The Advertising Standards Authority, Britain's independent regulator of advertising in the media, recently criticized Israel for - shock of shocks - including a photo of the Western Wall in a tourism advertisement placed in British newspapers.
It asserted that Israel had no right to do so because the Western Wall is technically in East Jerusalem, and Israel cannot claim authority over land there. It is, therefore, "misleading," the ASA said, for Israel to suggest that the Western Wall is as much a part of the Jewish state as the beaches of Tel Aviv, also featured in the same ad.
The ruling implies that the Western Wall - which, as the last remaining relic of the Second Temple, represents Judaism's holiest site - should either be erased from future ad campaigns or designated as "occupied territory."
Perhaps this decision was driven by malice aforethought, especially given the current open season on Israel in important segments of the United Kingdom (the media, academia, trade unions, etc.). Or maybe not. Either way, it once again makes friends of Israel wonder about the motives of those who assail it from every imaginable direction.
If the Western Wall isn't an integral part of Israel, in fact emblematic of the country's very soul, then what is? No conceivable peace agreement with the Palestinians could exclude it from Israeli authority.
The BBC, reporting on this story, referred antiseptically to Jerusalem's Old City, "which was under Jordanian rule from 1948 until the 1967 Israeli-Arab war, when Israel occupied the eastern side of Jerusalem...."
Not for the first time, the BBC failed to mention a few salient facts.
First, dating back 3000 years to the time of King David, who made Jerusalem the Jewish people's capital, the city had never before been divided.
Moreover, the city - not some stunted version of it, but the city as a whole - embodies the very essence of the millennia-long Jewish journey.
Take Psalm 122, for example: "Pray for the well-being of Jerusalem." Or Psalm 137: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy." Or the closing words of the Passover Seder: "Next year in Jerusalem."
In how many other countries is there such an interwoven connection between the metaphysical and the physical, the ancient and the modern, the spiritual and the sovereign?
Furthermore, Jordan's 19-year rule of the Old City, including the Jewish Quarter where the Western Wall is located, was a travesty.
As the actual history of that period of Jordanian rule is not well known, let me quote at some length from a letter by Yosef Tekoah, Israel's ambassador to the UN, addressed to UN Secretary-General U Thant. It was written in 1968, when Israel was led by the left-of-center Labor Party:
"It was Jordan which, in defiance of the United Nations Charter, attacked the City [Jerusalem] in 1948, placed it under siege, and opened indiscriminate fire on its inhabitants and on its historical and religious sites.
"It was the Jordan Government which then relentlessly set about destroying the Jewish Quarter, including its synagogues and places of learning and the venerated Cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
"The inhabitants of the Jewish Quarter were uprooted, transformed overnight into refugees and forcibly prevented from returning to the homes inhabited by themselves and their ancestors.
"It was Jordan which prevented free access to the Jewish Holy Places and the cultural and humanitarian institutions on Mount Scopus, in flagrant violation of its international obligations solemnly undertaken.
"In the Jewish Quarter, all but one of the thirty-five houses of worship that graced the Old City of Jerusalem were found to have been wantonly destroyed. The synagogues had been razed or pillaged and stripped, and their interiors used as hen-houses and stables.
"In the ancient historic Jewish graveyard on the Mount of Olives, tens of thousands of tombstones had been torn up, broken into pieces or used as flagstones, steps and building materials in Jordanian military installations and civilian constructions. Large areas of the cemetery had been leveled and converted into parking places and petrol-filling stations."
And finally, since the city was reunited in 1967, following a war foisted upon Israel by blood-curdling threats from Cairo and Damascus to destroy the country, the holy sites of all three monotheistic faiths - Christianity, Islam, and Judaism - have been scrupulously respected and protected.
That policy was enshrined into Israeli law within weeks of Jerusalem's reunification: "The Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to these places." It remains the case to this day.
I don't know exactly where the final borders of any peace deal will be drawn, should the Palestinians, after more than six decades of the politics of "no," eventually embrace Israel's outstretched hand of peace. I do know that the Western Wall will always be part of the State of Israel. It couldn't be any other way.
Surely, Britain's Advertising Standards Authority can make better use of its time than to degrade the sacred with such a profane attack.
My father was born in 1919 and grew up in the Jewish Ghetto in Rome; He fled Europe when he was the Light-Heavy Weight Boxing Champion of Italy (1934-1939) and denied his place In the Berlin Olympics. He was kicked out of the Italian military and told that he did not have a country, despite the History of Rome, Jews are still considered foreigners. I saw the turmoil of my father’s experience of being displaced through the eyes of an American living in a free country. As Jews at Passover don’t we say, “Next year in Jerusalem” as part of our tradition? I know my relatives in Italy do.
The fact of the matter is that the term, “Palestinian” was co-opted by the Arabs from the Jews in the 1950’s. Before that, “Palestinians” meant, “The Jews” and “Palestine”, meant Israel. Jews have lived in what is Israel for millennia, so maybe the Italian Jews are the real Palestinians? Maybe that should be the new rhetoric that should be repeated.
The ruins of Ostia Antica are home to the remnants of the most ancient Synagogue in Europe and during the Roman Empire, 2000 years ago, the Jews were referred to as “The “Ancient People” and my Jewish maiden name, Terracina, can be traced back over 2000 years. It was a common practice of Jews to adopt the last name from where they lived as merchants who traveled in pre-Christian times between Jerusalem and Rome. Terracina, is an ocean side village outside of Naples. Even Mussolini acknowledged that the Jews of Italy are “the original Romans” pre-dating the foreign population that settled there following the sacking of Rome.
There are countless Arab Jews who have fled their hostile native countries, resettled in Israel and been absorbed, supported and acclimated without the Israeli government turning it into an international issue for reparations? Should these Jews also be denied the right to go to the Western Wall or to be phographed there? Israel has freedom of the press; does the UK?
Should I allow others to deny me my heritage and remain silent to be politically correct?
Yes.
The Arabs have Mecca and Medina; Jerusalem is number three -and while under their rule Muslims did their best to destroy the artifacts and evidence of our Jewish history. The Christians were not allowed to experience the “Stations of the Cross” at Easter under Arab rule. Under Israeli rule there is religious freedom for Muslim, Jews, Christians, Bahai and others.
The Jewish community in Rome is over 2200 years old. Above the "Arch of Titus” built in 70 a.d. near the Coliseum, there is a relief depicting Jews being led into Rome as slaves carrying the menorah from the Second Temple in Jerusalem on their shoulders. (The second Temple was built over the site of the original temple) To this day the Jews of Rome are forbidden to go under this arch for it is a symbol of our enslavement. The exception to this was the day the State of Israel was born. On that day, the Jews of Rome gathered together and marched back through the arch in the opposite direction, as a symbol of their return to their homeland, Israel. These feelings remain strong even after two millennia http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Arch_of_Titus
He objects to description of the Western Wall as being within the "occupied territory" Israel has occupied since 1967. He objects to others' dismay with the purposeful conflation of "occupied territory" (e.g. Old Jerusalem) with "unoccupied territory" (e.g. beaches of Tel Aviv).
Instead of effectively displaying his usually-incisive rhetorical skills, in this article David wanders off subject, hoping the level of his invective will carry his readers to agreement with his (never addressed) opening salvo.
At the present time, there are several million Palestinian Muslims who are not permitted to visit the Mosques and graves of their immediate family or the homes they still hold legal title to in the land now called Israel. Somehow, a 3,000 year old "spiritual connection" based on Biblical myth takes precedence over a proven physical connection still within living memory.
Magic.
This stance is exacty why the world is turning against Israel. We (the world) grow tired of hearing year after year after year after year about how Israel can't reach a peace agreement to give a small group of people a sliver of land to form their own country. No one cares about the religious significance of E.J. to Jews or any other group, and giving it up to allow for another state does not prevent Jews from going to the site.
The world has supported israel and proped it up for decades, yet now when we ask you to suck it up and end this BS you get indignant about it an start attacking those who have shown you nothing but support? Well the world has 2 letters for Israel...F and U...trust, we will not be the one's F'ed over by this, your nation will.
At this point Israel has 2 options...end this stupidity, give up E.J. and move on with your lives with the support of the world or fight us and we force your hand...you will not like what the World comes up with.
Jewish people...do what's right, talk to your friends, let them know that a 2 state solution is the only way to keep your status in the world b/c people grow tired of your historical inability to work with any group of people.
While the Arabs do not need Jerusalem to establish their state, Israel will not continue as a Jewish state if it allows its holiest site and the beating heart of its religion again be denied to it, and this time, voluntarily, following your edict.
There are "red lines" and there are red lines. Trust me when I say that you can keep you 2 letters, and know....know...that Israelis will fight to keep their holy sites under their control. You and the whole world need to put that into your collective pipe, and smoke it.
Are you seriously quoting the Bible to establish Jerusalem's jurisdiction? Pathetic.
On top of that, this one is a real doozy: "And finally, since the city was reunited in 1967..." What you call "reunited," the community of nations has called "annexation." The rest of the world, including the United States, does not recognize Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem.
Jerusalem's jurisdiction is based on history and religion, sure. But it is more based on the fact that its population was majority Jewish until 1948; that its division as a result of the Jordanian attack was illegal and temporary (see definition of "armistice") and mostly, because Israel is in control today, and it doesn't look like it will give it up.
As for Jerusalem's reunification, it had only been divided for 19 years, due to Jordan's illegal war that it started in 1948, and reveresed in 1967. The community of nations can call it whatever they want, as they did when they called Zionism, racism. Calling it "don't make it so".
What's your point?