Simon Sebag Montefiore Quotes
Writing about Jerusalem can be such a minefield.
Montefiore, Simon Sebag. Interview. The Jewish Chronicle, 3 Feb. 2011.
In addition to the Muslim world during the Crusades losing control of the Holy City for the first time in 400 years, the Christians stabled their horses on the Al Axa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, two of Islam’s holiest places. In addition, the Crusaders, after taking the city, slaughtered most of the inhabitants—Muslims, Jews and even fellow Christians who were Eastern Orthodox—more than 30,000 in just a day or so. It was a reign of terror on a scale that even today, it is shocking to most. So where as to us the Crusades were an interesting of aberrant part of history, to many Muslims of the Middle East the thought or discussion of the Crusades is traumatic even today.
When the Turks defeated the Christians, the only explanation many Christians could conceive of was that God was on the side of the Turks.
The Temple Mount in Jerusalem is the base on which the Great Jewish Temple was erected. The temple was destroyed by the Romans. Hundreds of years later the Muslims built a mosque which the Prophet Muhammud himself is believed to have transported to. One side of the Temple Mount is the Wailing Wall, the holiest place on Earth for Orthodox Jews. When the Arabs controlled Jerusalem, they would not allow any Jews to pray at the Wailing Wall. When the Israelis gained control of the holy city they were more reasonable. They ceded day to day control of the Temple Mount—the top and the Mosque—to the Muslims and since then Jews have prayed at the side of the Mount and Muslims on the top. However there has been some friction about the archeology of the interior of the Mount itself. And some Muslims resent the fact that Israel controls the security and access to one of their holiest Mosques, and that in the event of some transgression in the Mount, Israeli civil law controls and not Islamic religious law—Sharia. Some permanent agreement will have to be made if there is to be an overall peace.
This quotation illustrates one of the more bizarre aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Namely that many of the Arab leaders appear to be in complete denial of what is totally verified historical fact about the Jewish presence and at times rule of much of the Middle East. There were two Jewish Temples built in Jerusalem. The first was the Temple of Solomon of Biblical Fame. Even of one dismisses the Bible as a historical source, the Babylonian records describe the Temple’s destruction in 586 BC. The Jewish Temple was rebuilt by Herod and the governmental records document its construction and other records describe its use and dedication by the Maccabees. The Roman Records completely document the destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70 AD. Arafat, although ridiculed throughout the civilized world, ordered Palestinian Historians to never mention or write about the Jewish Temples. No one knows whether he just did this as a political ploy, or was trying to pander to radical Arabs, or actually believed his statements and was in denial about reality. Outside of some Arabs, no one else believed it.
Simon Jonathan Sebag Montefiore is a British historian, television presenter and author of popular history books and novels.
