Maggie's Farm

What the heck is the Hurva, and what is its current role in Israel-Palestinian and Israel-US tensions?  The Hurva (“ruin” or “wreck” in Hebrew) has become a target for the Palestinian campaign to denigrate Israel’s Jewish heritage, and the Obama administration is cooperating.

Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to avoid being smeared as was former Prime Minister Sharon as justification for Palestinian attacks upon Israel and Israelis, that the Obama administration is in its misguided incompetence encouraging.

Former Prime Minister Sharon was falsely accused of inciting the Second Intifada by the Palestinians by his visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000. However, on December 6, 2000, the semi-official Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam reported as follows:

Speaking at a symposium in Gaza, Palestinian Minister of Communications, Imad Al-Falouji, confirmed that the Palestinian Authority had begun preparations for the outbreak of the current Intifada from the moment the Camp David talks concluded, this in accordance with instructions given by Chairman Arafat himself.

Before Israel’s independence, the most important synagogue in Jerusalem was the Hurva.  The Hurva sat on the high ground in the Jewish Quarter.

Here’s an aerial photo from 1940. The Jewish quarter is at the bottom of the image. The two large domes are the Hurva Synagogue, at the lower right, and the Tiferes Yisrael Synagogue.  Both were destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948, after starving out the Jewish inhabitants of the Jewish Quarter.

In 1948, British officers led their Arab Legion to destroy the Hurva, and other synagogues in the Jewish Quarter. The Jordanian commander is reported saying: "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible." In sum:

After the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem was captured, the destruction, desecration and systematic looting of Jewish sites began and continued. 57 ancient synagogues (the oldest dated to the 13th century), libraries and centers of religious study were ransacked and 12 were totally and deliberately destroyed. Those that remained standing were defaced, used for housing of both people and animals. The city's foremost Jewish shrine, the Western Wall, became a slum. Appeals were made to the United Nations and in the international community to declare the Old City to be an 'open city' and stop this destruction, but there was no response. This condition continued until Jordan lost control of Jerusalem in June 1967.

Christians also suffered under Jordanian rule.

In 1958, Jordanian legislation required all members of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre to adopt Jordanian citizenship. In 1965, Christian institutions were forbidden to acquire any land or rights in or near Jerusalem. In 1966, Christian schools were compelled to close on Fridays instead of Sundays, customs privileges of Christian religious institutions were abolished.

Israel commemorated the Hurva site with an arch.

Eight years ago a reconstruction of the Hurva started, and is to be opened this Monday.

(Notice that the nearby Moslem minaret is undamaged under Israeli rule, as all Moslem and Christian sites are not damaged by Israel, in contrast to the fate of Jewish sites under Moslem rule.)

As an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal concludes: “What is clear is that the inauguration of the old-new Hurva—twice destroyed, and now twice rebuilt—represents a deep and irrepressible Israeli urge to heal and rebuild, not in order to obscure memory but to preserve it.”

But, the Palestinians, seeking another way to attack Israel’s Jewish history, claim that the new Hurva is part of a plot to take away their Al Aqsa Mosque built upon the Mount where the Jewish Holy Temple stood.

Saraya, the Islamic Jihad newspaper, says that Hurva is being built on an Islamic neighborhood, and says that the construction of the Third Temple will commence on March 16th. The Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation says that the Hurva dedication will take place on Sunday and Monday, also to be followed by the public start of the building of the Third Temple, as well as more Jews "storming" Al Aqsa for Passover at the end of the month.

The Palestinians are encouraged by the Obama administration’s reaction in February to Israel naming two of Judaism’s holiest sites as heritage sites, to be renovated.

The Obama administration sharply criticized Israel on Wednesday [February 24]  for designating the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb, both in West Bank cities, to the list of Jewish heritage sites marked for renovation and preservation….

This reflected the Obama administration’s anxiety to show some progress after a year of alienating Israel and encouraging Palestinian intransigence by getting the Palestinians to agree to non-face-to-face talks with Israel.

Israel has good reason to be protective of its heritage sites, as demonstrated by the October 2000 Palestinian sacking and burning of Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus and the September 2000 destruction of archeological remnants of the Jewish Temple on the Mount. Other examples.

Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided not to personally attend the ceremony for the reopened Hurva.  He says he’s “busy”.  Knowledgeables in Israel say that Netanyahu is afraid of being provocative in the wake of the Obama administration’s stink about adding Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs to the heritage sites for renovation and protection. The Obama administration added stink in a teapot during Vice President Biden’s visit to Israel last week, protesting Israel’s right to build within Jerusalem, although Jerusalem was excluded by a previous Israeli ban to please Obama and the unpleasable Palestinians on building in the West Bank.  The Obama administration adds fuel to the fire that Netanyahu is trying to avoid with the Palestinians by actually encouraging further intransigence by the Palestinians.

We know the Palestinians won’t be satisfied by anything less than the utter destruction of Israel.  The Obama administration is on the same course of destroying Israel’s ability to be Jewish.

As Caroline Glick said last June in receiving a prestigious honor: “Our enemies are right in choosing their targets. They are right because they know who we are. We are the children of Jerusalem, of Zion. Our physical and spiritual survival is dependent on our willingness to dedicate our lives in every generation to guarding both the physical and spiritual walls of this city. “

P.S.: Worth reading at the Washington Post. The unreality of Obama's Israel policy.  Also see Obamá's latest pretext for attacking Israel at Powerline.

UPDATE March 16: The New York Times reports on the Hurva dedication, sorta.  But forgets to mention that Hamas announced a "day of rage" for Tuesday and that Fatah echoes in competition for being worthy negotiation partners, according to Obama anyway.