Posted on 05/19/2012 12:02:47 PM PDT by jjotto
The Temple Mount is in our Hands Yom Yerushalayim Day, the 45th Commemoration of the Reunification of Jerusalem
This evening in Israel begins the commemoration of Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, the 28th of Iyar in the Hebrew Calendar. The occasion marks the 45th anniversary of the reunification of the ancient and eternal capital of the Jewish State of Israel. Nineteen years after Jordanian Legionnaires routed valiant defending forces, destroyed Jewish landmarks and expelled Jewish residents of the Old City; IDF forces retook the eastern half of Israels capitol on June 7th, 1967, after fierce fighting.
Simon Sebag Montefiores book, Jerusalem: The Biography captures the moment of liberation during the climactic moment of the June Six days of War in June 1967 with this excerpt published by the National Post, The Temple Mount is in our Hands:
First the Israelis bombarded the Augusta Victoria ridge, using napalm; the Jordanians fled. Then Israeli paratroopers took the Mount of Olives and moved down towards the Garden of Gethsemane. We occupy the heights overlooking the Old City, the paratroop commander Colonel Motta Gur told his men. In a little while we will enter it. The ancient city of Jerusalem which for generations we have dreamed of and striven for well be the first to enter it. The Jewish nation is awaiting our victory. Be proud. Good luck!
At 9:45 a.m., the Israeli Sherman tanks fired at the Lions Gate, smashing the bus that was blocking it, and blew open the doors. Under raking Jordanian fire, the Israelis charged the gate. The paratroopers broke into the Via Dolorosa, and Colonel Gur led a group onto the Temple Mount. There you are on a half-track after two days of fighting with shots still filling the air and suddenly you enter this wide open space that everyone has seen before in pictures, wrote intelligence officer Arik Akhmon, and though Im not religious, I dont think there was a man who wasnt overwhelmed with emotion. Something special had happened. There was a skirmish with Jordanian troops before Gur announced over the radio: The Temple Mount is in our hands!
Meanwhile on Mount Zion, a company of the Jerusalem Brigade burst through a portal in the Zion Gate into the Armenian Quarter, hurtling down the steep hill into the Jewish Quarter, just as soldiers of the same unit broke through the Dung Gate. All headed for the Wall. Back on the Temple Mount, Gur and his paratroopers did not know how to reach it, but an old Arab showed them the Maghrebi Gate and all three companies converged simultaneously on the holy place. Holding his shofar and a Torah, the bearded Rabbi Shlomo Goren, chief chaplain of the Israeli Army, strode to the Wall and began to recite the Kaddish mourning prayer as the soldiers prayed, wept, applauded, danced and some sang the citys new anthem Jerusalem of Gold.
At 2:30 p.m., Dayan, ?anked by Rabin and Narkiss, entered the city, passing smouldering tanks, and walking through alleys totally deserted, an eerie silence broken by sniper fire. I remembered my childhood, said Rabin, and reported feeling sheer excitement as we got closer to the Kotel. As they proceeded across the Temple Mount, Dayan saw an Israeli flag atop the Dome of the Rock and I ordered it removed immediately. Rabin was breathless as he watched the tangle of rugged battle-weary men, eyes moist with tears, but it was no time for weeping a moment of redemption, of hope.
Rabbi Goren wanted to accelerate the messianic era by dynamiting the mosques on the Temple Mount, but General Narkiss replied:
Stop it! Youll enter the history books, said Rabbi Goren. Ive already recorded my name in the history of Jerusalem, answered Narkiss.
This was the peak of my life, recalled Rabin. For years I had secretly harboured the dream that I might play a role in restoring the Western Wall to the Jewish people. Now that dream had come true and suddenly I wondered why I of all men should be privileged. Rabin was granted the honor of naming the war: always modest and dignified, gruff and laconic, he chose the simplest name: the Six Day War. Nasser had another name for it al-Naksa, the Reversal.
In 1980 Israels Knesset passed a law proclaiming Jerusalem as its eternal and indivisible capital. The Muslim Ummah suggests otherwise. They contend that Allah had supposedly given Jerusalem and the world as an endowment for Muslims, but not for Jews or Christians. The mainstream media parrots the line that the world hasnt recognized Jerusalem as Israels unified capital since a final peace agreement has yet to been concluded.
As noted in a CNS report successive Presidents beginning with former President Clinton have avoided implementing an Act of Congress mandating moving the US Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israels capital:
Congress in 1995 passed a law recognizing Jerusalem as Israels capital and stating that the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999. An inbuilt waiver authority allowed the president to postpone the move, in the interests of national security, for consecutive six-monthly periods. Reflecting the strong level of support in the U.S. for Israel and for Israels claim to Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act passed 374-37 in the House and 93-5 in the Senate.
Last June 6th, President Obama elected to invoke the waiver authority. These acts by Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama suggest that the circumstances of such recognition would not be in this countrys interests. Thus, preserving the fiction that a Palestinian State would be entitled to East Jerusalem as its future capitol. The US Jerusalem consulate has been largely staffed with Palestinians in the local interests section with Arabic the predominate language of choice in handling issuance of Visas and other matters. According to Israel Matzav the US consulate in Jerusalem functions as the unofficial US embassy to the Palestinians.
In the wake of the Arab Spring and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism virtually surround the Jewish State of Israel this failure of will by US Presidents to implement the sense of the Congress in the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act of 1995 and move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem looks like abject dhimmitude by the US government.
We arrive in Tel Aviv Wednesday.
I will recall this summary as I encounter the sites mentioned here, as they have significance in multiple era’s.
Alas...if Rabbi Goren had gotten his wish, things would be very different today.
Power and force seems to be the only thing those “people” understand.
Somebody tell the truth! What's the real reason? It's hard for me to fathom Bush not getting this done in eight years. Just damn.
Yeah, looks like.
Wake up call America!!!!!
The State Department is an entity unto itself. It answers to no one and elected officials will never rein it in by cutting the money. Even Reagan wouldn’t take on State.
The State Department has always been antisemitic, originally stocked with blueblood northeastern liberals. The rise of Arab oil has given it rationale.
Congress in 1995 passed a law recognizing Jerusalem as Israels capital and stating that the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999. An inbuilt waiver authority allowed the president to postpone the move, in the interests of national security, for consecutive six-monthly periods.
Not the State Dept.
The reality is that State calls this shot. In 1948 President Truman, BTW, told State to shut up and recognized the State of Israel over vehement State Department objections.
Thank G_d the Israelis prevailed ............................................. FRegards
Live audio recording from that day, along with an English transcription:
http://www.isracast.com/article.aspx?ID=374&t=Liberation-of-the-Temple-Mount-and-Western-Wall
Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, the 28th of Iyar in the Hebrew Calendar... marks the 45th anniversary of the reunification of the ancient and eternal capital of the Jewish State of Israel. Nineteen years after Jordanian Legionnaires routed valiant defending forces, destroyed Jewish landmarks and expelled Jewish residents of the Old City; IDF forces retook the eastern half of Israel's capitol on June 7th, 1967, after fierce fighting.
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