Trump’s declaration recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city aroused, unsurprisingly, a massive wave of opposition in the Arab and Islamic world for two main reasons – one religious and one nationalist.
The religious reason is rooted in Islam’s conception of itself as a faith whose mission is to bring both Judaism and Christianity to an end, inheriting all that was once Jewish or Christian: Land, places of worship and people. In Islam’s worldview, Falestin in its entirely belongs to Muslims alone because both Jews and Christians betrayed Allah when they refused to become followers of His prophet Mohammed, the punishment for that being expulsion from their land and the forfeiture of all rights to it.
Throughout the history of Islam, Muslims turned churches into mosques, including: The Great Mosque of Ramle, the Beni Omaya Mosque in Damascus, the Hagia Sofia of Istanbul, and many Spanish churches. The reason for this is the belief that Christianity, like Judaism, was nullified by Islam, making churches unnecessary.
The prophets revered by these obsolete religions are Muslims, according to Islamic tenets. That list includes Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron and others – all of them Muslims. And, according to Islam, Solomon built a mosque, not a Temple, in Jerusalem. The fifteen hundred year gap between the reign of King Solomon and the birth of Islam is of no import to true beleivers.
Jews and Christians can be protected under Muslim rule by being subservient to Islam in what is known as dhimmi status, deprived of the right to own land, bear arms and, naturally, not allowed to harm Muslims. Dhimmis are forced to pay a head tax (jyzia) and are to be kept in a downtrodden state, as is the Quran mandates. In Islam’s view, Jews are not a nation but a collection of communities to be found in various countries: A Jew in Poland is a “Pole of the Mosaic religion” and a Jew in Morocco is a “Moroccan Arab of the Mosaic religion.”
Suddenly, towards the end of the 19th century, it all changed. Jews began coming to Falestin in ever increasing numbers and the Zionists invented a new nation, the “Jewish People” and decided that the land holy to Islam is their homeland and known as Eretz Yisrael. They built communities and a protective fighting force even though, as Jews, they were not supposed to be allowed to bear arms.
In 1948, the Jews actually declared a state, although they were not allowed sovereignty either, and in 1967, they “conquered” Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem.
They now attempt to pray on the Temple Mount, making it a distinct possibility that Judaism has returned to being an active, live and even dynamic religion. This brings the very raison d’etre of Islam into question, as, after all, Islam came into the world in order to make Judaism obsolete.
Muslims loyal to their religion and aware of this danger cannot possibly accept the existence of a Jewish state, not even a tiny one on the Tel Aviv coast. To them, Israel as the state of the Jewish people is a theological threat to Islam and only later a nationalistic, political, judicial or territorial threat.
Along comes Trump and authorizes Israel’s existence by recognizing Jerusalem as its capital, a double blow for Islam: Trump, a Christian, has granted recognition to the Jews!! This must be a Christo-Judaic plot against Islam, and it infuriates the Muslim world. Trump’s Declaration reminds them (and also several Jews) of the Balfour Declaration exactly a century ago, conncerning which the Arabs continue to accuse the world, saying: ‘You made the promises of non-owners to those who do not have the right to be given those promises.”
Accordingly, during the week following Trump’s declaration, we have seen Muslims all over the world expressing their fury at the stamp of approval granted the Jewish State, despite its very existence being opposed to that of Islam. Leader and ordinary citizens, men and women, have been going out to the streets to demonstrate their inability to live with the fact that Trump, a Christian, has recognized the capital chosen by the Jewish nation and by extension, the right to their own land.
The disturbances in Wadi Ara, in central Israel, were another manifestation of Muslim fury, as rioters attempted to block the main road and damaged a public bus. The location is not surprising, because the Wadi Ara area includes the city of Umm el Fahm, where the main concentration of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement headed by the infamous Raed Salah is to be found. The Northern Branch has been declared illegal along with some of the smaller organizations it fostered, resulting in its members having no lawful way to express their fury at the existence of the state of Israel, so that they attempt to act in the public, open space as individuals – without an organizational identity.
Nationalistic motives
Anyone with eyes in his head and an active brain knows and understands that the entire raison d’etre of the Palestinian nationalist movement is based on negating the Jewish people’s right to its land and state. The Palestine Liberation Organization was established in 1964 when the only “occupied” areas were Tel Aviv and Haifa. Its mission was to destroy the State of Israel, a goal Arabs expressed openly at the end of the 1948 War of Independence.
The goal of the Palestine National Movement is the creation of an artificial Palestinian nation – from scratch because historically, there has never been a Palestinian nation – and grant it permanence by means of an Arab country built on the ruins of Israel, not alongside it. This is why there is not one map of Palestine to be found in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Every Palestinian map portrays a Palestine in the colors of the PLO flag and extending from the Mediterranean sea to the Jordan River.
The world, and especially Europe, is divided between innocent know-nothings who support a Palestinian State in order to achieve peace and Jew-haters who fully understand the PLO’s intentions and support them wholeheartedly. The entire Arab world, including those who signed peace treaties with Israel – Egypt and Jordan – wilfully ignores the PLO’s real intentions, treating it as the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. If the PLO succeeds in carrying out its plans, no one in Jordan or Egypt is going to mourn Israel’s demise.
Arafat’s followers know that if they succeed in moving Jerusalem outside the borders of Israel, a large number of Jews are going to lose all hope and leave Israel for the countries from which they or their parents came. This will mean the beginning of the end for the Zionist enterprise, because there is no Zionism without Zion. That’s why they expend so much energy on Jerusalem, taking advantage of the fact that if most countries do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel, Jerusalem becomes the weak link in the chain holding Israel together.
Arafat attempted to frighten the Israeli with the slogan: “A million shaheeds will march on Jerusalem,” meaning that millions are willing to jput their lives on the line in order to free the city from the clutches of the Zionists. This mantra has been internalized in Islamic society and can be heard at anti-Israel demonstrations all over the world.
In comes Trump and recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city, giving the Palestinian nationalist narrative a hard blow and Israel a kind of insurance policy. This maddens all the Arabs who flourished on the dream of destroying Israel during the golden Oslo Agreement years, because it has now becme clear that a very powerful nation, the USA, does not see itself a partner in that dream and is even willing to act against it.
Conclusions:
For both religious and nationalistic reasons, the Arabs and Muslims are incapable of accepting Israel as the Jewish State.
The question we are forced to ask ourselves is whether we in Israel, Jews and Christians, are going to recognize the Muslim and Arab problem , but tell them in no uncertain terms that “Jerusalem belongs to the Jews and you are going to have to learn to live with it” or are going to give in to the Arab and Muslim dreamers who are incapable of accepting a reality in which the Jewish religions is alive and well.
Translated from Hebrew by Rochel Sylvetsky