All of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount Are Ours!

Special Notice:

It is Tisha B’Av +1. Because the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat this year, Israel is “celebrating Tisha B’Av today. Israelstreet is being published a little later because your humble servant has been in Jerusalem for the last 24 hours (see Today’s Blog below).

UPDATES

1:00 pm Israel time, Sunday, July 26 2015

**The irony could not have been more striking.

Yesterday, we had PM Netanyahu blathering: 

“On this evening of remembrance we welcome our return to Jerusalem, our capital, after two thousand years of longing. We will continue to build it, defend it, and ensure its prosperity. United Jerusalem will remain under the authority of Israel forever.”

Defend it? United Jerusalem will remain under the authority of Israel forever?

This morning, less than 12 hours after Netanyahu’s statement, your humble servant was at the Kotel when we suddenly heard police sirens and the booms of grenades up on the Temple Mount.

What was happening? The same thing that happens on every Jewish holiday. At the holiest site in Judaism, Muslim terrorists were attempting to stop Jewish worshipers from entering. 

Usually they succeed, but this morning the Police used stun grenades to corral the terrorists in the Al-Aksa Mosque so that 850 Jews could climb up to the Temple Mount for Tisha B’Av. Four policemen were wounded, two of them badly enough that they are still in the hospital.

850 Jews. More than 1,000,000 Muslims were on the Temple Mount during Ramadan.

The myth that Netanyahu likes to perpetuate is that the Temple Mount is under Israeli sovereignty. That may be true in the abstract, but in fact, it is completely controlled by the Islamic Wakf.

TODAY’S BLOG:

Last night was exhilarating as your humble servant and his wife marched with the Women in Green and approximately 2500 other young and old Israeli flag waving nationalists around the outside of the northern and eastern walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. 

The warm, humid night began at 9:30 pm with the tragically bleak recitation of the Eikah (Lamentations) in Independence Park on Gershon Agron St. directly across from the American consulate–a recitation that bewails the destruction of the Second Temple and its aftermath. The crowd began to gather:

By 10:30, we were out in the street getting ready to march, and your humble servant found himself being interviewed by a reporter from the Radio Voice of Israel. The questions were simple: “Why are you here?” and “What makes this night special?” My answers were passionate: “We are here to support Israeli sovereignty over the entire city of Jerusalem, and tonight is special because we are still here 1,945 after the Romans destroyed the Second Temple. We want to show that we are never going away.”

An excited couple getting ready to march:

With that, we were off.

And who were “we”? The biggest portion of the marchers was from Judea, Samaria, and Beit Shemesh, but there were people there from all over Israel and the world.  We found ourselves beside a lovely young woman from London who is considering making aliya to Israel on one side, a visiting couple from New Jersey on the other, and a lively French family who had just made aliya to Israel to the rear.

We headed down the street then up Shlomo Hamelech (Solomon the King), then down again along Sultan Suleiman St. with the northern wall of the Old City to our right. The redolent air was rife with bloody history. Who could not help but remember that we were walking along the same ground north of the Old City from which the Romans launched their attacks that finally broke the defenses of Jerusalem in 70 CE.?
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Down we went until we reached the always dangerous Damascus Gate–the site of numerous, daily attacks against Israelis. Then we continued along the northern wall past Herod’s Gate (known in Hebrew as the Flower Gate) until we reached the northeast corner of the Old City. All along the way, the moonlight and streetlights cast an eerie glow over and around us.

We were heavily protected at every step by heavily armed Jerusalem police and Border Guards. They had done a magnificent job of closing off streets and suppressing any would-be Arab provocateurs. The relatively few Arabs who had gathered along the route seemed more interested in taking pictures of us with their cellphones than anything else.

At that point we turned right on Derich Yericho St. and proceeded to Lions’ Gate on the east wall. It was through this gate that courageous Israeli paratroopers entered the Old City in 1967. Can you even imagine what those soldiers must have felt in reclaiming Israel’s eternal capital after almost 2000 years?

At the Lions Gate, we stopped for about 30 minutes to listen to some inspirational speeches from the Women in Green, Israel’s Deputy Defense Minister, and a Knesset Legislator. The theme of their talks were: All of Jerusalem is ours; the Temple Mount is ours; and it is time to build the Third Temple! Their words echoed throughout the quiet night throughout the nearby Wadi Kidron.

By this time it was after midnight, and we continued along the east wall until we reached the southeast corner of the Old City at which time we proceeded up to the Dung Gate and on into the Kotel (the Western Wall).

There we were met with a sea of worshipers:

Of course, we wanted to linger for a while at the Kotel  where many worshipers were spending the night on the plaza floor–some in regular clothes, others with faces covered with ash and dressed in sackcloth. 

By 3 am this morning, we were in our hotel up at the top of the Jewish Quarter near Zion Gate having had yet another memorable march with the Women in Green through our magical and eternal capital.