Jewish Holy Sites Desecrated by Arabs-Muslims

What happened to Jewish Holy Sites and places of worship in lands controlled by the Arabs?

On May 28, 1948 the Arab Legion completed the capture of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, the site of numerous ancient synagogues and the Western Wall of the Temple, destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 AD. These were and remain the holiest sites in the Jewish religion.

After the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem was captured, the destruction, desecration and systematic looting of Jewish sites began and continued. 57 ancient synagogues(the oldest dated to the 13th century), libraries and centers of religious study were ransacked and 12 were totally and deliberately destroyed. Those that remained standing were defaced, used for housing of both people and animals. The city's foremost Jewish shrine, the Western Wall, became a slum. Appeals were made to the United Nations and in the international community to declare the Old City to be an 'open city' and stop this destruction, but there was no response. This condition continued until Jordan lost control of Jerusalem in June 1967.

On the Mount of Olives, the Jordanian Arabs removed 38,000 tombstones from the ancient cemetery and used them as paving stones for roads and as construction material in Jordanian Army camps, including use as latrines. When the area was recaptured by Israel in 1967, graves were found open with the bones scattered. Parts of the cemetery were converted into parking lots, a filling station, and an asphalt road was built to cut through it. The Intercontinental Hotel was built at the top of the cemetery. Sadar Khalil, appointed by the Jordanian government as the official caretaker of the cemetery, built his home on the grounds using the stones robbed from graves. In 1967, the press published extensive photos documenting that Jewish gravestones were found in Jordanian Army camps, such as El Azariya, as well as in Palestinian walkways, steps, bathrooms, and pavement.

The Hurva Synagogue, attributed to Rabbi Moses Ben Nahman (Ramban), was the main synagogue in Jerusalem in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (and possibly much earlier), until the Ottomans closed it in 1589 because of Muslim incitement. It was burned by Arabs in 1721 (Hurva = destruction in Hebrew), but againrebuilt by Zionists in the 19th century, becoming the most prominent synagogue on the Jerusalem skyline. For that reason, when it was captured by the Arab Legion during the battle for Old Jerusalem in 1948, they dynamited it to show that they controlled the Jewish Quarter. When the Jews in New Jerusalem saw the Hurva burning, they knew that Jewish life in the Quarter had ended (again).

Access to the Holy Sites

When the 1948 war ended, and negotiations began, the Israeli representatives emphasized regaining access to Jewish Jerusalem. Article VIII of the Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement, signed on April 3, 1949, called for the establishment of a Special Committee:

• ... composed of two representatives of each Party for the purpose of formulating agreed plans" including "free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

Hopes were high that Jews might visit the Western Wall for Passover 1949, butthe Jordanians violated the Armistice Agreement. These clauses were never honored. Promises continued to be made, and Glubb Pasha, the British commander of the Arab Legion,pledged that:

• Jerusalem's Arab and Jewish populations would be two separate cities with free trade and exchange between each other. The Arabs would be perfectly willing to allow the Jews to have access to their shrines, notably the Wailing Wall, now inside the Arab-held Old City.

The Jordanian "occupation" of the West Bank was very abusive of therights of Jews and Christians, or any resident of Israel. Jewish and muslim residents of Israel were not permitted to visit their Holy Places in East Jerusalem. Christians, too, were discriminated against. In 1958, Jordanian legislation required all members of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre to adopt Jordanian citizenship. In 1965, Christian institutions were forbidden to acquire any land or rights in or near Jerusalem. In 1966, Christian schools were compelled to close on Fridays instead of Sundays, customs privileges of Christian religious institutions were abolished. Jerusalem was bisected by barbed wire, concrete barriers and walls. On a number of occasions Jordanian soldiers opened fire on Jewish Jerusalem. In May 1967, the Temple Mount became a military base for the Jordanian National Guard.

During the Jordanian occupation of Hebron from 1948 to 1967, Jews were not permitted to live in the city, nor -- despite the term of the 1948 Armistice Agreement -- to visit or pray at the Jewish holy sites in the city. Additionally, the Jordanian authorities and local residents undertook a systematic campaign to eliminate any evidence of the Jewish presence in the city. They razed the Jewish Quarter, desecrated the Jewish cemetery and built an animal pen on the ruins of the Avraham Avinu synagogue

Although there were numerous discussions of this issue, and Israeli complaints, the Jordanians refused to honor the agreement, and the UN did not pass any resolutions against this treatment of Jewish religious institutions.

Jerusalem 1948-1967 vs. 1967-2007:

Comparing the Israeli and Jordanian Record

- GLORIA Centre

Following the post-1948 division of Jerusalem into east (Transjordan-controlled) and west (Israeli-controlled), from 1948 to 1967, Jews were denied any access to their holiest sites in Jerusalem and dozens of synagogues were decimated by the Jordanian army. After the city was reunited in 1967, the three religions of Abraham--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--were allowed access to their respective holy sites. Under Israeli rule, each religion has been allowed to oversee the management of its own holy sites.

18th April 2007

• On November 29, 1947, the United Nations partitioned the British Mandate of Palestine into two states, namely Arab and Jewish. This was known as the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine or United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181.

• This plan was rejected by the Arabs, and following the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, the armies of Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Transjordan, Iraq, with the support of others, launched an attack on the new state of Israel.

• King Abdullah of Transjordan was assigned the position of commander-in-chief of the Arab armies. Under his command, a British Lieutenant-General named Sir John Bagot Glubb, also referred to as Glubb Pasha, led the Arab Legion of Transjordan into Jerusalem on May 17, 1948.

• The Arab Legion succeeded in conquering the Old City of Jerusalem, and expelled or killed the inhabitants of the Jewish Quarter. Jerusalem was divided and a ceasefire line established through the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and Transjordan split the city into East Jerusalem, part of Transjordan, and West Jerusalem, part of Israel, until 1967.

• In 1950, Jordan annexed all territory that it occupied west of the Jordan River, including east Jerusalem and the West Bank. The annexation was not recognised by the international community.

• On June 7, 1967, the third day of the Six Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbours (namely Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Algeria) resulted in Israel’s conquering Jerusalem and all Jordanian-annexed territory west of the Jordan River from Jordan.

Jordan built a hotel on Mount of Olives thus destroying part of oldest and most important Jewish cemetery:

• The Mount of Olives is a mountain ridge east of Jerusalem which from Biblical times until today is a cemetery and the site of many important Biblical events. It is important to not only Jews, but also to Christians and Muslims, and many important religious events are tied to this historical location.

• During the period of Jordanian control over eastern Jerusalem and the Temple Mount from 1948 until 1967, King Hussein of Jordan allowed the construction of a hotel access road to the Intercontinental Hotel which spanned across the Mount of Olives cemetery, where hundreds of Jewish gravestones were bulldozed and desecrated.

• The Mount of Olives is a Holy Place by UN definition and by doing so, Jordan violated Article VII of the Israel-Jordan General Armistice Agreement (GAA) of 1949.

Jordan destroyed ancient synagogues in the Old City’s Jewish quarter:

• From the period of 1948 to 1967, Jordan demolished 58 synagogues in Jerusalem’s Old City.

• All but one of the ancient synagogues in the Old City were demolished and ravaged during this time by the Jordanians.

Jews had absolutely no access to the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site:

• On April 3, 1949, Israel and Jordan signed an Armistice Agreement. One of the conditions of the GAA was that a special committee would be formed to make arrangements for safe movement of traffic between Jerusalem and the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University, as well as free access to Holy Places. The Jordanians, by denying access to Jews to enter the Old City and Judaism’s holiest sites, directly violated the GAA.

• Under the Jordanian control of East Jerusalem, Jews were denied access to the Western Wall and Temple Mount. Likewise, in Hebron, Jews were not allowed to enter the Tomb of the Patriarchs and other holy places in Bethlehem.

• Similarly, during Jordanian rule (and eventual annexation) of the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967, Israeli Christians and Muslims were also barred from their own respective Holy Places.

Muslim waqf now controls workings of Temple Mount with important mosques, not Israelis:

• As a result of the Six Day War in 1967, Israel recovered the Old City and the entire Jordanian-held territory west of the Jordan River.

• Almost instantaneously, 19-year-old barriers once separating Jerusalem were removed so that all peoples of all religions could be allowed access to their holiest sites.

• To assure that any member of a respective religion will no longer be denied access to their holiest sites, the Knesset passed a law on June 27, 1967, guaranteeing free access to everyone and determining punishment for the desecration or denial of entry.

• From 1967 onward, the Muslim Waqf Administration is responsible for the al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock and all other mosques within Jerusalem.

     o On several occasions, those praying at al-Aqsa then began pelting the Jews praying below at the Western Wall with stones and bricks.

     o As a result, when tensions are high, Israel is occasionally forced to limit temporarily the age of those entering the Temple Mount compound for Friday prayers.

• As for other communities, Christians are placed in charge of administering their own holy sites, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Ministry of Religious Affairs of Israel is in charge of the Western Wall and other Jewish holy sites.