Once Again Refuting Jewish History Deniers

...The Israeli government, then as now run by the supposedly hard line right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu, was so interested in keeping the peace that it made no effort to stop what must be considered the greatest act of archeological vandalism in history. Indeed, the Wakf’s actions must rank with the efforts of the Taliban and ISIS to destroy the vestiges of pre-Islamic cultures in areas under their control. But while the Taliban and ISIS merely wish to erase evidence of pre-Muslim religions in the region, the Wakf, supported by the Palestinian Authority, had a more specific agenda: denying Jewish history.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
25 September '15..

In recent weeks, the conflict over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem has heated up.

Palestinians have grown increasingly violent in their effort to prevent Jews from entering the site of the two Biblical Temples that constitutes the holiest spot in Judaism. Though the state of Israel has left in place rules that prevent Jews from praying there, the Arab states and the United Nations regard the desire of Jews to visit the compound as an insult to Islam. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has called upon his people to resist the efforts of Israelis to “desecrate” holy places with “their stinking Jewish feet.” This effort to whip up Arab hate against the Jews, is a cynical act that has several precedents in Palestinian history that inevitably led to the shedding of Jewish blood. But while Israeli efforts to stop the uptick in terror in Jerusalem are being met with unfair criticism, the truth about the struggle over the sacred plateau is best illustrated by the news of a startling archeological discovery.

Researchers sifting through rubble from the Temple Mount that was dumped outside the walls by Muslim authorities have found an ancient stone seal that dates to the 10th and 11th centuries before the Common Era. That is the period of the reigns of the biblical Kings David and Solomon when the first temple was built on the site. While the find will, as is inevitable, will provoke the usual fierce debate among scholars over any such discovery, it nonetheless provides an important context to the political struggle over the Temple Mount and Jerusalem.

The reason why some will question the significance of the seal is that it was found among the 40 tons of dirt excavated by heavy machinery from the ground of the Temple Mount in the 1990s. That excavation was ordered by the Muslim Wakf that Israel has allowed to administer the site and its mosques since Jerusalem’s reunification in 1967 and was the result of a mosque building project. Though this is one of the key historic sites in the world, the Wakf had no interest in preserving the vast treasure trove of artifacts that are contained in the 35-acre Temple Mount compound. Indeed, judging by the brutality of its methods and its decision to simply dump the contents of their excavation in the Kidron Valley outside the walled city, it appears the Wakf was as interested in trashing any possible evidence of the history of this place as they were in improving their facilities.

The Israeli government, then as now run by the supposedly hard line right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu, was so interested in keeping the peace that it made no effort to stop what must be considered the greatest act of archeological vandalism in history. Indeed, the Wakf’s actions must rank with the efforts of the Taliban and ISIS to destroy the vestiges of pre-Islamic cultures in areas under their control. But while the Taliban and ISIS merely wish to erase evidence of pre-Muslim religions in the region, the Wakf, supported by the Palestinian Authority, had a more specific agenda: denying Jewish history.

In Destroying Antiquities, Palestinian Groups Ahead of ISIS

...In seeking to destroy Jewish history in Jerusalem and elsewhere, some Palestinian Arabs are—similar to the more widely covered actions by ISIS, also known as the Islamic State or Islamic State in the Levant—attempting to rewrite history for their political ends. Major media would do well to note that ISIS is far from original in its revisionism by demolition.

Sean Durns..
CAMERA Media Analysis..
25 September '15..

Destruction of antiquities and ancient artifacts by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has received considerable news media attention. Not so for other acts meant to erase the history of pre-Islamic peoples.

A Lexis-Nexis search shows that from July to September 2015, 13 editorials and articles appeared in The Washington Post alone on the threat to and eventual destruction by ISIS of one notable ancient site: the ancient Roman city of Palmyra in Syria. Yet, ISIS is far from alone when it comes to defacing and destroying evidence of ancient, non-Islamic civilizations.

Just as the al-Qaeda breakaway and now larger terrorist movement seeks to destroy antiquities that reflect a time before Islam (in Islamic terminology the Jahiliyyah or “age of ignorance”) and the Taliban dynamited the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan statues in Afghanistan in 2001, Palestinian Arabs have sought to erase evidence of the existence of the Jews on the land of Israel (eretz Yisrael) that predates any Arab or Muslim presence.

In August 2015, ISIS destroyed a fifth-century Christian monastery in the Syrian town of Qaryatain, claiming that the monastery was “worshipped without God.” The destruction received considerable media coverage, for example “Islamic State Destroys Assyrian Christian Monastery in Syria,” The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 21, 2015)

In 2013, more than 200 terror attacks occurred at Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, where the Jewish matriarch Rachel is said to be buried—119 of those attacks included the use of explosives at the sacred site. Contrasted with its coverage of ISIS destructions, 2013 saw only one Washington Post three-sentence mention of attacks on Rachel's Tomb (“Palestinian inmate buried as leaders try to halt unrest,” Feb. 26, 2013). And even that was confined to the bottom of an article detailing the death of a Palestinian terrorist.
In September 2015, four Palestinian terrorists were arrested for plotting an attack on another Jewish sacred site, Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, the ancient Shechem in Samaria, the northern West Bank. They planned to set off explosives at the site but were caught and arrested by Israeli security forces—despite the fact that the men lived in areas governed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is bound by the 1993 Oslo accords to apprehend terrorists and prevent attacks.

(Video) Dr. Gabriel Barkay and the Battle to Stop the Destruction on the Temple Mount

Prof. Barkay, interviewed by R. Chaim Richman is also a member of the Committee for the Prevention of the Destruction of Antiquities. He is one of Israel's foremost experts on the archaeology and history of the Temple Mount.

R. Chaim Richman..
The Temple Institue..
04 April '14..

Dr. Gabriel Barkay is one of Israel's archaeologists, and currently an external lecturer at Bar Ilan University. In 2005, together with archaeologist Zachi Zweig, Barkay established the Temple Mount Sifting Project, dedicated to recovering archaeological artifacts from 400 truckloads of earth illegally removed from the Temple Mount by the Waqf during 1996 - 2001. Prof. Barkay is also a member of the Committee for the Prevention of the Destruction of Antiquities. He is one of Israel's foremost experts on the archaeology and history of the Temple Mount.



For more of the 5th Annual International Temple Mount Awareness Day - Zvia Savir: http://youtu.be/GCG-wl_TKRc

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWYENkjRwVc

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out! 
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Israel Antiquities Authority, the Waqf and the Secrets from the Temple Mount

..."The fact that after everything we know today we still have tractors and equipment on the Temple Mount and that we can only do work from time to time is scandalous and its unfathomable," he said. "There is no more important place from an archaeological standpoint than the Temple Mount, but because of what I think are ulterior motives, the authorities are treating these artifacts and remnants of the past in a bewildering manner that raises difficult questions."

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
24 January '14..

The summer of 2007 was a tumultuous one on the Temple Mount. Time after time, it became clear that the attorney-general and the political echelon were tying the hands of the Israel Antiquities Authority by denying its experts the opportunity to supervise the activities of the waqf due to the political sensitivity of the issue. Many ancient artifacts and treasures were harmed, vandalized, destroyed, and stolen.

Most of the media and public attention was devoted to the lapses in the authorities' supervision of the Temple Mount. That includes the police, the Jerusalem municipality, the IAA, the attorney-general, and the political echelon. In 2008, the state comptroller wrote scathing reports about this series of mishaps and the tremendous damage caused to antiquities on the mount. These reports are still classified despite the fact that their contents were released abroad.

For those individuals who are well-versed in the details, it is hard to shake the impression that the shroud of secrecy has less to do with maintaining state security, public order, and Israeli foreign relations, and more to do with covering the tracks of the authorities.

Not only have the relevant government agencies failed to prevent acts of vandalism and destruction on the Temple Mount -- acts which have been written about in the press for years -- but they have also prevented the public from being informed of new archaeological discoveries that came to light as a result of unauthorized, unfettered, and unchecked excavations by the waqf and Muslims on the Temple Mount.

This is not the kind of publicity that the Antiquities Authority was hoping for. It usually wants press attention whenever it unearths a valuable historical item. Now, however, it is walking around the Temple Mount on its tiptoes with its hands tied. All of the relevant authorities in charge -- whether it has been the Israelis since 1967; the Jordanians from 1948 until 1967; and even the British since 1917 -- have refrained from conducting excavations on the Temple Mount.

The Muslims have consistently quashed any attempts to dig there. Nonetheless, thanks to routine construction and maintenance of structures which was carried out at the site by Muslims, hundreds of artifacts and treasures were accidentally unearthed, some of them truly historic which were documents by the authorities as well as researchers and scientists.

Most of this material is buried in the files of the IAA as well as the Mandate-era archives. It has not been released to this day primarily so as not to embarrass the Muslims in confirming a Jewish and Christian historical presence on the Temple Mount, which the findings indeed do. To this day, Muslims deny that there was ever a Jewish link to the site, so much so that the Jewish Temple is referred to as al-Maz'um ("the imagined entity" or "the false entity").

Years ago, noted archaeologist Tzachi Dvira published an impressive essay which included new information from various excavations on the Temple Mount in the previous century. The essay ran in Bar-Ilan University's scientific journal titled Hidushim B'Heker Yerushalayim ("New Revelations in the Study of Jerusalem"), but the news media ignored it.

Dvira poured through the British Mandate archives and found a treasure trove of material. He discovered piles of photographs and documents that were accumulated by Robert Hamilton, the director of the Mandate Antiquities Authority, during the period in which the waqf performed extensive renovations on Al-Aqsa mosque. The mosque had suffered damage due to the earthquakes that struck the area in 1927 and 1937.

In Hamilton's comprehensive book about Al-Aqsa mosque, which was published in the mid-20th century, there is no mention of these items. Hamilton simply "overlooked" them. Dvira notes that all of these revelations are similar in that they "precede the early Arab period." Then, as now, the documentation and the studies were dependent upon the good will of the waqf. That is why the British scientist declined to release findings that proved the existence of historic buildings at the site before there was ever a mosque.

(Tisha B'Av 2013) The Churban underneath the Mount

This is just a little bit of the desecration happening every single day on - and within - the Temple Mount. I wish all who observe Tisha B'Av an easy and meaningful fast, and may this be the last time we mark this as a day of mourning.

Elder of Ziyon..
15 July '13..

Monday night and Tuesday are Tisha B'Av, a fast day that commemorates the destruction of the Jewish Temples and other catastrophes.

I won't be posting until Tuesday afternoon, but meanwhile, here is something appropriate for the day.

In 1996, the Israeli government gave permission to open a temporary mosque in the area of Solomon's Stables, a Herodian-era structure that was built underneath an extension to the Temple Mount. The Waqf made it permanent, and during those days of Oslo, (and right after deadly Muslim riots over the opening of the tunnels next to the Kotel) the Israeli government caved:

Muslim authorities angered Israelis on Wednesday with plans to open a new underground prayer hall at Al Aqsa mosque, on the site revered by Jews as Temple Mount and beside the Israeli tunnel project that set off rioting last month.

Hassan Tahboub, the Palestinian minister of Islamic affairs, said the hall would open in two days.

Tahboub refused to comment Wednesday on the timing, saying only that the hall was not Israel's "responsibility or property."

The previous Israeli government gave permission in January for the chamber to be used for prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and during rainy periods when worshipers cannot pray in the courtyard of Al Aqsa. But Israel did not authorize the Muslims to use it on a permanent basis.

Right-wing Israelis called for the renovated prayer hall to remain closed, saying it violates the delicate status quo over the site and that renovations might damage it.

The mosque was given the name Marwani, and Muslims claimed ex post facto that it existed since the seventh century.

That wasn't the end of the story.

(Continue)

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Discarding history - The Temple Mount is not in our hands

The Temple Mount is not in our hands • The Muslim wakf continues to damage antiquities and archeological artifacts as authorities remain helpless to prevent it • Entire Jewish, Muslim and Christian histories are being brutally dumped in garbage sites.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
04 January '13..

On a high steel scaffold next to the southern area of the Temple Mount compound’s eastern wall, workers of the Muslim wakf have been working to repair the wall for quite some time. One after another, the stones are removed from the “diseased” area of this wall, which threatened to collapse some years ago, and replaced with new surfacing stones.

The result is an eyesore: a bright spot of relatively new stones, in the eastern wall of the Mount, that stand out from the layers of earlier, darker stone surrounding it. But the aesthetic problem, which may be solved one day, is actually the easy part of the story of the Temple Mount in recent years. This story has many chapters, some that have been told and some that will be. But if the story is to be given a title, it should be “One Transgression Leads to Another.”

Let’s start from the end. Last Sunday, three trucks drove up onto the Temple Mount and discharged their cargo: more surfacing stones for the Mount’s shaky eastern wall. Afterward, the trucks turned toward the piles of debris on the Mount’s eastern section. This is no ordinary debris. Replete with archaeological artifacts, these piles of debris comprise about 3,000 tons of the soil that the Muslims dug up from the Temple Mount about 15 years ago, when they turned the area known as Solomon’s Stables, at the southeast corner of the Temple Mount, into the underground Al-Marwani mosque.

But these 3,000 tons are only a quarter of the amount. Another 9,000 tons of debris were dug up in the same place. In Nov. 1999, this enormous quantity of debris, filled with archaeological artifacts, was removed by trucks in the middle of the night and thrown, like ordinary rubbish, into illegal trash dumps.

Last week, in violation of a High Court injunction, the wakf began removing what was left of the debris on the Temple Mount (the remaining 3,000 tons). A special ministerial committee and later the police gave the wakf permission to remove trash and tree prunings only, but the Muslims loaded the trucks with some of the debris as well. An archaeologist by the name of Tzachi Dvira saw what was going on.

The Smithsonian Does The Temple Mount

Yisrael Medad
My Right Word
29 March '11

http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2011/03/smithsonian-does-temple-mount.html

The Smithsonian Magazine includes this month a great article on the current situation regarding the Temple Mount.

What is Beneath the Temple Mount?

As Israeli archaeologists recover artifacts from the religious site, ancient history inflames modern-day political tensions

By Joshua Hammer
Photographs by Kate Brooks
Smithsonian magazine, April 2011


I already have a comment there (with corrrected spelling errors):

The statement of Natsheh, the Waqf’s chief archaeologist, who dismisses Barkay’s finds because they were not found in situ, in their original archaeological layers in the ground is a bit odd. After all, it was the Waqf that (a) removed the soil from the compound; (b) did so without any pretense at preserving the value of the site; (c) prohibits any archaeological digs; and (d) himself part of the "Temple-Denial" approach of all official Palestinian Authority bodies, which would make him an involved subjective participant. 

Would that be tolerated anywhere else?

An excerpt:

Until recently, Palestinians generally acknowledged that the Beit Hamikdash existed. A 1929 publication, A Brief Guide to the Haram al-Sharif, written by Waqf historian Aref al Aref, declares that the Mount’s “identity with the site of Solomon’s temple is beyond dispute. This too is the spot, according to universal belief, on which David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt and peace offerings.” But in recent decades, amid the intensifying quarrel over the sovereignty of East Jerusalem, a growing number of Palestinian officials and academics have voiced doubts. “I will not allow it to be written of me that I have...confirmed the existence of the so-called Temple beneath the Mount,” Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat told President Bill Clinton at the Camp David peace talks in 2000. Arafat suggested the site of the Temple Mount might have been in the West Bank town of Nablus, known as Shechem in ancient times.

Five years after the Camp David talks, Barkay’s sifting project turned up a lump of black clay with a seal impression inscribed with the name, in ancient Hebrew, “[Gea]lyahu [son of] Immer.” In the Book of Jeremiah, a son of Immer—Pashur—is identified as chief administrator of the First Temple. Barkay suggests that the seal’s owner could have been Pashur’s brother. If so, it’s a “significant find,” he says—the first Hebrew inscription from the First Temple period to be found on the Mount itself.

But Natsheh—sipping Arabic coffee in his office at Waqf headquarters, a 700-year-old former Sufi monastery in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City—is dubious. He says he’s also frustrated by Israeli dismissal of Palestinian claims to the sacred compound where, he says, the Muslim presence—excepting the Crusader period (A.D. 1099-1187)—“extends for 1,400 years.” Natsheh won’t say if he believes in the existence of the First Temple, given the current political climate. “Whether I say ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ it would be misused,” he tells me, fidgeting. “I would not like to answer.”

Read more.

And if you want to sift, go here for info. Photos of finds from the dirt removed can be viewed here.

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Israeli high court: go ahead and dig

Fresnozionism.org
06 November '10

Here’s yet another story (h/t: Israpundit) about the probable destruction of artifacts which may have immeasurable historical and religious significance to the Jewish people by the Islamic Waqf which controls the Temple Mount:

The High Court ruled against the Israel Law Center this week in a petition aimed at stopping the destruction of Jewish artifacts dating back to the Temple era. The court ruled that the destruction cannot be stopped using private prosecution. In addition to rejecting the private case against the Islamic Wakf Authority on the Temple Mount, the High Court rejected the Israel Law Center’s demand that the attorney general be ordered to take action against the Temple Mount destruction.

It’s shocking and infuriating to think that this has been going on for years:

[A local resident] said that Waqf attempts to conceal the work but that it is not hard to see what is happening these days on the Temple Mount. “The Waqf works are constant, we see tractors going to and fro carrying earth. The work is taking place near the Dome of the Rock, exactly in the place between where our Holy Temple’s courtyard and the Altar used to stand. The Waqf claims they are doing pavement work there, or so they advertise in the news sites, but in practice they surrounded themselves in white burlap and we see there is scaffolding. I suppose that for paving works there should be no need for scaffolding.”

In 1999, the Waqf excavated an area of the Temple Mount referred to as ‘Solomon’s Stables’ to build a new mosque. They refused to permit archeaological supervision of the construction work. Here’s what happened, as described by an Israeli archaeologist to a Christian audience:

(Read full post)

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Israeli High Court Blocks Shurat HaDin's Prosecution of Islamic Waqf

IMRA


Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Esq.
Thursday, November 04, 2010


Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center
10 Hata'as St., Ramat Gan 52512 Israel
Tel: 972-3-7514175
Fax: 972-3-7514174
nleitner@zahav.net.il
www.israellawcenter.org

Israel's High Court of Justice has handed down a decision which blocks a first-of-its-kind private prosecution brought by Shurat HaDin against the Islamic Waqf ("Trust") in Jerusalem.

The Waqf is the radical anti-Israel authority which the government allows to oversee Muslim holy places including the mosques on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Following months of reports that the Waqf was utilizing bulldozers on the Temple Mount to carry out unauthorized construction that was obliterating ancient Jewish artifacts and the refusal of the Israeli police to act to safeguard these relics, we decided to go to Court against the Muslims.

On October 11, 2007, we filed a private criminal action against the Islamic Waqf on behalf of more than 150 Israeli citizens, indicting the Waqf members for the illegal bulldozing and destruction of Jewish artifacts. Many of these relics being destroyed date back to the First Temple Period! We accused the Islamic Waqf of seeking to eradicate all evidence of Israel's ancient connection to this holy site and trying to rewrite Jerusalem's history. We argued that it is nothing less than a religious, cultural and archaeological crime against the entire world Jewish community. We were
seeking to imprison the Waqf's leaders.

We turned to the High Court (BAGATZ) after the Attorney General (AG) moved in May 2008, to have our indictment dismissed. At that time we were notified by the AG, that his office was attempting to halt our private prosecution on the grounds that an issue with such broad public implications and interest cannot be prosecuted by private citizens. In essence, the AG refused, out of fear of the international response, to prosecute these Islamic extremists and he moved to obstruct Shurat HaDin from undertaking the litigation ourselves.

In response, Shurat HaDin argued that the AG's motives in this case were not of a pure legal nature and, thus, his office should step aside completely and not involve itself in the proceedings. We demanded that the AG be compelled by the High Court to either prosecute the case himself or allow us to continue with our legal action independently as provided for by the law.

At the oral arguments before the High Court in February 2009, we argued that the AG has a political agenda and was voicing his political considerations, rather than purely legal ones as he was mandated to do. We insisted that the AG is simply too afraid of the Arab states, the European Union, the UN and US State Department to legally defend Jerusalem. Just to note the absurdity of the BAGATZ deliberations, at one point one of the justices urged that we withdraw the petition because status of "the Temple Mount is very emotionally charged." We replied we know, and that is why we brought the indictment and the petition in the first place - it is Judaism's holiest site.

This week the BAGATZ rejected our petition and gave the Islamic Waqf a free pass to continue its destruction of Israel's sacred heritage sites. The justices held that our efforts to safeguard the ancient First Temple artifacts on behalf of world Jewry could not be done by means of a private prosecution. Alternatively, it refused to order the AG to take action against the Waqf.

It is absurd that while the Israeli government is mounting an international campaign against UNESCO to protest its labeling Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Macpelah in Hebron as Muslim mosques and denying their Jewish origins, it obstructs Shurat HaDin from acting to safeguard the status of the Jewish people's holiest site.

There is Still Time to Join us on the November 8th Ultimate Mission:
http://www.israellawcenter.org/Missions-general-information.html

And watch our MUST SEE Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZNt8u8lFZY

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Islamic movement tried to remove evidence of Jewish Jerusalem

Anshel Pfeffer
The Jewish Chronicle
12 August '10

An investigation into the failure of law enforcement agencies to prevent what is alleged to have been an attempt to wipe out Jewish history on Temple Mount 11 years ago looks set to cause widespread controversy.

The publication of the report into the removal, by night, of 6,000 cubic metres of mud from beneath the Al Aqsa Mosque by the Muslim Wakf authority that oversees the management of the mosque compound, has been suppressed for months by the government.

The dirt was dug out to make way for a new underground mosque, but Israeli archaeologists and politicians claim that another motive of the Wakf and the Islamic Movement - which financed the work - was to remove evidence of Jewish history from the site where the two temples of Jerusalem stood.

24 September '07: Archaeologist - The Government Is

Allowing the Destruction Of The Temple Mount


The excavation and building was carried out without any official permit from the planning authorities. Belated intervention by the Justice Ministry, spurred on by a rare petition signed by politicians, writers and archaeologists from the right and the left, brought the digging to an end, but it was too late.

Thousands of volunteers have been sifting ever since through the hundreds of tons of dirt, dumped in a valley east of Jerusalem, unearthing rare remnants of the Temple Mounts from all ancient periods of Jerusalem, going back to the Bronze Age. Among them were fragments and coins from the First and Second Temples, and relics of the Persian, Babylonia, Maccabean, Herodean, Roman, early Christian and Byzantine eras. The work is of questionable historic value as the rules of archaeology mandate that findings should be recorded in their original location, but is still ongoing.

(Read full story)

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First Person: Archaeological Politics—Why Is Israel Different?

Hershel Shanks
BAR
July/August '10

Not long ago, a news report landed on my desk describing an Egyptian archaeological project. The Egyptians were going to excavate the 1.7-mile avenue of the sphinxes that, almost 3,500 years ago, linked the grand temples of Luxor and Karnak. More than 1,350 sphinxes lined this glorious, but now buried, path.

There was only one problem with the project: 2,000 people now lived on the buried path. They would have to be dispossessed and relocated. The Egyptians allocated half of the project budget of 60 million Egyptian pounds to compensate these families who will be moved.

Another Egyptian archaeological project would require the demolition of the entire village of Gurna, located near the Valley of the Kings. The village was sitting over ancient tombs. Nearly 3,200 homes would have to be demolished. The government built new homes for the villagers about 2 miles away. Some villagers complained that the new houses weren’t big enough, but that was it. The mention of the dispossessed Egyptian settlers was only an incidental part of the article, which was really about the planned projects.

All nations, including the United States, take pride in their history. We, too, want to explore our past, even when it’s not something to be proud of, like our country’s history of slavery.

If we discovered a house in private hands where Lincoln had lived for a short time, you may be sure that the government would acquire it by purchase or eminent domain and make it into a national monument and tourist attraction. If it were taken by eminent domain (that is, by government edict), our constitution provides that the owner must be paid “just compensation.”

This is what happens in the United States, and this is what appears to be happening in Egypt—and all over the world.

In every country except one.

The City of David is a small hillock of 10 or 12 acres south of the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It was here that the city was confined from the Early Bronze Age (more than 4,000 years ago) until about 700 B.C. Then the city expanded to adjacent areas, but the City of David, as it is known, remained a critical part of the city.

(Read full article)

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Heralding Israel's heritage

Aron U. Raskas
The Baltimore Sun
05 March '10

The nation must defend its historical ties to the land against those who deny them

JERUSALEM--The Israeli government adds two culturally rich, millennium-old historic sites to a list of national treasures, and riots break out, followed by international condemnation. Yet, it is precisely this cynical, albeit predictable, response that demonstrates why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was right to add the Tomb of Rachel and the Cave of the Jewish Patriarchs and Matriarchs to Israel's National Heritage Sites.

There is no nation with firmer roots in a land than the Jewish people in the greater land of Israel. Yet, that great heritage has been under assault by Arab protagonists and their pusillanimous patrons for the longest time, and this has intensified in recent years.

As the Arab people began to recognize their inability to defeat the Jewish people on the battlefield, they began to cleverly craft a strategy of burying Israel's legacy in the arena of world opinion. This strategy seeks to eradicate the Jewish connection to the land and erode the support for Israel's legitimacy and very existence. Indeed, the increasingly global campaign to delegitimize Israel has been bolstered significantly by the reticence of past Israeli governments and other Jewish opinion leaders to assert the great Jewish legacy in this land.

The arrogation to itself of the "Palestinian" mantle was the first formidable success for the Arab population that shared with the Jewish people the land that came to be known as Palestine. Likewise, 50 years ago, there was nary a reference to a "West Bank" until that term was introduced by Palestinian Arab propagandists to eliminate further references to the time-honored titles of Judea and Samaria, as the land had been routinely referred to in maps, travel guides, newspapers and even U.N. resolutions.

(Read full article)
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