This year in Jerusalem

...It will not be impossible to find a just solution, a reconciliation of both peoples' interests...

...The old Jewish Quarter lay in ruins...

...Until a demented Australian fundamentalist Christian Kbt fire to the Al-Aksa Mosque, in 1969, the Temple Mount was under Israeli sovereignty and Arab administration...

...All the dead will congregate on the Mount of Olives and the angel Gabriel will move paradise to the right of Allah's throne and hell to its left...

...FOR JERUSALEM, the Six-Day War lasted only three days...

...Bulldozers tore down the houses, clearing the way for hundreds of thousands of Jews who pressed to kiss the huge stone blocks of the Wailing Wall, built by King Herod...

...Christians," he says, "have Rome and Canterbury and even Salt Lake City...

...They refuse to talk Hebrew and stick to their traditional Yiddish, born in the ghettos of Eastern Europe...

...He did not want a holy war with the whole of the Moslem world...

...All armed concrete, no trees, no open spaces...

...Israel did it for the same reason it did all the other things, for years: to indicate its understanding of the peace process...

...The visitors walk along underground streets, shops, and houses buried for twenty centuries...

...Moshe Dayan, then minister of defense, coming close on the heels of the first fighters, was stunned...

...A marble slab bears an inscription saying the house was built by a Jewish benefactor for needy pilgrims...

...But it is also on these walls that the world has shed so much blood, and seems ready to do so again...

...Muslim tradition relates, among other things, that the Holy Rock (Al-Sakhra, which in Jewish tradition is the summit of Mount Moriah), is located exactly beneath Allah's throne and above a cave which is the "well of spirits'' where all the souls of the dead congregate twice weekly...

...It is this aspect, rather than the physical vestiges of Jewish history, he contends, that has held the Jewish people together for the two thousand years of the Diaspora...

...They are still there, but at the request of the Moslem authorities a special unit of the Israeli police was formed to watch the Mount...

...A woman may put on all her ornaments except one or two, in remembrance of Jerusalem...

...That is definitely a problem, but nonetheless a detail...

...The Herodian stones, which once towered majestically over the huddled dwellings of the Mughrabis, now seem insignificant compared to the huge flag-stoned expanse...

...He refuses to speculate on the kind of solution possible for Jerusalem...

...On previous page: reading the Torah before the Wailing Wall...

...The Holy Rock from which it is said Mohammed ascended to heaven...

...Namely, that it is not really a peace process...

...On June 7th, 1967, Israeli soldiers reached the Wailing Wall, after nineteen years of Hashemite rule...

...is in the spirit of Christ, and the spirit of Christ is within us...

...Tutunji has a better idea: "We'll give them to the refugees...

...This is how the Talmud sees it: "Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel, is situated in the center of the world...

...He prays for all the dead he does not know and also for his son killed in the battle for Jerusalem, in June 1967...

...You know what, sir, I hate the very sight of those houses...

...Once he used to hawk his wares by the Wailing Wall...

...Now he confines himself to Moslem territory and nobody bothers to ask him for a permit...

...The Christian world was stunned when the Persian Chosroes took the True Cross from Jerusalem in 614 and elated when the victorious Heraclius brought it back in 628...

...The second pillar, to the left of the entrance, bears a scar, at the height of a man's breast...

...But for him that only means that the three hundred thousand Jews and one hundred and twenty thousand Arabs will have to live in tension for a long time...

...From Al-Aksa, wide marble steps lead to what is probably the most beautiful mosque in the world: the Dome of the Rock, built by the great caliph Abdel Malik, in the year 691...

...He readily admits that "Despite our efforts, it is obvious that the Arabs in Jerusalem still do not accept being included within Israel's frontiers...

...they had to be satisfied with excavating along the Herodian Wall, which is the western limit of the Temple Mount...

...Some of Menachem Begin's associates believe that even he would accept such an arrangement, even though it would certainly force a showdown with the Jewish zealots who dream of the day when a new Temple would replace the Dome...

...Having captured the city from the Jebusites, he made it the political and cultural center of his kingdom...

...Till now, no serious effort has been made to tackle that problem.'' Quite the contrary...

...More prosaically, Jerusalem made its entry into the history of the Jews and their religious consciousness during the reign of King David, a little less than three thousand years ago...

...When Solomon built the first Temple, Jerusalem took the name of "City of God...

...In the hadiths, the Prophet Mohammed says: "O Jerusalem, chosen Land of Allah and motherland of his servants, it is out of your walls mat the world has become world...

...The Mughrabis were told to find homes elsewhere...

...He considered pilgrimage to the Holy Land an unnecessary enterprise, since "the holiness SHALOM COHEN is an Israeli journalist, writer, and a former Knesset member...

...With Jerusalem, the Hebrews evolved from a tribal society to a nation...

...SALAH EL-DIN street, outside the Old City walls, is only a few minutes' walk from the crowded bazaars At its end stands a one-story house of weather-beaten stone, which for three generations has been the home of the Nusseiba family...

...Tutunji adds: "Do you expect any Palestinian to be less demanding than the Security Council...

...But then, he points out, the city's Arabs also complained about occupation when the Turks, the British, and the "Jordan bedouin" were in control...

...The fact is that at the beginning of this mission, Mohammed recited the prayers facing toward Jerusalem and only later was the Qibla (direction of prayer) changed to the direction of Mecca...

...Aware that each act within the Holy Enclosure has immense symbolic importance, he ordered the Commonweal: 718 Star of David brought down...

...The police beat me like a dog...

...An uneasy coexistence in which the city often changed hands, was established till it seemed to the Christian world mat it could no longer bear the oppression of the "infidels" and their control of the holy places...

...The visitor must take off his shoes before entering, and place them in the long row mat tourists have left outside...

...For the Christians, the real abode of the believer, according to medieval theologians, is the Heavenly Jerusalem...

...Meir Pa'il, member of Knesset for the left-wing Zionist movement Shelli, is quite willing to see East Jerusalem become the capital of an independent Palestinian State, on condition that this state will live in peace with Israel and that the city be not physically redivided...

...Tutunji has also tasted life in a Jordanian prison...

...Some of their archeologists would have dearly loved to dig under the whole area of the Old City...

...On the 7th of June, 1967 the first Israeli soldiers to breach the ramparts of the Old City, in a burst of delirious enthusiasm, hoisted an Israeli flag over the Dome...

...Rabbi Guez heads back for the archway, where the descent had started...

...To the right the second dome, that of Al-Aksa, is of pure silver...

...Born in Vienna, he was, with Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres, one of David Ben-Gurion's yong proteges...

...A man may prepare a full-course meal, but he should leave out an item of the menu in remembrance of Jerusalem...

...He hopes that by ensuring decent municipal services, free movement of people and goods, access to the Holy Places for all, he could achieve a "reduction of intercommunity conflicts and the satisfaction of international interests...

...Jerusalem was neglected in favor of Amman...

...Nobody said it outright, but the Kotel was a preserve of Jewish hawkers...

...Their sages ordained: "A man may whitewash his house, but he should leave a small area unfinished in remembrance of Jerusalem...

...In spite of UNESCO's condemnation and Arab protests, the Jews have gone ahead with their digging...

...On any Friday, nowadays, it is possible to see pilgrims from the four corners of the world following in the footsteps of Christ, retracing the Way of the Cross, the Via Dolorosa...

...However, the physical attraction to the holy sites of Christ's birth and ministry, the great shrines erected in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, proved too strong for theological finesse...

...The adoration of Jerusalem is primarily based on the first verse of Sura 17 of the Koran: "Blessed be Allah who carried his servant by night from the Holy Mosque to the Outer Mosque (Al-Aksa), which we have blessed...

...He believes that the Wall, and the Old City of Jerusalem, have come to symbolize the chauvinist aspirations of Israeli nationalism and will lead to a war of extermination that would endanger the very existence of the Jews in Israel...

...On November 20th, 1977, Anwar el-Sadat came to pray at this same spot, on the start of his road to peace...

...First, we must decide the context of an overall settlement...

...He leads the group back to the Wall...

...Slightly more to the political center, member of Knesset Shulamit Aloni, civil and women's rights champion, states:' 'If the price of peace is relinquishing East Jerusalem, I am willing to pay it, though it's a heavy price...

...Try as he might, he never got the license...

...When the modern national movement of the Jews was created, it took its name from Zion, one of the names of Jerusalem...

...They must leave all the houses they built, because they built them illegally...

...A reminder that King Abdullah of Jordan was murdered here, in June 1951, after attending Friday prayers, because he wanted to make peace with Israel...

...At each feast, Jews all over the world greeted each other with "Next year in Jerusalem...

...The fines kept piling up, till the day a judge told him: "Pay them or go to jail...

...He rejects outright Egypt's insis19 December 1980:719 tence that the Arab part of the city become the headquarters of the Palestinian self-rule council...

...There are religious Jews, too, who do not object to returning the Old City—Wailing Wall and all—to the Arabs...

...BeforetheJewscame,"hesays, "I was a journalist, but now I do not write...

...It is not really gold, but oxydized tin...

...The Jews will have to go...

...The future of Jerusalem cannot be resolved by division...

...So what do you want me to dream of, if not a state of my own, where I would be king?'' His neighbor at the tiny coffee-table puffs diligently at his nargileh until he has it going properly, then joins the conversation: "A Palestinian state...

...The thing I dread most," he says, "is that this city, so beautiful, so meaningful, so holy to millions of people, should ever be divided again...

...Tradition states that when the "Servant (Mohammed) was sleeping near the Kaaba, the angel Gabriel brought him to a winged creature and they went out to the "Outer Mosque.'' From there they rose to heaven...

...He has condemned the latest expropriation of Arab land in Jerusalem, but he also condemns the Security Council's resolution that Israel must relinquish East Jerusalem...

...Even America voted for that resolution...

...But it must be clear to all, that we Palestinian Arabs, Moslems as well as Christians, have an attachment, an association with Jerusalem, in the same way that the Jews have an attachment and association with Jerusalem...

...Born in Tunisia, he lives in one of the very few old houses left intact in the Jewish Quarter...

...They are Moslems in Israeli uniforms...

...No, sir...

...TANGLED HOPES IN THE HOLY LAND-I This year in Jerusalem SHALOM COHEN IERUSALEM, which is also called City of Peace, has probably seen more wars, bloodshed, hate and internecine struggles than any other city in the world—all in the name of ideals and symbols with which the three great monotheistic religions have richly endowed it...

...Most famous are the Neturei Karta sect of ultra-orthodox Jews...

...There is always a handful of them bearing a large wooden cross, just like the crusaders who had preceded them...

...Anwar Nusseiba, former ambassador of Jordan to the Court of Saint James and former Hashemite minister of defense, is much more soft-spoken than Tutunji or Kamil effendi, but he says essentially the same thing...

...Under the dome, in the center of the mosque, rises the living rock: This is the center of the universe, target of all the holy wars...

...The specific details will depend a great deal on the ultimate intentions of both sides, and also on the climate in which the settlement is negotiated...

...The green wooden gate still bears the name of the Mughrabis...

...Getting rid of the "stones" will re-emphasize the spiritual aspects of Judaism...

...I don't doubt that if they really wanted it, they could achieve it, and then Jerusalem won't be an obstacle...

...Islamic Wakf (religious foundation) guards were its sole protectors...

...At the end of the wedding ceremony the groom must repeat:' if I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning...

...President Sadat's initiative is quite clearly a non-starter...

...A newly-built pathway leads from the Wailing Wall to the Temple Mount that surmounts it...

...and that human life is certainly more sanctified in the eyes of the Lord than any territory, be it the Holy Land itself...

...Only a blind man does not see it coming...

...He is Kamil effendi, a teacher at the Ibrahimiyeh secondary school in Jerusalem...

...Muslims have Mecca and Medina...

...Tutunji sells souvenirs and postcards to the visitors of the Haram el-Sharif...

...So, after three days, was the Mughrabi Quarter...

...Suddenly he stops and murmurs a short prayer...

...Just before reaching the Wailing Wall, a large underground hall has been turned into a synagogue...

...The crusades are over, but the Christian churches hold jealously to each site that recalls the passage of the Son of God in this city...

...There are also hadiths (sayings attributed to the Prophet) regarding the great value of prayer said in Jerusalem...

...Brand-new buildings, supposed to duplicate the style and charm of the old ones, have been built by the Israelis...

...The view that most theologians held it that the Outer Mosque is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem...

...But Leibowitz's voice is a voice crying in the desert, with almost no political impact...

...That's what the Security Council of the United Nations has decreed, isn't it...

...But they are a negligible quantity within the religious community...

...When he walks, he limps slightly, a reminder that he lost his leg in the war of 1948...

...He suggests the division of the city into autonomous boroughs, drawing the wrath of the right-wing Likud faction in the municipal council which claims that any administrative division would lead to a new political partition...

...In later years, hoping to legalize Israeli sovereignty over the rest of Arab Jerusalem, Moshe Day an declared his readiness to accept a Moslem flag over the Haram el-Sharif...

...But not a single Moslem leader has accepted such a deal and the golden Dome remains a symbol of the struggle between the sons of Israel and the sons of Ishmael...

...That is as far as he is willing to concede...

...The last Jewish dynasty...

...Despite the change, Jerusalem retained its special holiness among the Moslems and its Arabic name, Al-Quds, The Holy, is ample proof...

...The Haram el-Sharif, a rectangle of some fifty acres, glitters under the sun...

...he answers...

...He earned much more, but every day he would get a fine for trading without a municipal license...

...The Jewish quarters of Jerusalem...

...First and foremost is the matter of Arab sovereignty over East Jerusalem, though that too is only one of the aspects of the rights of the Palestinian people...

...They have destroyed the beauty of our countryside...

...They do not recognize the State of Israel...

...He spent two months in prison...

...It'^shocking," he says in his precise English...

...Even if the Israelis allow you to write what you really want in one of the Arabic papers published in Jerusalem, you would be like a performing dog in a circus...

...Two policemen search whoever passes through...

...So if I am not completely free, I refuse to put on a show of freedom.'' And yet, the Palestinian state is only a matter of time, and with it, so he believes, a full retreat of the Israelis from Jerusalem...

...At the end of the days, 19 December 1980: 717 the angel of death, Israfil, will blow the horn three times while standing on the rock, and the Day of Judgment will then ¦ commence...

...Rabbi Guez could visit the Temple Mount, if he so wished, on the other side of this Wall...

...The Hasmonean Hall, Rabbi Guez explains...

...They took away Arab land and whatever is on this land belongs to the Arab owners...

...One of the passages connecting the great esplanade to the narrow suks of the Old City...

...Daoud Tutunji offers a cup of tea in one of the tiny coffee-shops where one can smoke a nargileh in utter tranquillity while watching the human tide hurry by...

...The Jews have only Jerusalem and only the Jews have made it their capital...

...They reject the very concept of political Zionism and insist that the Ingathering of the Jews in their homeland can only be an act of divine grace, not a military undertaking...

...19 December 1980: 721...

...But within ten years the city fell to Omar, bearing the standard of Islam...

...Does he really expect the Israelis to quit the new quarters they have built on the hills of the Arab sector, all around the city...

...that armed men again patrol a frontier through its heart...

...Professor Ishayahu Leibowitz, an octogenarian professor of mathematics who is a deeply devout orthodox, states bluntly that "the adoration of the stones of the Wailing Wall is plain idolatry...

...Almost all the other houses were destroyed in the fighting of 1948...

...And the world applauds their liberalism...

...But even without the danger of such a war, he claims that this nationalistic attachment to "idolatry" is warping the very essence of Jewish faith...

...If you ask me, they should be torn down after the Jews go...

...Jordan's or Saudi Arabia's preferably...

...Once, before the Jews came," he remembers, "I insulted the king...

...Only Jews can inhabit them...

...I fear the redivision of Jerusalem not only as the mayor of the city, as a Jew and as an Israeli, but as a human being who is deeply sensitive to its history and who cares profoundly for the well-being of its inhabitants . . . The questions that the Arabs raise about Jerusalem cannot be decided by drawing a line...

...Later, architects and city-planners laid out the present plaza, but instead of stressing the importance of the age-old wall they seem to have reduced it...

...Right in the center stands the golden Dome...

...There are matters of principle," he says, "over which no compromise is possible...

...It is composed of Moslems, Christians, and Jews, commanded by a Moslem officer...

...Commonweal: 720 More to the point, some rabbis hold that the holiness of the city does not reside in its old stones, but in the faith and die righteousness of the people who live in it...

...Hundreds of thousands took the cross, in successive crusades, beginning in the year 1099...

...Give it back to the Arabs or tear it down...

...From Jerusalem, City of Jesus by Richard M. Mackowski, S.J., a comprehensive study of the ancient Holy City, with ISO colaphotos by Garo Nalbandian and 30 maps (Eerdmans, $29.95...

...At the end of the underground tunnel, the latest discoveries: an olive press and a stone water-trough...

...It is a negation of peace...

...They are built like fortresses, or prisons, not like homes...

...Rabbi Guez leads important visitors on a long descent into the past, to the Jerusalem of the Hasmoneans and the Romans, buried beneath the Jerusalem of today...

...For the Moslems, Jerusalem is third in the order of holiness only to the Kaaba in Mecca and the Mosque of Mohammed in Medina...

...Hard by the Wailing Wall, an arch leads underground...

...for them King Hussein is the rightful sovereign...

...Many Jews do...

...BAB EL-SILSILEH, the Gate of the Chain...

...Jerusalem is in the center of Eretz Israel...

...But his faith forbids him, because he might inadvertently step on the ground where only the High Priest could tread...

...They keep descending till they reach a large hall with high ceiling and columns...

...Al-Aksa has served as royal palace, mosque, cathedral, and headquarters of the Knights of the Temple...

...In some parts, the Wall has been cleared to a depth of thirty meters, its stones as straight and hard as the day they were put in place...

...Of course...

...For it is mostly tourists who visit die mosques, except for the hours of prayer, when only Moslems are allowed in...

...Kamil effendi draws philosophically on his water-pipe...

...Rabbi Meir Guez is the "Rav Hakotel," the rabbi of the Wall...

...Like the latest expropriation of Arab land in the vicinity of Jerusalem, to complete its encirclement by Jewish settlements...

...that barbed-wire fences, minefields and concrete barriers should again sever its streets...

...Since then, dispersed, persecuted, the Jews centered their thoughts, their prayers and their hopes on the city they could not forget...

...The Israelis who are ready to concede more are few indeed...

...We are now facing the exact place where the Holy of Holies stood," he explains...

...For the Jews, Jerusalem is the navel of the universe...

...Nobody can achieve it on their behalf...

...Rabbi Guez joins them...

...A number of men are reciting the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead...

...Let this common bond be acknowledged by all, and the problem will be solved...

...not by walking but by loving...

...And in truth, for them a Palestinian was nothing but a dog...

...In a commentary on the words of Christ, "If someone be thirsty, let him come to me and drink," Saint Augustine wrote: "When thirsty, we should go not by foot but by our feelings...

...Realistically, Kollek envisages that Moslem and Jewish differences might prove irreconcilable...

...The Israelis show you to the world and say: do you see how free he is...

...Its columns were brought from Byzantium, its finely carved wooden ceiling from Damascus, its carpets from Persia...

...On the other side of the political fence, another imposing personality: Teddy Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem...

...The...

...I have no doubt that an Israeli-Palestinian peace is possible, but only the Israelis and the Palestinians can achieve it...