|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Leonard Grunstein
Turkish President Recep Erdogan has implied a number of times since 2020 that Jerusalem belongs to Turkey.
Most recently, on December 22, 2024, in response to the loud chants of “Mr. President, take us to Jerusalem” from a crowd of young people at a speech he gave in Mardin, Turkey, he shockingly responded, “Patience brings victory”. Instead of chiding the crowd about their inappropriate demand, he embraced it. Lest their be any misunderstanding about the intent of this exchange, Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, a coalition partner of President Erdogan, on the next day, December 23, 2024, in an address to a group of his supporters, reportedly assured them that the goal was for Turkey to take Jerusalem. This is in line with the resurgent neo-Ottoman posture of Turkish President Erdogan.
By way of background, a good portion of the Middle East, including the Land of Israel, was conquered and controlled by the Ottoman Empire (with Istanbul, Turkey as its capital) during the period 1517–1917. Then, the Ottoman Empire was on the losing side of World War I. This set the stage for the establishment of new or reconstituted sovereign states out of the portions of its former empire, which it ceded to the victorious allies, under the Treaty of Sèvres that was signed on August 10, 1920.
Article 95 of the Treaty confirmed the agreement to establish the territory labeled Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, as a national home for the Jewish people. The Treaty of Lausanne, signed on July 24, 1923, with Turkey, in effect reaffirmed the foregoing, as detailed in the San Remo Resolution of 1920 and unanimously adopted by the League of Nations in 1922.
In summary, under Treaties to which the Ottoman Empire and Turkey are bound and international law, the Jewish people’s right to return to their homeland of Israel (then called Palestine with no connection to the Arabs who now call themselves Palestinians), join fellow brethren there, and reconstitute the Jewish State there was recognized.
As Winston Churchill stated, in 1922, the Jews had returned to Palestine “as of right and not by sufferance, and that this was based on their ancient historical connection.” Speaking before the Peel Commission years later, in 1937, Churchill snapped at a Commission member who referred to the Jews in Palestine as a “foreign race” and said, “The Jews had Palestine before that indigenous population [the Arabs] came in and inhabited it.”
This concept was also reflected in a Report and Recommendations of the Intelligence Section of the American Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, dated January 21, 1919, for the use of President Wilson and the delegation. In discussing the recommendation “to recognize Palestine as a Jewish State,” the Report stated as follows:
It is right that Palestine should become a Jewish State, if the Jews, being given the full “Opportunity, make it such. It was the cradle and home of their vital race, which has made large spiritual contributions to mankind, and is their only land in which they can hope to find a home of their own; they being in this respect unique among significant peoples.”
The Intelligence Section also recommended to the President and the American Delegation that the Jewish State should be separate and distinct from Syria, rejecting, in effect, the Syrian Delegation’s demand. The Intelligence Section noted:
“The separation of the Palestinian area from Syria finds justification in the religious experience of mankind. The Jewish and Christian churches were born in Palestine, and Jerusalem was for long years at different periods the capital of each. And while the relation of the Mohammedans to Palestine is not so intimate, from the beginning they have regarded Jerusalem as a holy place. Only by establishing Palestine as a separate state can justice be done to these great facts.
“As drawn upon the map, the state would control its own source of power and irrigation, on Mount Hermon in the east to the Jordan; a feature of great importance since the success of the new state would depend on the possibilities of agricultural development.
—
“It is recommended that the Jews be invited to return to Palestine and settle there, being assured by the Conference of all proper assistance in so doing that may be consistent with the protection of the personal (especially the religious) and the property rights of the non-Jewish population and being assured that it will be the policy of the League of Nations to recognize Palestine as a Jewish State, as it is a Jewish State in fact.”
The San Remo Resolution, unanimously adopted by the League of Nations, and the Anglo-American Treaty of 1924 attest to the validity of these recommendations.
Erdogan’s musings are just another one of baseless positions circulated by biased sources promoting a false narrative and ideologically motivated revisionist history in order to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish State of Israel. As a matter of fact and law, the nations of the world in the League of Nations and the United States unanimously confirmed the legal right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, then called Palestine. The British Government, in its Statement of British Policy in Palestine, dated June 3, 1922, also confirmed in no uncertain terms that the whole of Palestine west of the Jordan was included in the Land of Israel.
It is suggested that much of the uproar and machinations regarding the Temple Mount are inspired by pseudo-Muslims (not pious ones), with political and ideological driven agendas, unrelated to prayer at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Instead it appears they callously tread in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, clad in shoes, despite the Islamic prohibition against doing so, dressed in inappropriate apparel, like shorts and tee shirts and without head covering.
They also play soccer and conduct other non-prayer activities on the Temple Mount, without regard to its sanctity. This includes despoiling the Al-Aqsa Mosque, throwing rocks, setting off explosive devices, breaking windows, arson and other despicable acts. This abusive behavior by fellow Muslims should offend the Muslim authorities in charge of the site. Yet, they don’t seem to have taken any actions to prevent a reoccurrence; nor does there appear to be a public outcry against the perpetrators or the laxness of the Muslim authorities.
At the same time, there are all sorts of negative reactions, protests and rancor when non-Muslims quietly and reverently pray elsewhere on the Temple Mount. This is wholly inconsistent with the usual religious sensibilities and kindness practiced by those treasuring the sanctity of a site, be it a synagogue, church, mosque, ashram, Buddhist temple or other place of worship, almost anywhere else in the world.
In this regard, it is interesting to note that the Ottoman Empire agreed, pursuant to the Treaty of Paris of 1856 (the peace agreement entered into at the end of the Crimean War) that Christians and Jews were legally permitted to pray on the Temple Mount.
It is important to note that the 1925 A Brief Guide to the Al-Haram Al-Sharif (i.e. the Temple Mount), published by the Supreme Moslem Council (Waqf), refers to the seminal Jewish link to the Temple Mount (citing II Samuel 24:25), as follows:
“This, too, is the spot, according to the universal belief, on which ‘David built there an Altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings’.”
The pseudo-Islamist Temple deniers should be universally reviled for their impudent rejection of their own religious traditions and beliefs in favor of absurd propaganda.
The Guide also focuses on Muslim history and its first encounter with the Temple Mount and notes the Moslem period starting point is the year 637 A.D., when Caliph Omar first occupied Jerusalem. This is a striking rebuke to those who falsely assert Arab Muslims were indigenous to Jerusalem. As the Waqf’s own Guide recognizes, the Jews and their Holy Temple on the Temple Mount were there first. This was more than one and one-half millennia before the Arabs arrived and began their occupation of Jerusalem.
The Guide also explains that the Dome of the Rock is not a Mosque. It even notes the mischaracterization of the Dome of the Rock as the Mosque of Omar and puts the matter to rest by labeling this notion quite wrong. The actual Arabic name of Qubbat al-Sakhrah is more precisely translated as the Dome over the ‘Foundation Stone’. This accords with Jewish tradition, which refers to this stone as the Even Shetiyah or in English, the Foundation Stone, where the Holy of Holies portion of the Beit HaMikdash was located. Hence, the use of the Arabic term al-Quds for the Temple Mount, derived from Bayt Al-Maqdis (Arabic for the Hebrew term Beit HaMikdash).
The Al-Aqsa Mosque is located outside of the holy precincts of the Jewish Temple and is situated on the southern extension of the Temple Mount platform built by Herod. As Al-Tabari, a 9th century respected historian in the Muslim religious world, explains, this was as Omar intended so that Muslims would pray towards Mecca, consistent with Islamic practice and not the place of the Jewish Temple as required by Jewish custom. In this regard, it should be noted that 13th century Ahmad ibn Taymiyya declared with respect to the site of Dome of the Rock:
“Men of Knowledge who were companions or followers of the Prophet chose the best path and did not exalt the Rock, because it is a quibla mansukha, like the Sabbath…so too, the Rock is exalted only by Jews and some Christians.”
It is astonishing that the words of this noted Sunni scholar are simply and callously ignored in favor of the dictates of political ideology by Erdogan. As to Erdogan’s other fatuous remarks about Jerusalem, pictures are worth a thousand words. Just view photographs of the Temple Mount in the 19th century, showing an abandoned site with the Dome of the Rock and other structures in disrepair. They do not depict what might be expected if this were indeed a highly venerated site, important to the Muslim religion, which, after all, was the official and dominant religion of the Ottoman Empire that occupied and was in firm control of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, at the time.
President Erdogan, Jerusalem does not belong to Turkey. Your apparent aspirations to re-create a neo-Ottoman colonial empire are nothing more than a dystopian nightmare. Wake up and stop pursuing these malevolent ambitions.
As the Abraham Accords have demonstrated, Israel is a blessing to the world. Why not join the Circle of Peace? Imagine if all that negative energy was sublimated and channeled so as to inspire and reinforce the innate positive desire of people to succeed like the members of the Circle, by emulating them. This is one of the most elegant aspects of the Abraham Accords, which overcomes the psychological barriers to peace, by generating shared prosperity and mutual respect among the members of the Circle of Peace it created. It tangibly demonstrates how success is not a zero-sum game, where someone wins only because another loses. By partnering with each other and embracing the free-market, mutual success and prosperity can be achieved at a level that was previously unimaginable.
Leonard Grunstein, retired attorney and banker, founded and served as Chairman of Metropolitan National Bank and then Israel Discount Bank of NY. He founded Project Ezrah and serves on the Board of Bernard Revel at Yeshiva Univ. and the AIPAC National Council. He has published articles in the Banking Law Journal, Real Estate Finance Journal and more and is the co-author of “Because It’s Just and Right: The Untold Back-Story of the U.S. Recognition of Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel and Moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.”
