GUEST AUTHOR | JACK KINSELLA


Despite successive conquests, Jerusalem has been the heart of Judaism through the centuries. From Mohammed to Saladin through the Ottoman Empire, Jerusalem has never been an Islamic capital, and ‘Palestine’ has never been an Islamic state.


From Abraham D


espite all the promises made by both sides regarding the sanctity of Jerusalem, it seems pretty much a foregone conclusion that the city will eventually be redivided between Arabs and Jews. It is therefore necessary from time to time to recap the actual his- tory of Jerusalem as a bulwark against the incessant propaganda aimed at re-writing history on the fly.


Te truth about Jerusalem has been so muddled by decades of dissembling and propaganda that even many Israelis are evidently no longer sure if Jerusalem is historically a Jewish city or an Arab city.


Te first recorded mention of Jerusalem dates to the 19th century before Christ, where it was listed in the Egyptian Ex-


14 JewishVoiceToday.org | March/April 2011


ecration Texts as “Rusalimum.” It is next mentioned five hundred years later in the 14th century B.C. in the Amara Leters as ‘Urusalim.’ It is about this time that Joshua conquered the Land of Canaan.


Te Israelites lived in the Land of Canaan under the Judges until King David of Israel established Jerusalem as the capital city of the United Kingdom of Israel around 970 B.C.—sixteen hundred years before the birth of Mohammed.


King David bought the threshing-floor on Mount Moriah at fair market value from its legal owner, with the transaction being carefully recorded in the Book of Samuel.


Te owner, Araunah offered to give it to the King, but David insisted, saying,


“Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which cost me nothing” (2 Samuel 24:24).


David inaugurated the Temple Mount and set up a tent over the Holy of Holies, leaving the construction of the permanent Temple to his son Solomon.


David’s United Kingdom of Israel split a hundred years later into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern King- dom of Judah (which included Jerusalem and the Temple Mount).


Te Northern Kingdom was conquered by Sargon II and dispersed in 702 B.C.; the Southern Kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians a genera- tion later.


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