Yet despite this major unilateral concession by Israel, the Palestinians and Europeans are dismissing it and simply demanding more.
Poll after poll has demonstrated that Americans, by convincing majorities, support Israel and not the Palestinians, oppose U.S. funding for the Palestinian Authority and the establishment of a Palestinian state, and also support Jerusalem remaining under Israeli sovereignty. In this context, I gave a detailed historical, political and religious analysis exposing the propaganda myth that Jerusalem is holy to Muslims.
I noted that the Torah mentions Jerusalem more than 600 times, while the Koran never mentions Jerusalem even once. Throughout history, Jerusalem has only been the capital of Israel. When Arabs conquered the area in 716 CE, they made Ramle their capital, not Jerusalem. When the Arabs controlled eastern Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967, they treated it with utter disregard. They allowed it to become a slum, there was no steady water electricity or plumbing and they destroyed the 58 synagogues and the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
Very tellingly, no Arab leader visited eastern Jerusalem during that period. Since the mid-1800’s, the majority of people living there have been Jews. Remarkably, the PLO covenant does not even mention Jerusalem.
Hearing the words of truth-tellers like Ambassador Bolton and Ms. Glick did much to strengthen and inspire those of us who sometimes despair at the complacency of much of the Jewish community. But as I reminded my listeners at the close of my speech, it’s been a common occurrence in Jewish history that a minority of Jews have been proved right and helped in the end to save the majority – the Maccabees during this Chanukah season being the classic example.