At our meeting in London of March 9, 2016, one of the topics discussed in small groups was religion. How does religion fit into the Two States One Homeland (TSOH) scheme? How and at what stage should it be brought into the discussion? How can the status quo of the holy places be addressed without causing anxiety? Is there something TSOH can say or project about the religious aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is novel and can lead beyond the current impass, which-as was repeatedly stated at the meeting-is driven, in part, by fear: fear of hidden intentions of the other party, a source of insurmountable distrust. The crucial question is therefore how to build trust in regard to the issue of the holy places. The answer is that TSOH needs to have a clear statement on intentions regarding holy places. How will Israelis and Palestinians handle mutually exclusive claims to sacred space and holy places?
TSOH’s statement on Jerusalem currently eludes this issue by
invoking the possibility of an international regime for the holy places. Any future
regime, including one involving members of the international community,
requires mutually recognized principles on holy places between the principal members
of the envisaged confederation as a basis for mediation of any and all
differences and a mitigation of any conflict between the parties.
Jerusalem is the crucial issue when it comes to religion and
the Israeli Palestinian conflict. It would be insufficient for TSOH to deal
with questions of sovereignty, territorial redivision, policing, or the status
of Jerusalem as a dual capital and a joint municipality without also addressing
the holy places.
As the TSOH initiative does with regard to the Land of
Israel/Palestine as a whole, TSOH also has the potential to move the parties
beyond the current impass with regard to the holy places by being honest about
long-term intentions and mindful of the facts on the ground.
The current impasse with regard to the holy places consists
in the inability (not just
unwillingness) of each side to recognize the legitimate attachment of the other party to holy places they claim as
their own by divine right or obligation. In contrast to the land as a whole
(whose boundaries are only vaguely defined in Jewish and Muslim tradition) the
status of Jerusalem is unquestionably one of extraordinary holiness to both
Jews and Muslims. Attachment to the holy places should not be argued from
history alone but must be considered as founded on religious beliefs about the
status of Jews and Muslims within their respective narratives of sacred
history.
TSOH is based on a mutual recognition of Jewish and Arab
claims to historic rights of presence and legitimate claims to “ownership” of
the Land of Israel/Palestine as a whole. There should be a similar mutual
recognition that Jews and Muslims
have not just historic rights, but identity-forming religious memories, aspirations,
and obligations with regard to Jerusalem as a sacred space and to some of the
very same holy places within it, most notably to the Temple Mount/Haram
ash-Sharif of Jerusalem.
Some peace proposals (including the Geneva Accords) include
suggestions with regard to sovereignty and control over the Temple Mt/Haram complex.
These schemes are based on the current status quo, established by Israeli
governments since June 1967, a status quo that has not been accepted as
legitimate by Palestinians or Muslims. The current status quo includes Waqf control of the surface area and
Israeli control of the Western Wall plaza. Geneva Accords etc suggest that in a
final status regulation, Israel would exert control over the airspace above the
plaza as well as retain oversight over any subterranean building or
archaeological activity in the area, while the state of Palestine would wield
sovereignty over the surface area and buildings on the Haram ash-Sharif. What
these political schemes fail to address are the mutually exclusive religious
sentiments, hopes, aspirations, and obligations with regard to guardianship,
management, and presence on the Temple Mount/Haram ash-Sharif, an area
currently under the control of the Waqf but that Jews hope will once again be
the place of the Holy Temple (beyt
ha-miqdash/bays al-maqdis). For Muslims the status quo (Waqf control) is final and perennial, for Jews the
current status quo is temporary. This
deep difference with regard to the Temple Mount/Haram ash-Sharif is a source of
mutual distrust and a flashpoint of violence that plays into the respective
apocalyptic imaginary of Jews, Muslims, and Christians around the world.
Recent years have seen a mainstreaming of Jewish political,
educational, propagandistic, and grass-roots activism aimed at changing the
status quo on the Temple Mt/Haram area, conducted under the guise of
traditional piety. Instrumentalization of Jewish sentiments vis-à-vis the Third Temple is a
dangerous gamble. TSOH has an opportunity to speak to an issue that reaches
deeply into the self-understanding of Israel as a Jewish state in contemporary
Palestine, where Jews are not alone, and where the Jewishness of the state
remains open to democratic collective determination. It is clear that the TSOH
initiative will force the determination of hitherto avoided constitutional
issues not just in regard to Jewish Arab coexistence but also in regard to
religion and state in general, and the status of traditional Jewish beliefs and
obligations in the Jewish state in particular.
This issue cannot and must not be avoided. The recent push of
ever-more mainstreamed Jewish pressure groups to promote private or public
Jewish prayer on the Haram plaza has given rise to a growing fear among Muslims
in Palestine and around the world that Israel aims to change the status quo at
this most sensitive of holy places in Jerusalem. Rumors as to such intentions
triggered the ongoing “knife” intifada that broke out around the fall 2015
Jewish high holidays. It is in Israel’s best self-interest to address this
matter openly and decisively.
A joint declaration and hence clarification of Jewish and
Muslim intentions with regard to the holy places would go a long way toward
building confidence, especially by making each side’s “endgame” with regard to
the holy places explicit. Such a declaration might be difficult to attain, as
TSOH is largely driven by secular interests. It will require Jewish and Muslim
experts to weigh in on questions of law and belief. But TSOH has already
developed a new language to address the sticky issue of the conurrent attachment
of Israelis and Palestinians to the entire One Homeland, and is making
suggestions on other final status issues, such as Palestinian refugees and the
fate of the settlements. The Holy Places should not be excluded from
consideration. Rather, TSOH may find a way of moving Israelis and Palestinians beyond
the obstacle of religion to a place where mutual trust can be cultivated on
final intentions with regard to the holy places. TSOH currently envisages the
city as open (without walls), bi-national (two capitals in one city), and
jointly administered on the municipal level, but it does not yet address the
holy places.
TSOH needs to proceed from the realization that in the eyes
of Muslims, the status quo at the
holy places was already violated when, in 1967, Israel razed the Mughrabi
quarter and established an orthodox open-air synagogue along the exposed
section of the Western Wall. No doubt, a final settlement will require for
Muslims to accept this new status quo as
legitimate. But this is not sufficient. While the Wall is of sentimental value
for historical reasons, it is of no ultimate religious significance in Jewish
tradition. The place of ultimate significance is the Temple Mount itself, as
the place of the past and future temple Jews have prayed for every day for two
thousand years that it be rebuilt “speedily in our days.” Denials of the prior
existence of Jewish temples on the Herodian platform, as expressed in various
Muslim sources and Palestinian statements remain unaccceptable and are not
conducive to building Jewish confidence in Palestinian good will.
Zionism, in its religious roots, is an activist movement
aiming to rectify the status quo of Jewish exile symbolized in the absence of
the Temple. In this sense, Zionism is incomplete and unfulfilled as long as the
Temple is not rebuilt. Any political settlement of the status quo of Jerusalem and its holy places will need to articulate
openly the intention of the Jewish state with regard to the
two-thousand-year-old hopes of the Jews to end the exile, return the Jews to
their land, and rebuild the temple, as the sign of divine blessing and
presence. The reason why this needs to be addressed is that the State of
Israel, in order to achieve a stable relationship between Jews and Muslims in
Israel/Palestine needs to declare its intentions and its end-goals with regard
to the religious hopes and aspirations of the Jews. Without doing so, the state
will not achieve the trust of its Muslim Palestinian partners. This is as much
about religion and state relations within the Jewish state itself as it is
about building confidence and stable arrangements between Israel and Palestine.
A clear and binding declaration is needed to avoid any further abuse of
religion as a wedge issue.
TSOH should articulate a mechanism by which Jewish messianic
claims and aspirations for the rebuilding of the Third Temple can be recognized
by both Jews and Muslims as religiously valid
while also spelling out the commitment of both states to maintaining the status quo, notwithstanding all religious
hopes and aspirations. TSOH will need to articulate why the State of Israel
will remain committed to resisting to its own interpretation as the “Beginning
of Redemption.” In other words, TSOH will need to deal with the character of
Israel as a Jewish nation state and its place within the larger age-old Jewish
imagination regarding exile and return. One could argue-as various rabbis have
argued with respect to settlements in Judea and Samaria-that it is for the sake
of peace (a halakhic principle) that the Jewish state needs to respect the need
of Muslim Palestinians to be free of fear of any practical Jewish attempts (aside
from prayer) to change the status quo at
the holy places. Any change of the status quo at the holy places must be
mutually agreed. In this way, both states declare that the status quo may be changed in the future (for example, at the advent
of the messiah) while excluding any unilateral action. Such a messianic proviso
could be written into the constitution of the Israeli-Palestinian
confederation.
A few more notes on
Haram v. Temple Mount
When it comes to outreach and communication, there are a few
standard objections that invariably come up when one speaks with Jewish opponents of
compromise on the status of the holy places. Here are a few thoughts on these
objections and how to meet them.
1.
Jews have a longer, deeper, more existential
attachment to Jerusalem than Muslims.
a.
It is crucial for Muslims to recognize Jewish
attachment to Jerusalem as genuine and based on history as well as on religion.
Denying the facts is obscurantist and seems needlessly defensive.
b.
Israel needs to restore full scientific
integrity to the practice of archaeological excavation and display of Jerusalem
history. Archaeology should not be a tool of propaganda and brainwashing.
c.
Jews also need to be better educated on the
status of the two sanctuaries (el
harameyn) of Jerusalem and Hebron in Palestinian history and folklore.
(Lit: Gerber, H., Remembering and Imagining Palestine:
Identity and Nationalism from the Crusades to the Present (Palgrave 2008).
2.
Jerusalem is not even mentioned in the
Qur’an, but it is mentioned hundreds of times in the Bible.
a.
This is true, but it is also not mentioned
in the Torah.
b.
The status of bayt al-maqdis is firmly established in the Sira of the Prophet Muhammad where the Night Journey and Ascent
narratives are of central importance in establishing Muhammad’s place in the
lineage of prophets and apostles (messengers).
c.
Jerusalem is therefore not marginal but
central to Islam’s self-understanding as the renewal of the true religion of
Adam, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.
3.
Jerusalem is the most holy city to Jews, but
only the third-most holy city in Islam.
a.
This is based on a Muslim tradition that
says, you should only set out to three places: Mecca, Medinah, and Jerusalem.
This in turn is a tradition that means to contravene the proliferation of holy
places, a phenomenon that has its parallels in Judaism and Christianity, where
the tombs of saints became pilgrimage sites for popular religion.
b.
Judaism likewise recognizes other sacred
places, including Hebron and Safed, and pilgrimage to the tombs of saints are
common.
c.
Inter-communal polemic should not have a
place in modern society.
