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Jerusalem and Islam (17)
Posted on: 2002
By Sami Rami
Before the advent of Islam, Palestine and the rest of Bilad al-Sham (Syria, Jordan, Palestine) was populated by the Arab tribes of Ghassans, Kalb, Lakham, Jutham and others. 
Ahead the of the Prophet’s Mission, Mohammad was in touch with those tribes twice during his two trips to Bilad al-Sham. He has foreseen them as backing up their Arab brothers in the Arabian Peninsula. Three forays, Zat Assalasil, Mu’ta and Tabuk, were launched in the Prophet’s time, enabled early Arab Muslims to stretch their sway to Bilad al Sham’s frontiers. The Prophet, himself, participated in the last foray.
No sooner had he ordered the preparation of a strong expedition, that his Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, were ordered to participate in it. The expedition was under the leadership of Usama Ben Zaid.
While everyone was readying himself to the coming mission, the Prophet died in 632. But the sudden death of the Prophet created the problem of the renegades and turncoats. His successor, Caliph Abu Bakr, adopted a decisive policy in dealing with those who turned—after the Prophet’s death– their back to Islam. He ordered the army of Usama to move the Sham in fulfillment of the Prophet’s testament. Thus the Arab Muslim’s liberation of that land from the Roman invaders has begun and deepened in later years. But Abu Bakr died before the Arab liberation of Palestine was materialized. The sacred mission of Palestine’s liberation occurred during his Successor, Caliph Omar Ben Al-Khattab. During his reign, the fate of Egypt and Palestine was decided.
The Muslim, under the leadership of Abu Obeidah al-Jarrah, mover toward Jerusalem in It was winter, and the occupying Romans had the wrong impression that the Muslims couldn’t fight in severe cold weather. But the Muslim siege of Jerusalem continued four months alongside daily fierce fighting between the two sides.
The Muslim historian, al Tabary, has described the then prevailing situation around Jerusalem, saying: “ When the Romans realized that Abu Obeidah was unswayable…they proposed to surrender to the Prince of the Faithful, Omar Ben Al-Khattab…Abu Obeidah agreed.” He wrote to the Caliph Omar: “ In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful, to Abdullah Omar, the Prince of the Faithful, from Abu Obeidah Ben Al Jarrah…we put up to the people of Eliya, they thought that in facing us they would be relieved, but God troubled them; they grew more bottlenecked, emaciated and humiliated. Realizing their predicament, they asked for the Prince of the Faithful to be the trusted and the writer [of their surrender’s terms]…. knowing that they accepted to pay tribute and have the same non-Muslims’ guarantees applicable to them…. if you see coming here do so as it is recompensed [by God]…God bless you.”
Posted on: 2002
By Sami Rami
The late Faisal Abd al-Qader Husseini, as the head of the Orient House in East Jerusalem–occupied by Israel in June 1967–and PLO Executive Member in charge of Jerusalem File, used to tell foreign dignitaries who visited him at his office in
the Orient House– which Israel reoccupied on orders from Sharon in the summer of 2001– that Israel should ultimately accept the fact that undivided Jerusalem is the capital of two states: East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, and West Jerusalem—occupied by Israel in 1948 outside the UN partition plan of November 29, 1947—as Israel’s capital.
Husseini, more often reminded his visitors, including Israeli peace groups, that Arabs accounted for 70 percent of West Jerusalem’s property. The Arab residential quarters of Qatamon, Talbieh, Baqa’a, and the villages of Ein Karem, El Malha, and DeirYassin. Arabs remember the later village as the ground of a horrible and premeditated Zionist massacre against civilian population. While Abd al-Qader Husseini was battling successfully the Haganah at the Castel, eighty Zionist terrorists from Irgun and Stern Gang, on orders from Menachem Begin, attacked in April 9,48 the village of Deir Yassin killing in cold blood at least 100 Arabs (reports at the time said as many as 250), including children and pregnant women. The gruesome massacre of Deir Yassin was widely publicized intentionally by the Zionists, causing a wave of unprecedented panic and demoralization to spread through Arab Palestine. About 60,000 Palestinians fled the western section of the City of Jerusalem.
But four days later Arabs retaliated. Palestinian irregulars ambushed Haganah escorted convoy to the Hadassah Hospital; 39 Jews and 6 Palestinians were killed.
Accordingly, the British authority in Palestine, and Jerusalem in particular, had totally collapsed. And on May 14 Sir Alan Cunningham, the British High Commissioner, left Jerusalem for the last time, and the mandate was terminated.
On May 16,1948 King Abdullah, overriding Brigadier Glubb (Pasha), the British commander of the Arab Legion, ordered the Arab Legion back to Jerusalem. The next day, he telegraphed to the UN Secretary General:
We were compelled to enter Palestine to protect unarmed Arabs against massacres similar to those of Deir Yassin. We are aware of our national duty towards Palestine in general and Jerusalem in particular and also Nazareth and Bethlehem. Be sure that we shall be very considerate in connection with Jews in Palestine while maintaining at the same time the full right of the Arabs in Palestine. Zionism did not react to our offers made before the entry of our armed forces.
At 11:30 a.m. on May 17, Glubb was ordered by King Abdullah to “ advance towards Jerusalem from the direction of Ramallah”. As a matter of fact, Jerusalem was the area in which the King turned down all British and Zionist attempts for reaching a compromise on its Arab identity.
A cease-fire agreement came into effect on November 30, 1948 giving the first acknowledgement of the de facto division of Jerusalem. An Armistice Agreement was formalized on April 3, 1949, but considered at the international level to have had no legal effect on the UN partition plan of November 29, 1947 under which Jerusalem and its surrounding villages were envisioned as acorpus separatum.
According to the final report of the UN Conciliation Commission (UNCCP) Land Expert, the total area of Jerusalem Sub district (excluding Hebron and Ramallah) was estimated at 296,943 dunums of which 222,482 (74.59%) dunums owned by Arabs. The remaining was considered to be Government, public, and Jewish properties. The figures of UNCCP were not specific on Arab and Jewish properties of West Jerusalem, which came under Israeli control in 1948. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) “ Village Statistics 1945” estimated the total area of Jerusalem, prior to 1948, at 20,790 metric dunums, of which 16,261 dunums (80.5 %) fell in 1948 under Israeli occupation.
Posted on: Jul 2004
By Khalid Amayreh
Israel’s Public Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi has said hardline Jewish groups may be planning to carry out attacks on the two most sacred Islamic shrines in occupied East Jerusalem.
Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are collectively known as al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary). Originally built in CE711 (AD711), al-Aqsa Mosque is Islam’s third holiest place, after the two Holy Mosques in Saudi Arabia.
Hanegbi said in a TV interview at the weekend that the goal of the potential attackers would be to thwart the Israeli plan for unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
But a former leader of an armed Jewish group that sought to bomb al-Aqsa Mosque in the late 1970s, told Israeli state-run radio on Sunday the purpose of any “new action” would not have anything to do with the “disengagement plan”.
The Israeli daily Haaretz on Sunday quoted officials in the domestic intelligence service, Shin Beth, as saying there was a possibility of Jewish hardliners trying to destroy al-Aqsa Mosque by crashing a radio-controlled plane into it.
There are numerous Millenarian Jewish groups in Israel dedicated to the destruction of the mosque to facilitate the “rebuilding” of the “Third Temple” on the site.
Messianic Jews believe the destruction of the mosque and construction of the temple would expedite the appearance of a Jewish messiah, or redeemer, who would rule the world from Jerusalem and bring about the salvation of the Jewish people.
Ultimate red line
Muslim leaders in Palestine have warned of “unforeseeable consequences” and “horrible repercussions” all over the world in case “anything happened to al-Aqsa Mosque”.
“This is the ultimate red line. If Jewish terrorists embarked on such an act of sheer madness, they would trigger huge fires all over the world … . Only God knows how the fires would be extinguished,” said Kamal al-Khatib, deputy head of Israel’s powerful Islamic Movement.
Speaking to Aljazeera.net he said an attack on al-Aqsa Mosque would be viewed as an appalling provocation by the world’s Muslim population.
“If such a thing happened, God forbid, it would galvanise the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims, and there would be a backlash and anger all over the world.”
Al-Khatib said the Islamic Movement in Israel remained vigilant against the risk of an attack on the Islamic holy places in Jerusalem.
“We send thousands of people to the Haram al-Sharif every day to make up for the barring by Israel of our people from the West Bank and Gaza Strip from accessing the mosque … and we see to it that there are no loopholes in security arrangements,” he said.
Security pretext?
The highest-ranking Muslim cleric in East Jerusalem, Shaikh Ikrama Sabri, says Jewish extremists are capable of doing the unthinkable.
“We know quite well that they are conniving and coordinating their plans with the Israeli security establishment,” he claimed.
“We also know that the Israeli state uses the extremists as a supplemental tool to achieve its thinly disguised goals, including the destruction of Islam’s holy places in Jerusalem.”
But in the present contest, Sabri cautioned, Israel may be trying to gain a “foothold” inside al-Haram al-Sharif compound under the pretext of “ensuring the security of the place”.
He said after the 1994 Hebron massacre in which 29 Arab worshippers were killed by a messianic Jewish immigrant from Brooklyn, the Israeli army took over the town’s historic Ibrahimi Mosque and assigned the bulk of the holy site to Jewish settlers.
The “arrangement” then was justified by the Israelis on security grounds – to prevent a repetition of the massacre, Sabri said.
He claimed the Israeli authorities knew the Jewish hardliners individually, but did not take action against them for political reasons.
“Look, the police know them one by one, but the extremists have strong allies and supporters within the government, the Knesset and the security establishment, so much so that it seems as if they are the real rulers of Israel,” Sabri said.
Inspection tours?
The Israeli police currently permit religious Jews to enter al-Aqsa Mosque compound despite strong objection from the Supreme Muslim Council, which is in charge of the administration of the holy place.
Israeli officials, including security chiefs, say Jews have a right to visit the holy place they call Temple Mount just like anybody else.
However, Waqf officials, who are entrusted with the upkeep of the holy sanctuary, say trips by Jews are not simple visits, but in fact “inspection tours” aimed at drawing up destructive designs on al-Haram al-Sharif.
On Sunday, a Jewish rabbi allied with the messianic Gush Emunim movement which advocates the expulsion and extermination of non-Jews in Israel – told the Israeli army radio, Gali Tsahal, he fully supported the destruction of al-Aqsa Mosque.
“This is more than a positive thing – this is a desirable thing, and I am looking forward to seeing these mosques reduced to ruins,” said Yehuda Tzion, who in 1980 headed the underground Jewish group that had planned to bomb al-Aqsa.
Tzion has urged the Israeli government to “send army bulldozers to the site and destroy these buildings once and for all … and if the state is not willing to do so, let other Jews do it”.
One of the messianic Jewish groups that openly calls for the destruction of al-Aqsa is the Temple Mount Faithful, headed by Girshon Solomon.
A few years ago, he told Israeli television, with the golden Dome of the Rock in the background – that: “it is time this pagan edifice ceased to exist”.
Source:
AlJazeera
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