By Jerry Gordan, The Iconoclast
Yom Yerushalayim Day, the 45th Commemoration of the Reunification of Jerusalem
“The Temple Mount is in our Hands” – Yom Yerushalayim Day, the 45th Commemoration of the Reunification of Jerusalem
This evening in Israel begins the commemoration of Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, the 28th of Iyar in the Hebrew Calendar. The occasion marks the 45th anniversary of the reunification of the ancient and eternal capital of the Jewish State of Israel. Nineteen years after Jordanian Legionnaires routed valiant defending forces, destroyed Jewish landmarks and expelled Jewish residents of the Old City; IDF forces retook the eastern half of Israel’s capitol on June 7th, 1967, after fierce fighting.
Simon Sebag Montefiore’s book, Jerusalem: The Biography captures the moment of liberation during the climactic moment of the June Six days of War in June 1967 with this excerpt published by the National Post, “The Temple Mount is in our Hands”:
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First the Israelis bombarded the Augusta Victoria ridge, using napalm; the Jordanians fled. Then Israeli paratroopers took the Mount of Olives and moved down towards the Garden of Gethsemane. “We occupy the heights overlooking the Old City,” the paratroop commander Colonel Motta Gur told his men. “In a little while we will enter it. The ancient city of Jerusalem which for generations we have dreamed of and striven for — we’ll be the first to enter it. The Jewish nation is awaiting our victory. Be proud. Good luck!”
At 9:45 a.m., the Israeli Sherman tanks fired at the Lions’ Gate, smashing the bus that was blocking it, and blew open the doors. Under raking Jordanian fire, the Israelis charged the gate. The paratroopers broke into the Via Dolorosa, and Colonel Gur led a group onto the Temple Mount. “There you are on a half-track after two days of fighting with shots still filling the air and suddenly you enter this wide open space that everyone has seen before in pictures,” wrote intelligence officer Arik Akhmon, “and though I’m not religious, I don’t think there was a man who wasn’t overwhelmed with emotion. Something special had happened.” There was a skirmish with Jordanian troops before Gur announced over the radio: “The Temple Mount is in our hands!”
Meanwhile on Mount Zion, a company of the Jerusalem Brigade burst through a portal in the Zion Gate into the Armenian Quarter, hurtling down the steep hill into the Jewish Quarter, just as soldiers of the same unit broke through the Dung Gate. All headed for the Wall. Back on the Temple Mount, Gur and his paratroopers did not know how to reach it, but an old Arab showed them the Maghrebi Gate and all three companies converged simultaneously on the holy place. Holding his shofar and a Torah, the bearded Rabbi Shlomo Goren, chief chaplain of the Israeli Army, strode to the Wall and began to recite the Kaddish mourning prayer as the soldiers prayed, wept, applauded, danced and some sang the city’s new anthem “Jerusalem of Gold.”
At 2:30 p.m., Dayan, ?anked by Rabin and Narkiss, entered the city, passing “smouldering tanks,” and walking through “alleys totally deserted, an eerie silence broken by sniper fire. I remembered my childhood,” said Rabin, and reported feeling “sheer excitement as we got closer” to the Kotel. As they proceeded across the Temple Mount, Dayan saw an Israeli flag atop the Dome of the Rock and “I ordered it removed immediately.” Rabin was “breathless” as he watched the “tangle of rugged battle-weary men, eyes moist with tears,” but “it was no time for weeping — a moment of redemption, of hope.”
Rabbi Goren wanted to accelerate the messianic era by dynamiting the mosques on the Temple Mount, but General Narkiss replied:
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“Stop it!”
“You’ll enter the history books,” said Rabbi Goren.
“I’ve already recorded my name in the history of Jerusalem,” answered Narkiss.
“This was the peak of my life,” recalled Rabin. “For years I had secretly harboured the dream that I might play a role in restoring the Western Wall to the Jewish people. Now that dream had come true and suddenly I wondered why I of all men should be privileged.” Rabin was granted the honor of naming the war: always modest and dignified, gruff and laconic, he chose the simplest name: the Six Day War. Nasser had another name for it — al-Naksa, the Reversal.
In 1980 Israel’s Knesset passed a law proclaiming Jerusalem as its ‘eternal and indivisible’ capital. The Muslim Ummah suggests otherwise. They contend that Allah had supposedly given Jerusalem and the world as an endowment for Muslims, but not for Jews or Christians. The mainstream media parrots the line that the world hasn’t recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s unified capital since a final peace agreement has yet to been concluded.
As noted in a CNS report successive Presidents beginning with former President Clinton have avoided implementing an Act of Congress mandating moving the US Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israel’s capital:
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Congress in 1995 passed a law recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and stating that “the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999.” An inbuilt waiver authority allowed the president to postpone the move, in the interests of “national security,” for consecutive six-monthly periods.
Reflecting the strong level of support in the U.S. for Israel and for Israel’s claim to Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act passed 374-37 in the House and 93-5 in the Senate.
Last June 6th, President Obama elected to invoke the waiver authority.
These acts by Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama suggest that the circumstances of such recognition would not be in this country’s interests. Thus, preserving the fiction that a Palestinian State would be entitled to East Jerusalem as its future capitol. The US Jerusalem consulate has been largely staffed with Palestinians in the local interests section with Arabic the predominate language of choice in handling issuance of Visas and other matters. According to Israel Matzav the US consulate in Jerusalem functions as “the unofficial US embassy to the Palestinians”.
In the wake of the Arab Spring and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism virtually surround the Jewish State of Israel this failure of will by US Presidents to implement the sense of the Congress in the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act of 1995 and move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem looks like abject dhimmitude by the US government.
Yom Yerushalayim – A day to rejoice and to remember with deepest gratitude those who fought and those who gave their lives that today we have a united capital of the Jewish State of Israel. Continued blessings for today’s Israeli Defense Forces!
@ shosh7154:
Don’t mind oat he really means BAD!
@ shosh7154:
@ Shy Guy:
SAMPLE
Offer: $1000.000, for information leading to the arrest and conviction of BB Netanyahu. No questions asked and anonymity will be protected.
Worked with Katsav, Olmert and Sharon why not BB?
Olmert – spit
Goodness Rongrand, let’s correct the statement.
One State, the Jewish Nation of Israel.
One Capital, an undivided city of Jerusalem, the city of G-d.
One Israel, from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean including Gaza, the Sinai, Judea & Samaria and of course the Golden Heights (you can’t have it Syria, forget it.)
One State, the Jewish Nation of Israel.
One Capital and undivided city of Jerusalem, the city of G-d.
One Israel, from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean including Gaza, the Sinai, Judea and Samaria and of course the Golden Heights (you can have it Syria, forget it).
@ BlandOatmeal:
it is good plan for you that G-d of Israel has long patience otherwise you will be looking like arafat’s lips right now.
@ yamit82:
ani ohevet otach yamit…..AM ISRAEL CHAI
Must 4 EVER B kept unified & the capital of Israel. Regardless of what the West and the Muslims think.
@ BlandOatmeal:
A House of prayer for all nations. It is a House of Prayer for ALL those who believe in the Holy One, the G-D of Israel, NOT the death god, Muslims call Allah, the god who calls for the murder of non-Muslims. Jews are targeted first for murder.
In all of history, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount was NEVER a holy place for Muslims!
The 13th century Arab biographer, Yakut, noted: Mecca is holy to Muslims; Jerusalem is holy to the Jews.
In Islam’s 1,400 year WAR against non-Muslim innocents, Muslims have always attacked, destroyed or converted the holy places of other religions – Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, etc. and declared that those holy places were ISLAMIC, belonging to Muslims.
What a glorious day! But Israeli leaders and police DON’T think so.
JPOST.COM: Police arrested three right-wing activists on the Temple Mount on Sunday morning, after a group of activists started praying on the holy site in honor of Jerusalem Day.
MKs Michael Ben Ari and Uri Ariel (National Union) joined the activists in the pilgrimage to commemorate the anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israeli soldiers liberated Old City and the Temple Mount from Jordanian forces.
Related:
During the tour of the site, Ben Ari and a number of the other activists started praying out loud.
Police immediately asked Ben Ari to stop. After a number of the activists refused to stop, they were arrested by police. The rest of the tour continued as planned.
Due to delicate status quo agreements, Jewish worshippers are allowed to visit the Temple Mount during certain hours but are not allowed to openly pray at the site.
http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=270694
Israeli leaders shake their fists at our Glorious, Awesome, Magnificent Creator. Israel’s police arrested the Jews for praying out loud on the Temple Mount.The G-D fearing Jews HONORED G-D and REFUSED to obey the disgraceful, anti G-D orders of police to stop praying. Thank you, Jews, for your loyalty to G-D, and your great love for G-D! You are wonderful role models!
Almighty G-D designated the Temple Mount for HIS worship only! NOT for the worship of any other god! The Awesome Guardian of Israel won Israel’s every war, but Israel’s G-D hater leaders REFUSE to honor this Great, this Mighty, this Awesome G-D and instead bow down to the Muslim god!
@ BlandOatmeal:
Nations yes, but certain sectarians, Nyet, if you know who I mean?
I’ll never understand what the hell Moshe Dayan was thinking, and I will never forgive him for handing over the Temple Mount to the Wakf.
Imagine our world if he hadn’t.
Then imagine our world as well if, immediately after the war we had “gently” nudged the rest of the Arabs in Yehuda v’Shomron over the river, at a moment in time when the world would’ve kept their collective mouths shut.
*sigh*
@ Laura:
Because unJews were, are and will be unJews. Always.
They used our soldiers for their own objectives and never allowed victory, not ever.
It has been exactly the same since then and even worse since Oslo.
Even now more planning and training goes into destruction of Jewish holdings than into construction or to controlling Arab illegal building.
Har HaBait is a house of prayer for all nations: Saudis, Jordanians, Syrians, Kuwaitis, Libyans… ALL nations. Of course, Jews are not goiim, so they aren’t included, right?
Worthwhile taking a look at this great short video that explains why Jerusalem cannot and should not be divided. http://youtu.be/98DMPOC-dUQ
Missed opportunities, alas, missed opportunities…
Why did Dayan and Narkiss squander this great victory? I do not understand……
@ Laura:
The following is an excerpt from Dr. Israel Eldad’s book The Challenge Of Jerusalem. Dr. Eldad was one of the three leaders of the Lechi after the assassination of Avraham Stern. Dr. Eldad died in 1996.
THE CHALLENGE OF JERUSALEM
Why were they after liberating the Temple mount going down to the Wall which has no intrinsic religious significance? Why did All the soldiers of the IDF capture the Holiest site in Judaism traverse the wide courtyard and search for a way to go down to the wall then located in a narrow alleyway in order to pray and give thanks?
Had we broken through the Jaffa Gate or the Zion Gate, had we reached the Kotel on the way to the liberation of the Temple Mount, then one might understand, sure it’s natural. But no. The Mount was conquered first. We were on the Temple Mount, and spontaneously, without orders from superiors without thinking or planning–we went down to the Wall.
And this Wall is not even a wall of the Temple, but part if the wall with which Herod surrounded it. Its entire sanctity derives from prohibitions forced on us by foreign usurpers, preventing us from ascending the Mount. It is a reminder, a memorial, a substitute. Hence it is a Wailing Wall, for it reminds us only of the destruction, of the disgrace if being below, with our enemies on top. For 2,000 years this fabulous mountain waited for its Jewish liberators …finally they come to it, but what is happening here?…Why do they run down to the Wall? Why, holding, the genuine thing, do they want the substitute?
Would one not expect that Jews, following both Halachic prescriptions and their generations of longing, renew their prayers on the Mount? Could anything be more natural? After all the Hasmoneans and the Zealots fought for the Temple Mount, not for the Wall.
All of the liberated territories were never intended by the Leaders of that time to remain in Israels hands. The fools thought that they had the cards to impose peace with the trade off of the Lands conquered for peace with the Arabs. They where at heart emotionally and intellectually Shtetl Jews who never understood the Arab and Muslim mentality and that includes such Sabras as Dayan and Rabin.
The Arabs as Rav Goren understood would have accepted then our destruction of all the edifices on the mount because it’s what they would have done and they fully expected us to destroy their buildings. Goren knew Halacha (Jewish Law) demanded it. Israel at that time could have gotten away with it. The Arabs were in shock after their humiliating defeat.
Why did Dayan and Narkiss squander this great victory?
Israeli War – part 1/6 Excellent behind the scenes exposition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2hZ6SlSqq0
“Thousands of Israeli youth chant “Mohammad is Dead”
Pali and leftist media report on Jerusalem Day;
Prophecy is still being fulfilled regarding Jerusalem. See Zechariah 12-14. Israel is God’s chosen people, and He has chosen Jerusalem as His dwelling place. Psalm 132: 13-14. Christians share in your hope for Jerusalem, because we believe, like you, that it will be the Messiah’s eternal capital.
You can hear the soldiers crying on this clip.
The Breakthrough To Jerusalem
Ammunition Hill –
GOD’S HAND IN THE SIX DAY WAR