Letter from Ruth Matar (Women in Green) Jerusalem
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Dear Friends,
On Tuesday, October 23rd, two days ago, Women in Green held a demonstration at Paris Square in Jerusalem, very close to Ehud Olmert’s residence. We held posters and handed out bumper stickers saying: “Olmert is Dangerous for the Jews”, “the Land of Israel Belongs to the People of Israel”, “Jerusalem is not for Sale”, “No to a Palestinian State”, etc.
An elderly gentleman came up to me and said: “I admire you for holding this demo, but I can tell you that, unfortunately, it is not of any use what the World is planning in Annapolis is nothing short of gang rape of Israel. It is already much too late.”
I agree with this elderly gentleman that the present situation is most dangerous for Israel. Our Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, is indeed a threat to the very survival of the Jewish State.
Every day we read about Olmert’s latest concessions to Abbas with regard to Jerusalem, albeit unconfirmed:
1. Dividing Jerusalem into two parts, Jewish and Arab.
2. Handing over complete control over the Temple Mount to the Muslims.
These rumors may be “unconfirmed”, yet many Members of Knesset seem to take them very seriously. More than half of the Knesset members, from both the Opposition and Coalition factions, have already signed a petition against plans to hand over parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority, including giving the Muslims complete control over the Temple Mount.
The Knesset Members are justified in their fear. The Prime Minister asserted earlier this month that he DOES NOT NEED KNESSET APPROVAL TO REACH A JOINT DECLARATION WITH PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY CHAIRMAN MAHMOUD ABBAS.
Olmert’s insistence that there is a natural division between Arab and Jewish Jerusalem is complete fiction.
For many years, Arabs immigrating into Palestine tried to violently drive the Jews out of their homes in the holy city of Jerusalem.
The first large Arab riots took place in Jerusalem in the intermediary days of Passover, April 1920. Six Jews were killed and some 200 injured in the course of these riots. Such unrest and violence continued in Jerusalem for years, resulting in Arabs taking possession of many Jewish homes.
When you next come to Jerusalem, I suggest that you take a guided tour with the “Ateret Cohanim” organization. You will see proof of original Jewish ownership on the doorposts of what are now Arab occupied homes in the so-called “Muslim Quarter”. You can clearly observe a hollow niche where a Jewish Mezuzah was once placed!
Why did Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently allow Arab bulldozers and other heavy equipment to be used to dig a massive trench on the Temple Mount? The Islamic Waqf custodians claimed the work was necessary to replace electrical cables. Is Prime Minister Olmert really gullible enough to believe this?
In an article by Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily, posted October 22, 2007 he says that prominent Temple Mount archeologists accused Olmert of attempting to cover up the alleged failure to properly supervise a dig in which Islamic authorities were accused of deliberately destroying Temple Mount antiquities.
Palestinian and Muslim leaders have always routinely denied well-documented Jewish ties to the Temple Mount. Using heavy equipment in order to supposedly replace electrical cables was clearly an attempt to destroy the evidence of the two Jewish Temples!
Why did Olmert not allow the Israeli Antiquities Authority to supervise this dig? Did he not realize that the Arabs were deliberately destroying the evidence that ties the Jews to the Temple Mount?
The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism! We must understand the significance of the Temple Mount to the Jews, and thus the dangers of handing over complete control over it to the Arabs.
The following is a short historical background on the Temple Mount:
Jewish tradition, from its very beginnings, has seen the Temple Mount in Jerusalem as the very center of the universe, the focal point of G-d’s connection to the Jewish people and all of mankind. The Torah relates in Genesis that the near-sacrifice of Isaac took place atop Mount Moriah, which was identified with the Mountain of G-d, the Mountain of pilgrimage that is the Temple Mount.
After King David founded Jerusalem as the capital of the kingdom of Israel, he purchased land with a granary from a Jebusite named Aravna; David’s son Solomon built a magnificent Temple there that stood for 400 years. Solomon’s Temple was designed and built as a permanent shrine on a grand scale, which would replace the Tabernacle that had served the Israelites in the desert, and in various temporary locations within the Promised Land.
Although destroyed by the Babylonians in their conquest of Judea, the Temple was rebuilt by the returning exiles, and served as the center of Jewish spiritual and material life for the next 600 years. In the reign of Herod the Great, near the beginning of the Common Era, the Temple was completely refurbished, while the Temple Mount almost doubled in size all in order to accommodate millions of pilgrims, Jews and non-Jews from all over the known world.
Almost 2000 years have passed since the Romans destroyed the Second Temple; yet committed Jews throughout the centuries, in all the lands of their exile, have prayed in the direction of their ruined Temple. To this day, Jews focus their hopes, dreams and prayers on the speedy rebuilding of the Temple, as the central condition for national and cosmic redemption.
According to the Hebrew poet Uri Zvi Greenberg (1896-1981), “whoever controls the Temple Mount controls the entire land of Israel!”
This is as true today as when Uri Zvi Greenberg originally wrote these lines.
It is imperative that we stop Ehud Olmert from treating our beloved Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land as his private real estate!
It is imperative that we make Olmert understand that he cannot barter away Jerusalem and the rest of our Homeland to Chairman Mahmoud Abbas without even Knesset approval!
Going back to the elderly gentleman at the demo two days ago, I agree with him that the Annapolis Conference might well turn into a gang rape of Israel.
However, it is not too late!
We must all work together to prevent a great tragedy!
IN ISRAEL, we must, at all costs, work on removing Olmert from the seat of power, so that he cannot treat Israel as his private real estate.
IN THE UNITED STATES, you, dear friends, must convince President Bush that no part of Israel is for sale!
IT IS NOT TOO LATE!
With Blessings and Love for Israel,
Ruth Matar
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Women For Israel’s Tomorrow (Women in Green)
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