TEMPLE WATCH: 5.27.17 - Temple Mount will forever remain under Israel's control

Temple Mount will forever remain under Israel's control - By Marissa Newman - http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-temple-mount-will-forever-remain-under-israels-control/

 

A day after Trump visit, PM says US president's pilgrimage to the Western Wall holy site 'destroyed UNESCO's propaganda and lies'

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Isaac Herzog went head-to-head in the Knesset on Wednesday over Jerusalem, with the premier saying Palestinian refusal to recognize the Jewish state and its capital in any borders is the root of the conflict, and pledging that the city, including the Temple Mount and Western Wall, will forever remain under Israeli sovereignty.

 

A day after US President Donald Trump concluded a 28-hour visit to Jerusalem, the prime minister vowed the city would not be divided again.

 

During a plenum session marking the passage of 50 years since the Six Day War and the reunification of the city's western and eastern halves, Netanyahu pointed to the US president's visit to the Western Wall as having "destroyed UNESCO's propaganda and lies," referring to a series of resolutions by the UN cultural body that ignored Jewish ties to the city and Israeli sovereignty.

 

Herzog, meanwhile, implored Netanyahu to seize a "historic" opportunity for peace and downplayed the importance of moving the US embassy to the city, which was a campaign promise made by Trump.

 

"We liberated Jerusalem, we made it one city, imperfect but whole," Netanyahu told lawmakers, at a session also attended by President Reuven Rivlin and Chief Supreme Court Justice Miriam Naor.

 

Before the Jews came to the city, there was "nearly nothing" in it; it was "forsaken and in constant crisis," the prime minister said. During the 19 years between 1948 and 1967, the city again reached "a low," he added.

 

"We will never return to that situation" of the city divided, he pledged. "The Temple Mount and the Western Wall will forever remain under Israeli sovereignty," he later added.

 

Israel captured the Temple Mount - the holiest site for Jews - and the rest of the Old City and East Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967, and extended sovereignty there, but it left administrative authority atop the Mount in the hands of the Jordanian Waqf (Muslim trust), and instituted a status quo agreement that sees Jews permitted to visit but not pray there. The Temple Mount is one of the issues at the heart of tension between Israel and the Palestinians, with the latter frequently accusing Israel of changing or planning to change the existing arrangements - which Israel firmly denies.

 

After the prime minister concluded his remarks, Herzog took to the podium, delivering a speech in which he called on Israel to separate the Arab neighborhoods from Jerusalem, urged Netanyahu to seize Trump's peace offers, and promised to back the prime minister in the "brave, historic" process.

 

Herzog said Trump came with the message that "the region is ready for peace, the region wants peace."

 

"Mr. Prime Minister, this is the time to go to a brave and historic process to separate from the Palestinians and the implementation of the vision of two states for two peoples. This is the time, 50 years on from the Six Day War, to shake off the heavy burden of millions of Palestinians and ensure the continued existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and homeland of the Jewish people for generations," he said, vowing his party's political support for peace talks.

 

"This is the time for leadership, not defeatism, the time to lead and not be led," he said.

 

"I urge you, Prime Minister, not to miss the opportunity," Herzog added. "Don't allow your name to go down in the history books of the State of Israel as the prime minister who missed the greatest opportunity that Israel has known to avoid 50 more years of tears and bereavement."

 

He also took a dig at efforts to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem, saying the city was desperate for other social and economic reforms and citing poverty and the rapidly growing Arab population threatening to eclipse its Jewish population.

 

"Therefore, will all due respect, it is not the US embassy that is the more important thing the city is lacking, but rather tools and resources and significant decisions on changing directions," he said.

 

Following Herzog's speech, the prime minister addressed the plenum again, emphasizing that moving all embassies - but specifically the US embassy - to Jerusalem was "not a trivial matter."

 

"The current situation is absurd," Netanyahu said, referring to the fact that nearly all international embassies are in Tel Aviv.

 

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog addresses a special Jerusalem Day Knesset plenum session on Wednesday, May 24, 2017 (Yitzhak Harari/Knesset press office)

 

The prime minister also defended his comparison of the Manchester bomber to Palestinian terrorists in his response to the deadly attack on Tuesday. He had said that had the attacker been Palestinian, he would have received a stipend by the Palestinian Authority.

 

"The root of the matter is the stubborn, violent refusal of the Palestinian side to accept the Jewish state - and the capital of the Jews - in any borders," he said. "Everything else is interesting, important, and certainly open for discussion and dialogue. These are the basic facts."

 

Herzog then returned to the plenum again, reiterating his call for peace talks, before the session was dispersed.

 

The sparring came a day after Trump, in his visit, stressed a unique opportunity for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians and Arab world. While he met with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, the US president made no mention of Palestinian statehood or the US embassy move during his visit.

Unmistakable Evidence of Battle for Temple and Jerusalem 2,000 Years Ago Discovered - By Andrew Friedman - https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/88686/evidence-ancient-battle-jerusalem-eve-second-temple-destruction-unearthed/#hfqGjCMKZ8JVdq98.99

 

"And he burned the house of Hashem, and the king's house; and all the houses of Yerushalayim, even every great man's house, burned he with fire." Jeremiah 52:13 (The Israel Bible™)

 

To mark Jerusalem Day and the 50th anniversary of the reunification of the city, the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Nature and Parks Authority unveiled Thursday 2,000-year-old evidence of the battle for Jerusalem on the eve of the destruction of the Second Temple.

 

Speaking at a press exhibition at the City of David in the Jerusalem Walls National Park, Israel Antiquities Authority archeologists Nahshon Szanton and Moran Hagbi showed a collection of arrowheads and stone ballista balls they discovered on the main street that ascended from the city's gates and the Pool of Siloam to the Temple.  They said the finds tell the story of the last battle between Roman forces and the Jewish rebels who had barricaded themselves in the city, a battle that resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem.

 

The battle is described by the historian Flavius Josephus: "On the following day the Romans, having routed the brigands from the town, set the whole on fire as far as Siloam". (Josephus, Wars, Book 6:363)

 

"Josephus' descriptions of the battle in the lower city come face-to-face for the first time with evidence that was revealed in the field in a clear and chilling manner," said Stanton and Hagbi the directors of the excavation. "Stone ballista balls fired by catapults used to bombard Jerusalem during the Roman siege of the city, were discovered in the excavations. Arrowheads, used by the Jewish rebels in the hard-fought battles against the Roman legionnaires were found exactly as described by Josephus.

 

"This conclusion in fact sheds new light on the history of Jerusalem in the late Second Temple Period, and reinforces recognition of the importance of the Roman procurators' rule in shaping the character of Jerusalem," they added.

 

The ancient road is approximately 100 meters long and 7.5 meters wide, paved with large stone slabs as was customary in monumental construction throughout the Roman Empire. The archaeological excavations on the street utilize a combination of advanced and pioneering research methods, the results of which so far strengthen the understanding that Herod the Great was not solely responsible for the large construction projects of Jerusalem at the end of the Second Temple period.

 

The Last Battle of Jerusalem

 

Recent research indicates that the street was built after Herod's reign, under the auspices of the Roman procurators of Jerusalem, and perhaps even during the tenure of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, who is also known for having sentenced Jesus to death by crucifixion.

 

According to Dr. Yuval Baruch, the Jerusalem region archaeologist for the IAA, the excavation of the site will continue until the entire road is exposed, a process that is expected to take five years.

 

"When the excavations are completed, the remains of the street will be conserved and developed and made ready to receive the tens of thousands of visitors who will walk along it," said Baruch.