Let Jerusalem Exhale

The year 638. Umar ibn al-Khattab walks into Jerusalem on a simple camel. No war horse. No golden armor. The Patriarch of Christianity's holiest city had specifically requested him to do his first prayer in the holiest Church of Christianity.

He could have prayed inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was offered to him. He stepped outside instead.

"If I pray here," he said, "those who come after me will use it as excuse to convert this place to a Mosque. I will pray on the empty lot across it." That place became a mosque as he predicted it. 

He then walked to the Temple Mount. Found it being used as a garbage dump by the previous administration. The Roman Empire. The Christian version of it at that time. By leaving the site in ruins and piling garbage on it, they were physically demonstrating that God had abandoned the "Old Covenant" in favor of the "New Covenant. The total destruction and desolation of the Jewish Temple was seen as "living proof" that Christianity had replaced Judaism.

So Omar rolled up his sleeves and started cleaning it himself.

Jews who hadn't been allowed inside the city for centuries came home.

Christians kept their churches.

The city exhaled.

 

The year 1099. The Crusaders came in and massacred the entire city when they took it. Streets ran with blood. That's not rhetoric. That's what the Crusaders wrote about themselves in their own chronicles. Proudly.

Salahuddin then takes Jerusalem back from the Crusaders. 

Salahuddin's response?

No massacres. Ransoms set so low that thousands walked free. He paid for many himself.

The city exhaled again.

 

1517 CE. The Ottomans arrive. Four centuries of three religions in one city.

 

The year 1917. The British Empire carved up the land in 1917 and gave it to the country who shall not be named. We'll name them anyway. So called "Israel" claiming to represent all Jews in the world, to which many Jews disagree. Check Norman Finkelstein. 700,000 Palestinians forcibly removed from their homes. 

The Crusaders at least announced what they were. But this administration uses language to manipulate people too. "The promised land". "The most moral army". "The civilised fighting human animals". "The only democracy in the Middle East."

The year 2024. The world watches a genocide happening in real time on their phones. Every single day. Speaking up will cost your job, reputation and sometimes even your life. But the brave do and will speak out. 

You can see for youself when Jerusalem exhales and when it doesn't.

Am I pointing fingers?

I'm just keeping the record.