The Religious Barrier (Book chapter)

The title is the conclusion part as the seventh chapter of the book “Jerusalem and Its Role in Islamic Solidarity” by Yitzhak Reiter published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2008. The following is the chapter.

Introduction

Issues relating to the holy city of Jerusalem are at the center of the conflict and the most difficult to resolve (the most intractable) because of their religious connotations. Sacred spaces are protected values in the eyes of the peoples involved in the national and territorial conflict.' Three great religions hold Jerusalem in exalted status, yet the political dispute regarding sovereignty over the city and its holy sites is conducted by representatives of Islam and Judaism only. Christianity's political centers are more distant from Jerusalem, and this renders current Christian involvement marginal to the conflict's main focal points: the Temple Mount, al-Aqsa and the Western Wall.

Objective of he book

This book deals with the processes by which symbols of faith and sanctity are being employed in a political struggle. These processes characterize both parties to the conflict, but not to an equal degree. The Arab-Muslim side, which suffered defeat in June 1967, is also the conflict's weaker party, which lost control of East Jerusalem at that time. Thus, its efforts to mobilize sacred and religious assets for use in its struggle are more intensive. Beyond this, there are two additional reasons why the Arab-Muslim side makes more extensive use of religious symbols: the existence of a huge strategic depth of more than one and a quarter billion Muslims around the world, and the fact that the processes of modernization, secularization, and separation between religion and state are less common in Muslim society. The Israeli-Jewish party to the conflict also employs religious symbols in order to further its political agenda, but Israel's Jewish majority and the country's (mostly) secular leadership are less active in this area than are more peripheral Jewish religious and messianic groups such as Gush Emunim, the Temple movements, whose ideology and discourse are not shared by the Israeli-Jewish public at large or by its leadership. This fact was manifested in June 1967 by Moshe Dayan's order to remove the Israeli flag from the Dome of the Rock and by Israel's continuous policy to leave the compound's administration in the hands of the Muslim Waqf authority (followed by the Chief Rabbinate declaration that Jewish halacha prevents Jews from entering the Temple Mount compound).

It appears that the strategy of Islamizing the conflict, as conceived by the Palestinian leadership and by the radical Islamic movements-a strategy that has succeeded, in many places, in making inroads into general Arab and Muslim awareness-is actually detrimental to the conflict's Arab-Muslim side. This is because when the conflict focuses on religious messages, the Christian world-represented by the contemporary world's controlling powers, particularly the United Statesh as a greater tendency to accept the Jewish narrative than the Muslim claims. The biblical texts (especially in the Old Testament) that include the religious messages upon which Zionism is based have a greater influence on Christians than do the Quran and the hadith.

The advanced process of democratization undergone by the Christian world and the change in attitude among Church institutions toward Judaism and the Jews in recent years are unfavorable to Muslim efforts to move the conflict into the religious arena. The strongest evidence of this is the anti-Muslim awakening that has taken place in the Western world and the global struggle against Islamic terror that have emerged in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington DC. A few liberal Muslim intellectuals have already identified this process and called for reform within Islam, but the Muslim world appears to be primarily inward looking. Muslim society is currently in a state of deep internal crisis and is seeking ways of strengthening its cohesion and, first and foremost, of ensuring internal mobilization. Basic and primordial symbols of identity, such as ethnic, linguistic, and religious affiliation, are the most efficient means to this end.

Within the struggle over public awareness of Jerusalem's importance, one particular site is at the eye of the storm-the Temple Mount and its Western Wall-the Jewish Kotel-or, in Muslim terminology, the al-Aqsa compound (alternatively: al-Haram al-Sharif) and al-Buraq. Despite the fact that the site sacred to Muslims is under the control and administration of Muslim bodies, it is still perceived by the Muslims as "desecrated" and in a state of constant threat from the Jewish-Israeli party to the conflict. From both the Jewish and the Muslim points of view, the Foundation Stone, the Rock adorned with the golden dome, is the "Rock of our existence"-a symbol of religious-national identity-and thus also (as it were) the "stone" of contention. The site's status as a sacred space makes it the natural focal point of the power struggle, including claims to sovereignty, efforts to exclude the opposing group and to claim recognition and inclusion, as elucidated by Chidester and Linenthal with regard to holy places generally; this situation is all the more true when the site in question lies at the center of a national conflict between two peoples who also represent, to a great extent, two essentially different religions and cultures. "AI-Aqsa" for the Palestinian-Arab-Muslim side is not merely a mosque mentioned in the Qur'an within the context of the Prophet Muhammad's miraculous Night Journey to al-Aqsa, which according to tradition concluded with his ascension to heaven (and a prayer with all of the prophets and the Jewish and Christian religious figures who preceded him); rather, it also constitutes a unique symbol of identity, one around which various political objectives may be formulated, plans of action drawn up and masses mobilized for their realization.

The actions and blunders of the conflict's Jewish-Israeli party (which has had security control of the site since 1967) as well as extraneous events have played into the hands of the Muslims. The fire lit by an Australian Christian tourist at the al-Aqsa Mosque in August 1969 was the starting point for the masira-the campaign that has been waged more intensively over the last decade under the banner "al-Aqsa is in Danger." The essence of this campaign is that for as long as East Jerusalem (and in particular the Old City and its holy sites) remains under Israeli control and sovereignty, al-Aqsa will be in danger, and thus it is a religious duty incumbent upon all Muslims to seek to liberate it. The campaign's primary message is, moreover, that any belittling of al-Aqsa or concessions over al-Aqsa or Jerusalem may lead to a belittling of Mecca (which is connected to al-Aqsa via the Prophet Muhammad's miraculous Journey). This message seeks to exert a threatening and deterrent effect on Saudi Arabia and the other Arab countries. Jihad, in its militant sense, is the means chosen by the various radical Islamic factions to perform what they view as their religious duty. However, there are additional ways of achieving the desired goal. For example, public and political pressure may be applied to the Arab regimes from below, in order to halt any normalization of relations with Israel until the Palestinian issue and its central problem of Jerusalem are resolved. Another way is by raising funds and using them for what the Muslims call "preservation of Jerusalem's Arab and Islamic character," that is, construction, renewal, preservation, development, and housing projects in the Arab section of Jerusalem .

Analysis of the texts

Analysis of the texts appearing in books, Web sites, religious rulings, and in the public and media discourse indicates the existence of a new Islamic ethos of Jerusalem. This new ethos, which emerged within the context of the Muslim campaign for Jerusalem as depicted in this study, is reflected in three main awareness-raising processes:

The first process

The first of these is the tendency to elevate the sanctity of al-Aqsa and, along with it, the sanctity of al-Quds in Islam. Based on an analysis of contemporary Islamic discourse, a site's degree of sanctity is not currently measured in terms of classical ritual observance (such as pilgrimage). Rather, the research shows that the concept of "sanctity" must be viewed in a broader and more inclusive sense than that of the purely theological one. Pilgrimage to Jerusalem is not going to become a basic religious duty on the order of the hajj. However, the Muslim masses who visit al-Aqsa during the month of Ramadan (in much greater numbers-indeed hundreds of thousands more than used to arrive there in the past) do so out of a sense of "political duty," no less than out of religious belief in the power of prayer from the al-Aqsa Mosque. The issue of al-Aqsa and al-Quds has come to generate an intensive discursive political ritual in the contemporary Muslim world, as reflected in special conferences held on the subject. Under the banner of "al-Quds Day" or "al-Aqsa Week" numerous sermons are delivered in mosques around the world and the public discourse is flooded with writings and statements on the issue. The rallies, conventions, and other means of political protest that are organized during al-Quds Day, al-Isra' Day, and other occasions constitute a modern rite that elevates al-Aqsa and the holy city of Jerusalem from both religious and political perspectives. These activities themselves create a cult of glorification and sanctification, while at the same time serving to blur the distinction between the "political" and the "religious." A variety of means are employed in the reconceptualization of al-Aqsa's sacred status, the most important of these being the retrieval from oblivion of ancient traditions that testify to the site's sanctity, and their mass dissemination.

The second process

The second process is that of denying the religious and historical connection of the other party to the conflict-the Jews-to the city and its holy sites. This process stems from an internal Islamic drive toward self-justification. The Jewish connections to the Temple Mount site identified with Mount Moriah and the present al-Aqsa site-the Jewish belief in Even ha-Shtiya, the "Foundation Stone" said by some to have been the rock upon which Abraham bound his son Isaac up for sacrifice, the Temple of Solomon as inspiration of the Dome of the Rock location and the centrality of Jerusalem to Judaism in generalare also anchored in authentic Muslim traditions. As a result, a trend has recently emerged in Islam to ignore these traditions or their accepted interpretations. There are two preexisting polemical strategies-one maintaining that the Jews betrayed the true faith and thus lost their right to the site, and the other maintaining that a fleeting presence in Jerusalem 2,000 or 3,000 years ago cannot translate into sovereign rights after an absence extending over at least the 1,400 years ofMuslim rule (apart from the Crusader period when the Jews were also expelled from Jerusalem). In the last generation, a third strategy of partial or total denial of a Jewish connection to Jerusalem has been added. Most of the more educated Muslim public does not participate or support this denial, but the fact is that almost no one has been willing to denounce publicly this campaign of denial.

The third process

The third process is familiar from the ways in which modern nationalisms are shaped, as elucidated by Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm, Anthony Smith, and others. Arab territorial nationalism has been preoccupied for decades with the construction of an ethos of antiquity that connects its present existence with a point in the past at which the modern Egyptians may be identified with the Pharaohs, the modern Iraqis with the Babylonians, the Lebanese and the Syrians with the Phoenicians, the Palestinians with the Canaanites or the Philistines or-in the context of Jerusalem -with the Jebusites; this is where the innovation lies. Special political myths are emerging in connection withJerusalem's Islamic history. The most prominent of these has to do with Saladin-Jerusalem's conqueror/liberator from the Crusadersand reflects a fatalistic and deterministic belief in the eventual appearance of a second Saladin, who will liberate Jerusalem from "the new Crusaders"-the Jews who rule Jerusalem.

The multiplicity of actors in the campaign for al-Quds, their wide range of social affiliations (political and academic elites alongside the uneducated and the Islamic movements in peripheral areas), their geographic and ethnic diversity (Palestinians, Jordanians, the Middle Eastern countries in general and the Muslim communities outside ofthe Middle East), their affiliation with various religious, political, and media circles, and, finally, the variegated dissemination methods described in this study-all of these elements compel the conclusion that the processes described here in a general way are not marginal phenomena.

During the last generation (and at a more accelerated rate since the first Intifada), a general sense of Muslim solidarity has developed in connection with Jerusalem and its holy sites. This solidarity has emerged at two levels: at the governmental level, as reflected in the declarations and actions of Arab and Muslim political leaders, and, no less importantly, at the popular level, among the masses who have so readily absorbed the political messages that have become intertwined with the religious symbols in question.

The issue of the Temple Mount and al-Aqsa was one of the main reasons for the failure of the second Camp David summit, at which the Israelis and the Palestinians were unable to reach a permanent peace arrangement. Since July 2000, the symbolic significance of the Temple Mount and of al-Aqsa has risen even higher in Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, and Muslim awareness. This raises a key question in terms of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Is this religious ethos an "iron wall" for Muslims in general and for Palestinians in particular with regard to the possibility of compromise over Jerusalem's holy sites, or is this obstacle on the road to peace a surmountable one?

Four main components to the religious obstacle

There are four main components to the religious obstacle as perceived by Islam with regard to the Haram/Temple Mount.

The first component

The first of these is the Muslim rejection of the Jewish connection to the compound and the Palestinians' consistent and unyielding position that rejects the possibility of granting Jews the right to pray anywhere on the site and that denies the legitimacy of any Israeli authority over it or underneath. Although the waqf, with its various Jordanian and Palestinian Authority (PA) affiliations, has been able to reach informal and practical agreements with the Israeli authorities regarding security, entry, and behavior at the site, it makes a distinction between these temporary arrangements-which it regards as compelled by the existing circumstances-and a permanent solution.

As an example, a recent book describing the Palestinian perspective of the negotiations of 2000 gives the following explanation why there is no room for compromise over the al-Aqsa/Temple compound:

The adverse positions on Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa Mosque put the negotiations back to square one, because the Israelis asserted to have sovereignty over the entire mosque (compound), or on part of it, or alternatively on what they call the holy of holies underneath the entire surface of the mosque (compound), while the Palestinian party asserted on having complete sovereignty over the whole compound but expressed readiness to compromise on the sovereignty over the al-Buraq [Western] Wall and the Mughrabi plaza...on December 23rd (2000) Clinton suggested another proposal: effective control for the Palestinians on the mosque (compound) combined with respect of the Jewish beliefs. The proposal had two options: Palestinian sovereignty over the mosque compound and Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall and the holy of holies underneath the mosque; or that the issue of digging underground of the mosque and beyond the Western Wall would be shared by both Israel and the Palestinians. Barak rejected the idea that the Palestinians would have complete sovereignty over the mosque compound and Arafat rejected the idea of sharing sovereignty of any part of the mosque. Then it became clear that the issue of the al-Aqsa Mosque could not be compromised by either of the two parties. 2

On October 12, 2007, five weeks before the inauguration of the U.S.-led peace conference in Annapolis the PA chief mufti Sheikh Muhammad Hussein released a public call revealing his rejection to a Palestinian compromise over the al-Aqsa compound and its "surroundings" [Western Wall plaza?]. In what was seen as directed to his leader-Mahmoud Abbas-he said that al-Aqsa is not a patrimony of the Palestinians but of God, and it was given to the Arabs and Muslims as a trust to be protected and not for negotiations at all. He added that "the Palestinian leadership past and present is not a traitorous agency to compromise even a single stone of the walls that encompass the mosque" [meaning also the Western Wall].3

A parallel call was issued by the Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovits, who said: "The history of ownership of the Temple Mount and the Western Wall is inscribed in divine history. Its re-writing [by Muslims] does not grant [them] ownership over the holiest place of the Jewish people...we returned to the holy [city] in order to remain in it for eternity. Such announcements [by politicians regarding compromises in Jerusalem] only mitigate against peace and harm our people's feelings from our ancestral past."'

The second component

The second component of the religious barrier is the message that the Palestinians have worked to disseminate regarding Jerusalem, namely that it is not only a Palestinian issue but rather a matter of concern to the entire Muslim nation. This idea has been absorbed and internalized within the Muslim world to the extent that, in academic forums and semiofficial meetings in which not only Israelis and Palestinians but also representatives of Arab countries participate, the latter now express more extreme opinions regarding the possibility of compromise on Jerusalem than do the Palestinian representatives. As for the Arab states, the Arab League Web site stressed that "the City represents a red-circle that should not be trifled or squandered under any condition"? The second Camp David summit underscored the already well-known fact that the issue of Jerusalem's Islamic holy places and of East Jerusalem generally has ceased to be a Palestinian issue only. The transatlantic talks held by President Clinton with the leaders of Arab countries in July 2000, at the behest of Yasser Arafat, for the purpose of hearing their opinions regarding the compromise proposals that had been raised with regard to Jerusalem, are a living testament to this. The Palestinian side, which sought to enlist support within the Muslim world, succeeded beyond its expectations and perhaps even more than it had itself desired. As a result, at this point the Palestinians' hands are tied to a great degree and their latitude for compromise is limited. Regarding any proposals on Jerusalem that may be placed on the negotiation table, the Palestinians will have to seek the approval of central figures in the Arab-Islamic world, primarily that of the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan, and the wealthy oil-producing countries whose financial assistance the Palestinians need. Moreover, the success of the "al-Aqsa in Danger" campaign makes Arab decision makers more attuned to the adherents of Muslim Brothers groups who constitute a growing opposition to the current regimes. Thus, political maneuvering space with regard to Jerusalem and the holy sites has diminished, and the entire game has moved to the broader theater of the international community.

The third component

The third component is the position held by Palestinian and other Islamic religious leaders and organizations: The PAs ability to reach a compromise on Jerusalem will be limited not only by the Hamas, but also by Muslim clerics who are not affiliated with the radical factions. Thus, for example, while Yasser Arafat was conducting peace talks at Camp David in July 2002, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, the Arafat-appointed Palestinian mufti, wrote for publication in his journal that "our right to Jerusalem must not be relinquished, since our presence there has been divinely, not humanly, ordained."" Another example of this is the pressure exerted by the heads of the Islamic Movement on the al-Aqsa compound waqf administrators. When in March 2003 it became known that an understanding had been reached between the Israeli authorities and the waqf administration regarding the renewal of tourism at the Temple Mount (that is, the enabling of Jews to visit the site), Sheikh Ra'id Salah, head of the Islamic Movement, published an article in his organization's journal in which he warned that "none will dare to defy the will ofAllah and to let Jews set foot on the Temple Mount." In April 2003, Arafat rejected the waqf initiation and Salah's article succeeded in backing this position; as a result, Israel was obliged to seek Jordanian intervention with the waqf. Jewish and other tourism at the Temple Mount were renewed only after Sheikh Ra'id Salah and other senior members of his movement were jailed and put on trial.' Nevertheless, accumulated experience from peace agreements signed by Arab leaders with Israel shows that leading clerics have always been found to justify agreements with Israel by means of well-reasoned religious rulings. This is what happened after the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, and after the signing of the Oslo Accords. 8

The fourth component

The fourth component is the fact that both parties to the territorial conflict-the Palestinian and the Israeli-have a flawed perception of the site's religious status in the eyes ofthe opposing society. Over the last few years, I have heard many Palestinians playing a behind-the-scenes role in the peace process express their certainty that the Israeli side will, at the moment of truth, consent to full Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple Mount and the al-Aqsa compound, in exchange for full Palestinian recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall and the Old City's Jewish Quarter.9 They incorrectly assume that the Temple Mount is not particularly sacred to the Jews and that Israel is merely using the Temple Mount issue as a bargaining chip, in order to obtain concessions on other matters to be raised during negotiations. Their assessment is based primarily on the Israeli Chief Rabbinate's ruling prohibiting Jews from entering the Temple Mount site due to religious reasons, as well as on the secular nature of the Israeli political system and of a large portion oflsraeli society, and on the fact that since 1967 Israel has refrained from exerting full control over the Haram/ Temple Mount. They are not aware ofthe intensification of the Temple Mount's symbolic significance among both observant and secular Israelis, precisely because Yasser Arafat denied the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall at the second Camp David summit. This denial exposed many Israeli Jews to the cultural gap that prevails between them and the Palestinian side as represented by Arafat and in turn served to rally the Jewish public around the Temple Mount as a national symbol. The latter phenomenon has been reflected in public opinion surveys, the most recent ofwhich found that only 9% of Jews are willing to agree to exclusive Palestinian sovereignty over the site, while 51% insist on exclusive Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount."

On the other hand, the Jewish party to the conflict is also guilty of underestimating the awareness-raising processes that the Palestinian and world Muslim populations have undergone with regard to the al-Aqsa/ Temple Mount site, as described in the present study. The idea ofshared Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa compound, which was raised by Israeli negotiators at the July 2000 Camp David talks, or the idea of setting aside a place of worship for Jews somewhere in the compound's open space or underneath exemplifies the degree to which Israelis overestimate the Palestinians' maneuvering space in light of the aforementioned processes.

Conclusion

In conclusion, over the last four decades Jerusalem has been the subject of a long and relentless campaign to penetrate the Muslim world's awareness. The campaign began in Jerusalem after the al-Aqsa Mosque arson of 1969 with a massive campaign barrage aimed at the entire Muslim world, and from there reverberated back to Jerusalem. Not only that, but the campaign that is being waged by various Islamic and Arab entities under the banner "al-Aqsa is in Danger" (and that it needs to be "freed from its captivity") features prominently in Islamic public discourse and is associated with statements aimed at delegitimizing Israel and the Jews-some of which are obviously characterized by anti-Semitic motifs.

The upgrading of Jerusalem's sanctity in contemporary Muslim awareness, the denial of any Jewish connection to Jerusalem and of the legitimacy of a Jewish presence in the city and on the Temple Mount, the development of a new historical, religious, and political ethos that accentuates Jerusalem's importance to Arabs and Muslims, and the fact that the consent of important Muslim political leaders will have to be obtained in order to reach an agreement regarding Jerusalem-all of these factors significantly restrict the Palestinians' flexibility in negotiations over the future of the city and its holy places. Dividing sovereignty over the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa betweenJews/Israelis and Muslims/ Palestinians, whether on a geographical or a functional basis, does not appear to be a practicable option.

The limited latitude for compromise over the sacred sites between Israelis and Palestinians perhaps leaves room for only one option in a future peace agreement: international involvement in the administration of the Old City (the Historical-Holy Basin) with each side retaining its current proprietorship of the holy places under a third party supervision for at least an interim period.

References

References are available on the book link of Google Scholar.