Since the existence of the Geneva initiative was publicly announced on Sunday, there has been much criticism of the process that led to the agreement. Once again the same gang of Oslo blazers - a gang not even elected by an Israeli public, who instead denounced it and kicked it out of government and centers of influence for its "amazing successes" of the past. Once more the same gang is conducting negotiations on its own and committing Israel to far-reaching and irresponsible concessions.

Criticism of the process, although it is correct and justified, is diverting attention from the central and more important contents of the agreement - and primarily from the relinquishing of Jerusalem.

I remember a discussion in the Barak government, even before Camp David, in which Yossi Beilin tried to convince us that if we would only reach "some kind of agreement" on the Temple Mount, and give Palestinians the Christian Quarter of the Old City as well, the longed-for peace would come.

I asked, why the Christian Quarter? What connection do the Palestinians have to the Christian Quarter? Beilin looked at me in surprise and said, what do you care? That's the Christians' problem. We'll achieve peace and let the Christian world worry about freedom of religion and access to its holy places.

At the time I thought that this was a matter of disdain for the values of other nations and cultures. Beilin didn't mind sacrificing Israel's relations with the Christian world and risking the access of millions of Christians to places that are the cradle of their religion, so long as we could achieve the longed-for peace. (That assumed the Palestinians would respect religious freedom the way they respect other human rights).

Today, after Camp David, Taba, and now the relinquishing of Temple Mount in the framework of the Geneva accord, I understand that Beilin's gang are not necessarily contemptuous of the values of other nations, they are contemptuous of all values. Of all, except one that is - peace.

This gang seems to have forgotten, or hasn't yet understood, that as much as we long and hope for peace, it is not a value that stands by itself. It is an essential condition for the existence of a country that wishes to live, but it isn't the goal. It was not for the sake of peace that the State of Israel was established, and it was not because of peace that millions of Jews gathered here.

Nor was it peace for which the Jewish people prayed for thousands of years. The Jewish people prayed for Jerusalem. Because of Jerusalem, the Jewish people returned to Israel from the four corners of the earth, for it they were willing to make all the necessary sacrifices. For that same dream of a thousand generations - "next year in rebuilt Jerusalem."

It should be noted that if we totally relinquish every value for the sake of peace, we won't have peace either. Just as in the past, this time, too, the Palestinians will interpret such a relinquishing of what constitutes our very identity as a tremendous weakness that calls for war.

The values symbolized by Jerusalem are not only religious in nature. One doesn't have to be religious to understand that without our historical connection to Jerusalem, without the link to the past, without the feeling of continuity with the ancient kingdoms of Israel for whom the Temple Mount was the center of existence, we really are foreign invaders and colonialists in this country.

One doesn't have to be religious in order to understand that relinquishing the Temple Mount is a justification of the Palestinian argument: You have no right to exist in this country, you have no connection to it, get out of here. One doesn't have to be religious in order to understand that relinquishing the Temple Mount is not only relinquishing the past, it is primarily relinquishing the future. The future of all of us, here.

The members of the Hovevei Zion Zionist movement were not religious - they were secular socialists who considered religion a degenerate and sick product of the exile. Despite that they fought with all their might against the Uganda Plan [a 1903 British offer to let the Jews build a homeland in Uganda]. It was clear to them that without a common past, without roots, the Zionist project had no chance of succeeding.

Even today we must understand that without Jerusalem and without our historical roots the Zionist project will not be able to survive. Without Jerusalem Israel will become just another Jewish community, one of many in the world, like that of New York, London or Toronto - except more dangerous, less wealthy and less comfortable. It will not be the center of the Jewish world, not the focus of its existence - just one more community. And if that's the case, why continue to live in it? For what? In the name of what?

I've posted my take on this before. Once more won't hurt :)

If I believed for even one minute that the Palestinians would abide by a treaty if they signed it, forever end the violence, and live in peace with us--which, BTW, I do not believe for even one minute--this "agreement" amounts to cultural suicide.

For two thousand years the Jewish people prayed for "next year in Jerusalem". Not next year in Israel or in Tel Aviv or in Haifa. Only Jerusalem, the spiritual center of Judaism. That center, in turn, is centered on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. To surrender that is to be willing to give up everything it means to be Jewish. It is, the scriptures tell us, where G-d chose to dwell on earth. Even if you don't believe that literally you have to understand the importance to Judaism. Nobody would ask Muslims to surrender Mecca or Catholics to surrender the Vatican. The Temple Mount is everything those places are and more.

In 1854, under Ottoman rule, and years before the first Jewish immigration, Jerusalem had a majority Jewish population. The city then was little beyond the Old City walls. Yet it is precisely this Old City that is somehow now being defined as "Arab". It is more Jewish than Arab in terms of history, culture, and importance. It was annexed to Israel in 1967 when no other captured lands were for a reason.

In the 1948-49 War of Independence my father was a soldier in the Israeli army fighting to lift the seige of Jerusalem. This treaty would make what he fought for, and what all Israelis have fought and died for, virtually meaningless.

Some things are worth fighting for. Jerusalem is one of them.

Needless to say, I think Minister Sharansky has this absolutely right.

Conference for Middle East Peace

The Islamic Claim to Temple Mount

Most of the problems surrounding Jerusalem can be traced to two areas of dispute. One is the political area that asks Jereusalem to be the capital of both Israel and the nascent Palestine. The other and most contentious problem is the holiness of Temple Mount to both Judaism and Islam.

The role Jerusalem has in the Hebrew holy works is well known and not open to debate; however, there are varying opinions on the holiness of Jerusalem, specifically Temple Mount to Islam.

Many if not most opinions that counter Islam's claim point out the Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran and did not occupy any special role in Islam until recent political exigencies transformed Jerusalem into Islam's third holy site.

Following is an analysis by a well known scholar:

THE MOSLEM CLAIM TO JERUSALEM IS FALSE

by Dr. Manfred R. Lehmann

The Moslem "claim" to Jerusalem is based on what is written in the Koran, which although Jerusalem is not mentioned even once, nevertheless talks (in Sura 17:1) of the "Furthest Mosque": "Glory be unto Allah who did take his servant for a journey at night from the Sacred Mosque to the Furthest Mosque." But is there any foundation to the Moslem argument that this "Furthest Mosque" (Al-Masujidi al-Aqtza) refers to what is today called the Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem? The answer is, none whatsoever.

In the days of Mohammed, who died in 632 of the Common Era, Jerusalem was a Christian city within the Byzantine Empire. Jerusalem was captured by Khalif Omar only in 638, six years after Mohammed's death. Throughout all this time there were only churches in Jerusalem, and a church stood on the Temple Mount, called the Church of Saint Mary of Justinian, built in the Byzantine architectural style.

The Aksa Mosque was built 20 years after the Dome of the Rock, which was built in 691-692 by Khalif Abd El Malik. The name "Omar Mosque" is therefore false. In or around 711, or about 80 years after Mohammed died, Malik's son, Abd El-Wahd - who ruled from 705-715 - reconstructed the Christian- Byzantine Church of St. Mary and converted it into a mosque. He left the structure as it was, a typical Byzantine "basilica" structure with a row of pillars on either side of the rectangular "ship" in the center. All he added was an onion-like dome on top of the building to make it look like a mosque. He then named it El-Aksa, so it would sound like the one mentioned in the Koran.

Therefore it is crystal clear that Mohammed could never have had this mosque in mind when he compiled the Koran, since it did not exist for another three generations after his death. Rather, as many scholars long ago established, it is logical that Mohammed intended the mosque in Mecca as the "Sacred Mosque," and the mosque in Medina as the "Furthest Mosque." So much for the Moslem claim based on the Aksa Mosque.

With this understood, it is no wonder that Mohammed issued a strict prohibition against facing Jerusalem in prayer, a practice that had been tolerated only for some months in order to lure Jews to convert to Islam. When that effort failed, Mohammed put an abrupt stop to it on February 12, 624. Jerusalem simply never held any sanctity for the Moslems themselves, but only for the Jews in their domain.

[DR. MANFRED R. LEHMANN is a writer for the Algemeiner Journal. Originally published in the Algemeiner Journal, August 19, 1994.]

To attempt to resolve the problem we examined Arab photographs taken about 1875 by the Bonfils out of Lebanon. The photographs are from a Lebanese WEB site whose address is: http://almashriq.hiof.no/general/700/770/779/historical/pcd0109.html, and http://www.lib.uchicago.edu:80/LibInfo/SourcesBySubject/MiddleEast/Photo/Jerusalem.html, and http://almashriq.hiof.no/general/700/770/779/historical/pcd0109/17.jpg

The photos were computer enhanced to build up contrast as they are old and faded.

We also added a photograph of the Western Wall, part of the same collection, to demonstrate Jewish use of the Wall.

Following are some of the description of the photographs:

17 Mosque of Omar [Dome of the Rock] and David's Judgment Seat, Jerusalem, Mosquee d'Omar et tribunal de David.
15 The Jews Wailing Place, a Friday, Mur des Juifs, un vebdredi.
19 Mosque of El-Aksa, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Mosquee, El-Aksa.
20 Mosque of Omar [Dome of the Rock] from the South, Jerusalem.
Bonfils, ca. 1875. Mount labelled "119. Different cupolas on platform of Temple." Produced by the Bonfils Studio, Beirut, and sold by Charles Taber & Co., New Bedford, Mass. Albumen. Mounted. 11 x 8.5 inches. Acquisition number 43-85.
Bonfils, ca. 1875. Mount labelled "113. Mosque of Omar and Court of David." Produced by the Bonfils Studio, Beirut, and sold by Charles Taber & Co., New Bedford, Mass. Albumen. Mounted. 11 x 8.5 inches. Acquisition number 155-85.

Dome of the Rock Note overall disrepair and lack of use	Dome of the Rock Note missing tiles and condition of roof
Dome of the Rock, additional view	Cupolas on Temple Mount Note overall disrepair and lack of use
Al Aqsa Mosque Note overall disrepair and lack of use	The Western Wall In constant use since biblical times

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.