How many times do we see one of the world leaders publicly turn to the Bible for answers?
"Netanyahu turns to Bible in tussle over Jerusalem"
Beset by questions about Jerusalem's future in talks with the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached for the Bible on Wednesday to stake out the Jewish state's contested claim on the city.
Netanyahu told a parliamentary session commemorating Israel's capture of East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war that "Jerusalem" and its alternative Hebrew name "Zion" appear 850 times in the Old Testament, Judaism's core canon.
"As to how many times Jerusalem is mentioned in the holy scriptures of other faiths, I recommend you check," he said.
Citing such ancestry, Israel calls all of Jerusalem its "eternal and indivisible" capital -- a designation not recognised abroad, where many powers support Arab claims to East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
The dispute is further inflamed by the fact East Jerusalem houses al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third-holiest shrine, on a plaza that Jews revere as the vestige of two biblical Jewish temples.
Heckled by a lawmaker from Israel's Arab minority, Netanyahu offered a lesson in comparative religion from the lectern.
"Because you asked: Jerusalem is mentioned 142 times in the New Testament, and none of the 16 various Arabic names for Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran. But in an expanded interpretation of the Koran from the 12th century, one passage is said to refer to Jerusalem," he said.
The city, within boundaries defined by Israel but not recognized internationally, is now home to 750,000 people, two in three of them Jews and the rest mostly Muslim Palestinians.
Netanyahu did not refer in his speech to indirect peace negotiations with the Palestinians that resumed this month after 1-1/2 years of U.S. trouble-shooting. Diplomacy has been mired by mutual recrimination, including from Israel over the Palestinian refusal to formally recognise it as a Jewish state.
Netanyahu said Israel would retain control over all of Jerusalem while ensuring freedom of worship at its holy sites.
It is refreshing to see the plain truth coming from Israel's leader, especially during the these last days, when the truth is so elusive.
3 comments:
the problem with netanyahu is he has a habit of standing firm ALMOST to the end then caves at the last second. i`m trying to be optimistic but time will tell. he needs our prayers.
That worries me too, Hart. I think this time around will be different for two reasons:
- His conservative coalition is on him like a cheap suit
- The Iranian threat looms now, something that didn't exist before.
On the other hand, we now have the lost liberal US administration and the least favorable administration to Israel.
It will be interesting to see how all of that plays out...
a third reason: ALL of his past appeasements resulted in increased attacks from the very land he gave as a gesture od "goodwill" he likely knows better.
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