Leftists to Elie Wiesel: Occupied Jerusalem can't be holy

[ProgressiveMuslim]

By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Israel news, Elie Wiesel


Jerusalem must be shared by both Israelis and Palestinians, a leftist activist group said Thursday, in response to Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel's ad in the Washington Post last week.

"For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics," Wiesel wrote in the ad, titled "For Jerusalem." To this, the group responded by saying that as long as the city remains occupied it cannot be holy.
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"It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture - and not a single time in the Koran...the first song I heard was my mother's lullaby about and for Jerusalem," Wiesel had written.


Wiesel also wrote that Jews, Christians and Muslims were able to build their homes anywhere in Jerusalem and that only under Israeli sovereignty had freedom of worship for all religions been assured in the city.

"The anguish over Jerusalem is not about real estate but about memory," he wrote.

In the open letter made public Thursday, activists in the Just Jerusalem group, which includes Israel Prize laureates Avishai Margalit, Zeev Sternhell as well as former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, said they wanted to express their "frustration, even outrage" at Wiesel's letter, saying that "Jerusalem must be shared by the people of the two nations residing in it."

"Only a shared city will live up to the prophet's vision: Zion shall be redeemed with justice," the letter said.

The letter's signatories said that their "Jerusalem is concrete, its hills covered with limestone houses and pine trees; its streets lined with synagogues, mosques and churches." They added that that Wiesel's Jerusalem, on the other hand, was "an ideal, an object of prayers and a bearer of the collective memory of a people whose members actually bear many individual memories."

"Our Jerusalem is populated with people, young and old, women and men, who wish their city to be a symbol of dignity - not of hubris, inequality and discrimination. You speak of the celestial Jerusalem; we live in the earthly one," the letter said.

The letter's signatories also said that the reason they found Wiesel's ad so troubling wasn't only "because it is replete with factual errors and false representations, but because it upholds an attachment to some other-worldly city which purports to supersede the interests of those who live in the this-worldly one."


read on...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1164718.html

[TomClash]

1. It is a sick and sad world

where one's religious/ethnic identity is more important than anything else. This is the muslim/christian fanatics' way.

To Weasal, a Jewish Jerusalem is more important than a just Jerusalem.

[CTyankee]

2. Why can't it be both? It is a fact that Jerusalem is constantly mentioned in

Judaic religious ceremonies and celebrations. Longing for return to Jerusalem is woven into Judaism...my granddaughters remember it every year at Passover and in Hebrew school that they attend every week...it is part of their religion.

[TomClash]

4. It should be home to all religions that want it

But the nature of religion makes that difficult to achieve. That's not any Israeli Government's position in recent memory.

No one denies jerusalem is important to jews. But no one owns Jerusalem.

[shira]

5. It is now, since 1967. In fact, before 1967 it wasn't a true home to all religions. (nt)

[shira]

3. Why is dividing Jerusalem such a great idea?

Dividing the city by nationality - and that's what this "shared" plan entails - is something the vast majority of Arabs in E.Jerusalem do not want. They wish to remain part of Israel as opposed to being ruled by Fatah/Hamas. Understandably, they want to retain their basic freedoms that we in the West take for granted - but which Fatah and Hamas would deny them.

So "tough shit" to them and the Jews among them in E.Jerusalem? The vast majority of Jews and Arabs in E.Jerusalem don't want to be a part of Palestine, so shouldn't that be a strong factor?

Also, isn't advocating the implementation of Arabs and Jews separating from each other - with respect to Jerusalem - a position that is both racist and pro-apartheid?

[Old Troop]

6. Under Jordanian control Jews were run out of Jerusalem

and their religious places defiled.