Sunday, April 10, 2011

So, What Do They Think of Jewish Jerusalem?

They, the Arabs, really, well, don't.

For example:

Historical and Political Background

Arab and Islamic Policy towards Jerusalem


Jerusalem's Arabic roots go back 5,000 years to the time when the city of Arab Yabous (Jerusalem) was founded. As Islam has dominated the culture of the Middle East for the last 1,400 years, it has dominated Jerusalem. The historic city of Jerusalem with its Arab culture, heritage, architecture, possesses many significant monuments and sacred shrines and there is an agreement on the urgent need and duty to preserve these sites, as well as Jerusalem as a whole. Since Jerusalem has been under Muslim rule for centuries and there has been a continuous and uninterrupted Arab presence in the city, it has a significant meaning to the Arab World in general. The Islamic approach to the city in particular determines any Arab Muslim state's concern for the fate of Jerusalem and their refusal to accept or recognize Jewish rule. For the Muslim world, Israel's historical justification of its claim to Jerusalem lacks any fundamental validity since Jerusalem was under Jewish control for a much shorter period than it was under Islamic rule. If historical claims provide justification for today's "sovereignty", the adherents of Islam have a far better claim than those of Christianity and Judaism. The city was governed by Arab-Islamic politics for 1,400 years and it was under Arab-Islamic rule throughout the centuries that the city's heritage, history and culture were preserved. Islamic rule of the city always safeguarded Jerusalem's specific character and secured its propitious environment for all religious cults. During the entire period of the Ottoman Empire, for example, the millet (nation) system recognized the laws and religions of Christians and Jews.

P.S. I did a further in-depth search there and found this here:-

b) Political and Symbolic Centrality

Historically, Jerusalem is a religious, spiritual and cultural centre for all Palestinians, Christians and Muslims. Speaches and public statements of Palestinian political and religious leaders, have mentioned the importance of the preservation of the Arab character of the city35. Palestinians attribute a symbolic centrality to East Jerusalem.

East Jerusalem also occupies a fundamental place in Palestinian politics and national aspirations. For Palestinians, East Jerusalem is part of the occupied West Bank. In Algiers, on November 15th 1988, the Palestine National Council (PNC) proclaimed Jerusalem as the capital of the future independent Palestinian state. Although the PNC do no specify the exact territory designated as its capital, it is understood that they mean East Jerusalem.

After the Oslo Agreement, signed in September, 1993, political leaders of the newly established Palestinian Authority encouraged the localisation of new organizations in East Jerusalem in the order to establish the city as the capital of the eventual Palestinian state36. Faisal Husseini, a Jerusalemite leader, was appointed as minister without folio. In fact, Husseini acts at the practical level, as East Jerusalem's mayor or minister. In November, 1993, Faisal Husseini proposed the establishment of the Jerusalem National Council - Palestine. This Council will have a complex organisational structure with several departments and eventually, should act as a center for all Palestinians in Jerusalem37.

That's from a paper, a preliminary part of broader field research for a Ph.D. thesis in Urban Studies at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM). The field research is conducted with the support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) based in Ottawa and the Fonds pour I'Aide a la Recherche (FCAR) in Quebec - (while conducting her field research, Mme H. Latendresse was affiliated with Birzeit University in the West Bank) - and she doesn't mention any historical, religious or cultural Jewish connection to the city!

And this is a winner:

The Palestinians, after seven years negotiating and struggling to express their position, were shocked [shocked?]by the thoughts put forward by the US and the scenarios envisaged by the Israelis for the future of the city.

The first of these shocks came in the form of an Israeli request for Jews to be able to enter and pray in the Al-Aqsa compound. This had, it should be noted, been hinted at in ‘back-channel’ talks in the past but had never been officially requested. In Camp David it became the request of Israeli secular officials supported by the US and linked to Israeli insistence on imposing their sovereignty over the holy site (Israeli negotiators claiming that, “the Temple is under the mosque”).

Yasser Arafat rejected the notion of Israeli control over Al-Haram Ash-Sharif. In later rounds of talks the US proposed the formation of an international committee made up of the UN Security Council and Morocco (head and host nation of the Jerusalem Committee of the Organization of Islamic Conference, OIC), giving the future Palestinian state “custody” over the holy site, while affording Israeli sovereignty. This peculiar notion, as American legal experts explained, meant that Palestinian administration would be on the ‘land’ of the site while Israeli sovereignty would be beneath it (so-called ‘vertical sovereignty’). This sweeping disregard for the nature and holiness of the site only served to heighten the sense of injury felt by the Palestinians.


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