On Sovereignty over Jerusalem, Why Not Ask History? [Archives:2000/32/Focus]

COMMON SENSE
By: Hassan Al-Haifi

Time and again, we wonder at the strange policy decisions of the United States as a responsible superpower seeking to ensure that its hegemony works for the sake of world peace and international cohesion Ð globalization. One would not fail to understand that much of this policy is to be dictated by a lot of self Ð interest. However, the American policy on the Middle East seems to be dictated by disregarding much of what the United States stands for. On the other hand such policy is often dictated, not so much by the wishes of the majority of the American public, but by the arrogant and often misleading dictates of the proponents of Zionism, who have made deep inroads into the American political machinery using techniques from Monica Lewinsky to political contributions, to arm-twist American politicians to fall within the goals and aspirations of a Zionist machinery that might be driving American interests to the brink of patience of a lot of those who sit on top of those interests: half of the world’s oil reserves, to say the least.
We think it prudent that the American policy makers, not necessarily represented by the likes of Madeleine Al-Bright, Dennis Ross and many other members of the American Jewish Community, who are not expected to take their professional duties and the American national interests to heart, before ensuring that the Zionist masterminds in the United States and Israel have expressed their opinions and issued their dictates as to how Middle East policy is to be formulated and implemented accordingly, should take a less sinister approach towards the Middle East, if they are to truly mediate a “peaceful” settlement of the Middle East conflict, and to ensure that the patience of the people of the region is not driven to the brink.
For one thing, they cannot rely on the mere token positions of Arab leaders vis–vis an issue that the Arab population is not alone severely affected by, but perhaps has the solid backing of an entire Moslem population of the world, which encompasses more than a billion souls who have no hesitation in carrying out any action that ensure that matters of religious sanctity are not infringed upon by any blind and arrogant policy makers, who are really limited in their outlook and perhaps confident that they can dictate American policy and programs in the directions perceived by the New York diamond dealers and publishers who insist that the only holy structure in Jerusalem is the “Wailing Wall”.
Jerusalem is first and foremost a sanctified holy fortress that has been protected by the Al-Mighty for the worshippers of the world and has been safeguarded by Islamic jurisprudence over the area for thousands of years, with the latter having proven the strong tolerance and respect that Islam holds for all the shrines of the monotheistic faiths. Since the Caliph Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, gracefully declined the offer of the Patriarch of Jerusalem to pray in the Church of the Ascension, after the Moslem Armies liberated their Arab Christian cousins in Jerusalem, from Byzantine oppression, for fear that he could set a bad example of violating the exclusive rights of the Christians to their holy shrines, although Islam has no qualms about regarding Christian and Jewish houses of worship as acceptable for Moslems to carry out their prayers therein, as long as they do not violate the rights of the religious communities that have sway over those houses of worship. Instead the pious and modest Caliph of the Moslem World, who has seen both the Roman and Persian Empires crumble in less than a decade by the indefatigable Moslem armies that could not be stopped by any power then, no matter what the odds were against them, and submit to the tolerance of Islamic jurisprudence, without so much as seeing one church or house of worship destroyed or transformed into mosques (unless the entire community involved has converted to Islam and the people of the community themselves insisted that the relevant house of worship has outlived its usefulness as a Christian or Jewish house of worship and surely is to be adapted to the new faith of the community. We must emphasize here that such conversions were voluntary and were induced by the tolerance and justice that Islamic jurisprudence reflected by both Moslem scholars and the military and civil service that served the Islamic faith at the time.
Thus history certainly proves, that if anyone has controlled the holy places of all the faiths in Jerusalem, with the appropriate degrees of tolerance and protection to ensure their sustainability, it was Moslem authorities who have ruled the area for well over 15 centuries. The fact that the Wailing Wall, the Church of the Ascension and many other holy shrines of Moslems, Christians and Jews still remain intact to this day is testimony that, for all intents and purposes, it should be the indigenous Moslem and Christians of Palestine who should still maintain the “sovereignty” over these shrines, for the simple reason that they have a proven record of preserving their sanctity and their structures intact.
In looking back at the Zionist record in Palestine and in the other areas of the Holy Land, it would seem apparent that the Zionists have repeatedly and openly violated the sanctity of the Moslem and Christian shrines, with more indiscreet attention shown particularly the Islamic shrines. They have discriminately carried out massacres of worshippers as they are praying, even in the most sacred of months (during the Holy Month of Ramadhan), such as the massacre in the Al-Khalil Mosque in Hebron, where hundreds of Moslem worshippers were gunned down in cold blood by Zionist hooligans, who to this day have yet to be even reprimanded for this heinous crime. However, then in the eyes of American foreign policy makers like Mrs. Albright these are not terrorists. Only Moslems who insist on protecting their own holy places and the places of their Christian cousins are terrorists, because they threaten that all Moslems should do anything in their power to prevent any change to the sanctity of Moslem jurisprudence over the areas, which are even recognized by the former imperialist power that had the mandate over the area, which never refuted the legitimacy of Moslem ownership over the Holy sites in Jerusalem, perhaps they realized for sure that if the ownership changed hands, then surely the Christian shrines will be threatened by Zionist hooligans who have no qualms or who show no hesitation about carrying out ethnic and religious cleansing by any means possible. For Moslems, it is not just a matter of legitimate rights; it is a religious duty to do so. History has proven that there is no way that Zionism should be allowed to hold sway over the holy sites revered by over half the population of the Earth, since the proponents of this demagogic philosophy have literally changed the face of the areas they have stolen from its rightful owners and do not hide the fact that they have no hesitation about carrying out their Zionist dream of Eretz Israel Ð from the Euphrates to the Nile, banking on the continued blind support of the United States, who seem to have become blinded to historical facts and the logical aspirations of the non-Jewish constituencies that make up the American public, who considerably outnumber the Jewish and particularly the Zionist constituencies, who never fail to hide their “double loyalty” to the robbery that has become Israel and to their make-believe loyalty to the United States.
Nevertheless, one appalling situation fails to convince this observer of any hopes to be found in the existing leaderships of the Arab and Moslem populations of the world. One is not oblivious to the feelings of the people in the street, in most of the Arab and Moslem countries of the world, as to their views on the recent threats by the United States of moving their embassy to Jerusalem. For sure, had they been allowed by their leaders to express their views openly in the streets, for sure the American policy makers might be brought to twice about moving their embassy, if they could see first hand the anger and disgust at the almost blind implications of American foreign policy towards the region. Literally millions would come out in the streets to denounce such policy decisions and to ensure that they will indeed carry out any and all necessary measures that would insure that the sanctity of Moslem beliefs are not to be taken lightly, if these policy makers are willing to take their own real interests lightly. One only has to recall that after the 1973 rescue of Israel by the United States, this observer witnessed American motorists by the millions line up for hours to get their limited rations of gasoline, because one serious minded Moslem leader Ð the truly majestic King Feisal of Saudi Arabia decided to close the faucet of oil flowing to the United States and other Western countries, because he was, like most Arabs and Moslems of the world just fed up with the blind justice that the United States deems appropriate for the region. However, where are the present Moslem and Arab leaders from the venerable man of principles that King Feisal was then, who gave his life for the principles he stood for? Accordingly, he has achieved the ultimate goal of martyrdom for his faith and the love of his fellow Arabs and Moslems indefinitely. Carry on Mohammed Hussein Nasrullah (of Hizbullah), you are on the right track!

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