the old Hurva.

In the week before its reopening, however, the Palestinian Authority unleashed a vicious conspiracy campaign that falsely claimed that reopening the Hurva was a prelude to Israel's intent to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount to make room for the Third Jewish Temple. Palestinian officials called on Arabs to rush into the Old City by the thousands to "defend" Al-Aqsa -- the usual rallying cry for violent riots and the unleashing of stone barrages from Temple Mount on Jewish worshippers below at the Western Wall. Israeli authorities had to deploy several thousand police to prevent what could have been a bloody conflagration.

So how did the New York Times report this latest inciteful provocation by the Palestinian side in violation of its obligations under the U.S. road map's requirement that Palestinians cease all anti-Israel incitement?

Answer: By putting the blame on Israel! Yes, it's all Israel's fault.

In a March 16 article headlined "Rebuilt Synagogue Is Caught In Disputes Over Jerusalem," Isabel Kershner's lead paragraph reads as follows:

"In what appeared to be a case of unfortunate timing, Israel officially inaugurated a rebuilt synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City on Monday, entangling what was intended to be a festive cultural event with the diplomatic row over new Israeli construction in the contested territory."

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The Hurva’s symbolism

Twice destroyed and twice rebuilt, the Hurva synagogue is a symbol of the Jewish people’s tenacious insistence on returning to its rightful land against all odds.

JPost Editorial
15 March 5770

A dedication ceremony will be held today, the eve of the first day of Nissan, for the Hurva (literally “ruin”) Synagogue, located in the middle of the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

More than just a house of prayer, the Hurva was a venue for key historical events – Herzl’s visit to Jerusalem, a recruitment ceremony for Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Jewish Legion, the honoring of pro-Zionist British High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel – leading to the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty.

It symbolizes, perhaps more than any other site, the Jewish people’s yearnings to return to its homeland. It is concrete proof that Judaism cannot be reduced solely to an abstract religious faith devoid of national aspirations, as some – most notably German Jews of the the 19th century and contemporary Jewish anti-Zionists – attempted to claim.

While the Western Wall has been the focal point of prayers for redemption, the Hurva has been at the center of Jewish activism to maintain a presence in the Land of Israel.

Already in the Second Century CE, less than a hundred years after the destruction of the Second Temple and the end of Jewish sovereignty, a synagogue existed on the Hurva site. During the Byzantine era it was here that a road leading to the Jewish Quarter and to the Temple Mount broke off from the main market plaza known as the Cardo. In the 13th century it was called the Ashkenazi compound by European Jews who had “returned” to their homeland.

But Jews faced constant opposition. In Jerusalem, which was known to have a special religious meaning for Jews, a Muslim decree was strictly enforced. According to historian Arie Morgenstern, Muslims wanted “to prevent, heaven forbid, the realization of Jewish hopes regarding the prophecies that foresaw the return to Zion and the rebuilding of Jerusalem.”

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Re: They Haven’t Learned the Lesson

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
4 March '10

The Obami seem to have adopted, if not encouraged, the Palestinian predilection to see an array of Israeli actions as provocation. Building homes within its capital or protecting biblical sites are all provocative to the Palestinian sensibilities. So in rush the Obami, filled with condemnation for Israel. But frankly, practically everything — including Israel’s existence — is provocative to many Palestinians. A case in point: the restoration of the Hurva synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City (destroyed when Jews did not control the site) is now a source of outrage for the Palestinians:

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The erasure of Jewish history and heritage

Bataween
Point of No Return
09 March '10

The Arab and Muslim outcry against Israel's proposed restoration of Jewish heritage sites in Hebron is symptomatic of a campaign to deny and erase Jewish history and heritage in the region as a whole. Read my guest post on CiFwatch.


The rebuilt Hurva synagogue in the old city of Jerusalem (With thanks: Eliyahu)

Rising from the ashes like a phoenix, the rebuilt Hurva synagogue is about to be inaugurated in Jerusalem’s Jewish quarter.


The synagogue, restored to 19th century magnificence with its finely carved wooden pillars, gilt ornamentation and frescoes of Jerusalem, is a rare symbol of the revival of Jewish life after Israel’s post-1967 reunification of the city. The synagogue was razed to the ground in 1948, dynamited by the Transjordanian Arab Legion, along with scores of other synagogues. The old city was depopulated of thousands of its Jewish inhabitants, their homes looted, the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives desecrated and its tombstones used for latrines and as paving stones.

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