Daphne Anson: Desecrating The Jewish Cemetery On The Mount Of Olives: The Way It Is, & Was

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Thursday, 22 December 2011

Desecrating The Jewish Cemetery On The Mount Of Olives: The Way It Is, & Was

On his blog Israel Matsav has posted a video (hat tip: reader Shirlee) of an Arab vandal caught red-handed uprooting and destroying a tombstone in the Jewish cemetery on Har HaZeitim, the Mount of Olives, the most ancient burial ground in the world that is still in use, and of course one in which scores of renowned sages repose. (The tomb of the prophet Zachariah can be seen in this photograph, right foreground.) As Israel Matsav's blog notes, the vandal (who received a three-month gaol sentence) had been paid to carry out the task of desecration, and the incident is by no means isolated; even mourners are sometimes physically attacked.

Hooliganism on Har HaZeitim was rampant during the Jordanian occupation of the Old City from 1948-67. And what's more, it was state-sponsored.

In 1954 the Israeli Government wrote to the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold, telling him that it had (to quote the London-based Jewish Chronicle, 16 July 1954, which carried a photo of damaged tombstones):

"[C]onclusive proof of the extent to which the destruction and spoilation of the cemetery proceeded.

More than half of its area had been stripped of all signs of its consecrated character... Tombstones had been completely destroyed or removed and some part of the grounds showed marks of ploughing. Some of the missing stones are said to have been used in the construction of a cinema in Jericho.

Jews from at least 28 countries, including scores of sages and holy men, lie buried in this ancient and historic cemetery..."

With the liberation of the Old City from Jordanian rule in June 1967, the full extent of the abuse suffered by the cemetery became apparent.

The Jewish Chronicle (21 July 1967) published a photo of Jewish tombstones from the Mount of Olives that had been taken and broken by the Jordanians in order to build a wall in a military camp.

And on 4 August 1967 the paper printed a letter from Mordechai Noy of Jerusalem. It went as follows:

'It seems to me that your readers are not sufficiently informed on the extent of the desecration of Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives by the Jordanians who held the territory between 1948 and 1967.

As vice-president of the Kehilloth Yerushalayim Burial Society, which serves about 50 per cent of the city's population, I investigated the situation of our cemetery on the Mount, opposite the Temple Mount.

Among about 1,500 graves no more than 30 per cent can be said to have remained undamaged, mostly because their stone or marble monuments were too heavy to remove.

In all other cases the tombstones were either totally destroyed or stolen. In many cases even the masonry between the concrete foundation and the tombstones was removed or stolen.

A certain number of the graves were entirely destroyed when the Jordanians built a broad "autostrada" cutting our cemetery in two parts.

This road caused the destruction of many more graves on the Jewish cemeteries on the Mount.

We are now engaged in saving what is still to be saved. Fortunately we have exact maps and registers enabling us to trace each grave still missing, and we are now marking each grave and informing the family of the exact position.

It is clear that by the desecration of these "holy places" the Jordanian authorities permitted acts of vandalism abhorrent to all civilised peoples."

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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

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Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world.
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The "Apartheid" Slur

The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.
95% of the West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are under the total administration and control of the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was disbanded by Abbas in January 2013. The PLO has total security control in A and shares security control in B with Israel. Israel has total administrative and security control in C.
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Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.
There are Arab roads only in the West Bank that Jews are not allowed to use. Jews are also forbidden from entering Area “A”. Selling land to Jews is forbidden by the PLO under pain of death. The PLO runs the daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arabs and Hamas runs the daily lives of 100% of the Gazan Arabs. They have been under occupation – and subjugation – by these two evil groups for the last ten years and given no say in their future or any opportunity to elect others to lead them following the disastrous political decisions of their leaders over the past ten years. Hamas and the PLO do not accept the continued existence of a Jewish State and call for its disappearance.
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[I]t’s impossible to believe that an active antisemite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like....[T]ell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs... Howard Jacobson (The Independent, 27 May 2013)

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I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all the principles that the Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel's struggle is the world's struggle. Pilar Rahola

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