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The Holiest Place On earth
Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Director International Christian Zionist Center-
Thursday 26th Jun 2003
(Editor's comment : It takes a Non-Jew to write what our own religious leaders are to afraid to express).
If one would want to explain in a nutshell what all the strife at present is all about in and around Israel, spiritually speaking, then the answer would have to be this: There is an enormous battle about the possession of "who gets" - the main heartland of Israel, Judea and Samaria and the possession of - "who gets" - the heart of the city of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount.
At this very moment Palestinian Muslims under the influence and authority of the ISLAMIC religious Waqf - are taunting the Jews by building a fourth mosque on the holiest place to the Jews in all of Jerusalem, where once the holy Temple stood in all its beauty and glory. The former Mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert said the following about this work of destruction that is going on:
"The surfacing work is part of an overall plan to turn the Temple Mount into one huge mosque and to erase the immense Jewish heritage at the site and to convert it to a Muslim site". (Jerusalem Post - 29/6/2000)
Orthodox Jews all over the world, as well as in Israel, pray three times a day for the rebuilding of the Temple upon this, their hill. It is certainly not the Western (or Wailing) Wall that is the holiest or most significant place in Jerusalem for Judaism. It is the Temple Mount which represents for all of Judaism the holy hill of the Lord, where He Himself made His dwelling place in the good times of Israel's history and will do so again in the near future as many believe.
As the psalmist exclaims: "For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His habitation: This is my resting place forever; Here I will dwell, for I have desired it. & There I will make the horn of David grow; I will prepare a lamp for My Anointed"Psalm 132:13,14,17
No place in Israel therefore could be more important in relation to its glorious past or the even more wonderful future, than the Temple Mount. It is not for nothing therefore that religious believing Jews have prayed right through the long centuries of dispersion that the day would come that God Himself would help them to restore His house upon His -this - holy hill so that He could again dwell in the midst of His people.
To see therefore this hill slowly and cruelly being taken away from Jewish possession though they have sovereignty since the six day war over all of Jerusalem, is an entirely unacceptable affront to all that the Jewish people have striven and prayed for during their long and often painful centuries of dispersion.
Without the Temple Mount Jerusalem will have lost its heart and spiritual significance. The Messiah is not coming to a Mosque as the Tenach teaches - but to a rebuilt Temple on this place - the Temple Mount.
Therefore the battle for this part of Jerusalem is the battle for the ultimate destiny of this city and the people of Israel. As for the heartland of Israel, Judea and Samaria, which Arafat and the Islamic forces, backed nearly by the whole world, wants to turn into another Muslim controlled Palestinian Arab state - it is virtually the same story. An ENORMOUS crucial battle rages, about who is going to possess this piece of heartland.
It was there where God started with His people - Jericho, Bethel, Hebron, Bethlehem, Shilo, Mount Gerizim and Ebal, it is there where the patriarchs of Israel dwelt and lived - and it is this truly biblical land that the Palestinian leadership want for their future Muslim Palestinian State.
What a battle is going on with all the nations siding not with Israel, but with Israel's enemies, as the prophets already foresaw long time ago. Both Zechariah as well as Joel prophesy doom and destruction over all nations who would come against Jerusalem or dare to divide God's land. (see Zech 12:8,9 and Joel 3:1,2)
And even as some Israelis today have little desire or courage to stop the current vandalisation and misuse of Israel's holiest piece of real estate, but instead are willing to reward the violence threatening Palestinians, to fly their flag on this Israel's holiest mountain, then surely the enemies of Israel have little to worry about the attainment of their exclusive Muslim goals.
Two Thousand Years Of Longing And Praying For Nothing?
For two thousand years, Jews have prayed and longed to return to Jerusalem. Each Passover night, during their long years in the Diaspora, they lifted the cup and pledged to celebrate if possible, "Next year in Jerusalem!"
Three times a day, century in, century out, Orthodox Jews have prayed that God would restore His house and dwell in the midst of His people again. And all this time, even as they were praying, Muslims invaded the land which is holy to God and His people, and erected their mosques especially on places holy to the Jews, not so much out of love for their Creator but out of spite, to prevent the Jews from ever rebuilding their shrines again.
From the minarets on the place most holy to the Jews, God's Temple Mount, Saddam Hussein was encouraged to complete what Hitler had left undone. Instead of prayer, these minarets bellowed "Itbach el Jahud" (slaughter the Jews), incitement to murder the Jews!
And the Jews allowed it all to happen: the takeover of their most holy place, even when it became desecrated as a place of violence and hatred and thousands of stones and bottles were thrown repeatedly on Jewish worshippers standing near their Western Wall.
History was rewritten: the Mountain of the Lord where the Jews' Temple twice stood has been denied any historicity. According to these same Islamic revisionists, the Western (Wailing) Wall's holiness is purely attributable to the legend that Mohammed fastened his El-Buraq to its stones before, according to the same legend, ascending for a heavenly visit.
No, nothing that the Jews treasure as holy is holy or significant to Israel's enemies. And unbelievably, Jews have to plead before Clinton that if they surrender this, the holiest asset of their faith, to these murderers, that it will at least be documented that once upon a time the Temple Mount had a connection to the Jewish people.
What utter degradation! There was even the cute notion that to get out of this tug of war, God would be given final sovereignty over the mount, as if He who claimed it to be "His holy hill" (Psalm 2) needed to bend towards men to receive "His right"!
How did this all come to pass? Would the Muslims, for peace sake, surrender Mecca and the Ka'aba stone to the Jews? Would Catholics, for peace sake, surrender the Vatican and St. Peters Cathedral?
Would any nation in the world, after praying for 2000 years to return to its holiest place on earth, forfeit it for a peace which will not even be a real peace but a stage for further concessions till Israel, according to the deep-seated wish of many of her Muslim enemies, is dissolved and is no more?
And this prize is given to those who, through their leaders in the days of Haj Amin el-Hussieni, encouraged Hitler to speed up us his extermination of the Jews, and who have fought what was left of the Jews year after year as the survivors immigrated to a land partitioned for them by the United Nations?!
Think of this! The prize of the Jews' most holy place is being offered to those who murdered Jews; terrorized them for years; brought the whole Muslim and Arab world against them; terrorized them in the air by exploding their planes; terrorized them in their synagogues from Paris to Istanbul; killed or wounded their peaceful diplomats and athletes in places all over the world; burned their carefully planted forests; torched or stole their cars by the tens of thousands; broke nearly every promise they made through treaties with Israel.
Is this the prize Israel is willing to give to those who have as yet never kept their word, and who still in their heart of hearts dream of the day when all Palestine shall be theirs?
Is Israel willing to cut out her very heart, the heart of Jerusalem, holy to the Jews from time immemorial, and offer it to a people who have just murdered and lynched them and are not even willing to teach the lessons of peace in any of their school books nor on their Palestinian television and radio broadcasts? They should now receive Israel's heart?
It is beyond comprehension. A denial of all that true Judaism stood for!
Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Director
International Christian Zionist Center
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