In the following letter by Bar Kochba, written during (a next) revolt against Rome in 132-135 CE, he seeks to recruit "Galileans," which some scholars interpreted as Christians. Emperor Hadrian however, feared the revolt could spark the hopes of enslaved peoples across the Roman Empire. (G.W. Bowerstock, "A Roman Perspective on the Bar Kochba War," in W. S. Green, ed., Approaches to Ancient Judaism, 2, 1980).
By more modern counting according to Martin Gilbert, at the beginning of the First World War in 1914, there were 45,000 Jews in Jerusalem out of a total population of 65,000. (Martin Gilbert, "Jerusalem: A Tale of One City," New Republic, November 14, 1994).
In order to inflame Muslim opinion during the 1920’s, Arab nationalists circulated doctored photographs of a Jewish flag with the Star of David flying over the Dome of the Rock. However it was the British decision to appoint Hajj Amin al-Husseini as grand mufti that really helped politicize the issue of Jerusalem . For it was Husseini who instigated a move to change the paved area in front of the Western Wall, which was transformed from a cul-de-sac into an open thoroughfare. As a result, local Arab residents began walking through the Jewish area of prayer, accompanied by donkeys.
The heart of the Palestinian Arab argument at the time furthermore was that the Western Wall was also a Muslim holy site. According to Muslim Iraditions, it was where Muhammad tied his winged horse-, on whom he had miraculously flown from Mecca to Jerusalem before ascending to the heavens from the Temple Mount see the wall below:
Husseini took his campaign abroad. In many parts of the Muslim world, word spread that Jews were "desecrating the Mosque of Omar"-a reference to the Dome of the Rock-even though the unrest of 1929 clearly only related to the Western Wall. He made himself president of a new General Moslem Conference. It created a "Society for the Protection of the Moslem Holy Places" which, in addition to the recently created "Committee for the Defense of the Buraq-el-Sharif," could be used to mobilize Palestinian Arabs to action. The General Moslem Conference passed resolutions opposing any action that advanced "the establishment of any right to the Jews in the Holy Barak'rea." (Esco Foundation for Palestine, Palestine: A Study of Jewish, Arab, and British Policies, Volume Two, Yale University Press, 1947, 600).
Jewish observers at the time wondered whether all this activity emanated from sincere religious concernsor was motivated by purely political considerations. They questioned the holiness of the Western Wall to Muslims, wondering why, if this was true, Muslim authorities would help create a new thoroughfare in front of the Wall that donkeys would regularly soil with their dung. (See letter of Harry Sacher in the Times, August 29, 1929, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century, New York, 1996, 124).
The International Commission for the Wailing Wall, also known as the Shaw Commission, was appointed by the British with League of Nations approval. It still indicated that it preferred a voluntary solution to the controversy, but it ultimately drafted a decision formally confirming Jewish rights of access to the Western Wall. But, backing the British, it also accepted a highly restrictive interpretation of what these rights entailed. For example, the commission ruled that Jews could not bring benches or chairs to the Wall area, and an ark containing Torah scrolls could only be brought on special holidays. This reflected the commission's understanding of the status quo under the Ottoman Empire. (Report of the Commission Appointed by His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and with the Approval of the Council of the League of Nations, to Determine the Rights and Claims of Moslems and Jews in Connection with the western or Tyailing Tyall at Jerusalem , London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1931).
The commission did not contest the Muslim claim to ownership over the Wall and the pavement in front of it, but it utterly rejected the notion that al-Buraq was tethered in the area where the Jews prayed, suggesting that this location was further south. Hence it concluded, "Under these circumstances the Commission does not consider that the Pavement in front of the Wall can be regarded as a sacred place from a Moslem point of view.” It traced the Jewish use of the site for prayer back to the fourth century CE, adding for further corroboration the accounts of the Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela from 1167, written before the area was declared waqf property. (Ibid.) These results were totally unacceptable to the mufti and the Supreme Muslim Council, who now rejected the legal competence of any international body except a Shariah court to settle questions about Muslim holy sites. (Esco Foundation for Palestine, Palestine: A Study of Jewish, Arab, and British Policies, Volume Two (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947, 614).
Husseini then sought to further internationalize his struggle. The Supreme Muslim Council authorized him to invite Arab and Muslim leaders to a World Islamic Conference in Jerusalem slated for December 1931. When the conference opened the attendance initially looked impressive-about 130 delegates from twenty-two countries. Important states were absent, though. Turkey did not attend and even sought to subvert the conference, concerned that it would become a forum for restoring the caliphate and undermining the secular regime of Ataturk. The Saudi leader, King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, diplomatically explained that the invitation to the Jerusalem conference had arrived too late. In all likelihood a Saudi decision had been taken to boycott the whole event. (Y. Porath, The Palestinian Arab National Movement: 1929-1939 From Riots to Rebellion, London, 1977, 10).
Their approach was colored by their experience in organizing the Congress of the Islamic World in Mecca back in 1926. That conference had ended acrimoniously, with its resolution to meet annually in Mecca coming to naught. Five years later, Ibn Saud was not going to lend his weight to a Jerusalem conference that might succeed where the Mecca conference had failed. Clearly, Husseini had not convinced international Muslim leaders that Jews were threatening Islamic holy sites. In fact, the purpose of the whole event was not entirely clear. Husseini had stressed to invitees that the conference would deal with the Buraq aI-Sharif. In his public call to the conference, however, Shawkat Ali said nothing about the Buraq aI-Sharif, but rather spoke more generally about how Muslims might defend their civilization
Husseini's conference was convened on December 6, 1931, which corresponded on the Islamic calendar to the day that Muhammad ascended to the heavens from the Temple Mount . At the opening of the conference, Husseini's supporters resorted to their tried and true tactic of disseminating doctored photos, this time showing Jews with machine guns attacking the Dome of the Rock. The use of this transparent propaganda alienated many delegates, who held a protest meeting at the King David Hotel presided over by Husseini's Palestinian rival, Ragheb Bey al-Nashashibi, the Jerusalem mayor. Husseini's congress sought to establish a permanent body that would convene every two years. The executive committee of the congress was headed by Husseini, thus giving him a pan-Islamic title and platform for the first time. The congress also announced the need to establish an Islamic university in Jerusalem, which apparently was not looked on favorably by the religious leadership at al-Azhar in Egypt . Adopting a resolution proclaiming the sanctity of the Buraq al-Sharif, the congress rejected the report of the "Wailing Wall Commission." Finally, it formally decided to deny Jews access to the al-Aqsa Mosque, despite the fact that Jews had their own religious reasons for staying away from the Temple Mount . Notably, during these disputes over the Western Wall Husseini did not adopt the tactic later embraced by Vasser Arafat of denying in total the religious history of the Jews. For example, the Supreme Muslim Council, which Husseini had headed since 1921, published an English-language book in 1924 for visitors to the Temple Mount area titled A Brief Guide to al-Haram ai-Sharif Jerusalem. The book's historical sketch of the site related that "the site is one of the oldest in the world. Its sanctity dates from the earliest (perhaps from pre-historic) times. Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute." The 1930 edition remained unchanged despite the 1929 Western Wall riots. The Supreme Muslim Council did not engage in Temple Denial , as Arafat's generation would decades later. Beginning in 1936, Jerusalem 's position in Palestinian politics was greatly affected by what became known as the Arab Revolt, although the revolt did not initially break out in Jerusalem . Husseini and the Arab Higher Committee-another new body under his leadership-declared a nationwide strike. In July 1937, the British finally cracked down on the mufti, who hid out on the Temple Mount for three months.(Meron Benvenisti, City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem,Berkley, 1996, 79).
The area had become a hiding place for weapons and explosives by Palestinian Arabs. In October 1937, Husseini fled British Palestine, first heading for Lebanon , then Iraq and finally Europe, where he met in Berlin with Adolf Hitler during November 1941 and became a close ally of the Nazi cause. (He would seek asylum after the war, fearing he would be prosecuted as a war criminal.) In the meantime, back in 1937, the Palestinian strike metastasized into an armed revolt, with volunteers arriving from neighboring countries.Other leaders arose to lead the Palestinian Arabs' military struggle. A major side effect of the 1936 Arab Revolt was that rural chieftains in British Mandatory Palestine provided much of the revolt's leadership, Jerusalem , in fact, lost its pre-eminent place in Palestinian politics. For example, of the 281 Arab officers involved, only ten (or 3.5 percent) came from Jerusalem. (Michael C. Hudson, "The Transformation of Jerusalem: 1917-1987 AD," in Kamil J. Asali, ed., Jerusalem in History: 3000 BC to the Present Day , 1997,256).
It was noteworthy that prior to the adoption of the UN General Assembly resolution in November 1947 calling for the partition of Palestine , the representatives of the Palestinian Arabs did not make the issue of Jerusalem their primary focus. Jama al- Husseini, the mufti's cousin, who presented the Palestinian Arab position before the United Nations, still used pan-Arab motifs in making the case of the Arab Higher Committee that he represented: "one consideration of fundamental importance to the Arab world was that of racial homogeneity." He explained that "the Arabs lived in a vast territory stretching from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean , spoke one language, had the same history, tradition, and aspirations." He referred to the threat of an "alien body" entering the Middle East region. (Document 4: "UN General Assembly Resolution 181 on the Future Government of Palestine ," Ruth Lapidoth and Moshe Hirsch, eds., The Jerusalem Question and Its Resolution: Selected Documents, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1994, 13-14).
As a result of the First Arab-Israeli War, Jerusalem was divided, with its Old City coming under the occupation of the Arab Legion of the Hashemite Kingdom of ]ordan. Relations between Israel and Jordan over Jerusalem were supposed to be governed by their April 3, 1949, Armistice Agreement. According to Article VIII of the armistice, both sides undertook to guarantee free access to Mt. Scopus as well as the resumption of the "normal functioning" of its "cultural and humanitarian institutions." For Israel , this meant reopening Hebrew University and the Hadassah Hospital . The same article also assured "free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and the use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives." If Article VIII had been implemented, Israelis would have been able to visit the Old City of ]erusalem and pray at the Western Wall. The Jordanians were to obtain road access to Bethlehem and the provision of Israeli electricity to the Old City . To work out the modalities of these principles, the same article called on both governments to appoint representatives to a "Special Committee" that was supposed to formulate detailed plans. True, there was a regular Israeli convoy to Mt. Scopus , but the Special Committee was disbanded even before its meetings got under way, so that no arrangements could be put in place for reopening Hebrew University or the Hadassah Hospital . More significant, Israelis were denied access to both the Western Wall and the Mount of Olives during the entire period of ]ordanian rule. Jordan further barred non-Israeli Jews from the Western Wall, demanding that tourists present a certificate of baptism before a visa would be granted. Formally, the Jordanians maintained that the scope of the Special Committee needed to be broadened to include other holy sites inside Israel such as those in Nazareth. (Tawfik al- Khalil, Jerusalem from 1917 to 1967, Amman: Economic Press, 90-92).
During ]ordanian rule before, Israelis were denied access to both the Western Wall. The true motivation behind Jordanian policy in these years was revealed in a frank exchange on February 23, 1951, between Jordanian prime minister Samir al-'Rifa'i and an Israeli envoy, Reuven Shiloah. Al-Rifa'i disclosed why his country had no intention of implementing its armistice obligations under Article VIII-Jordan simply had nothing to gain from the armistice any longer. Jordan no longer needed access to the Bethlehem road from Israel-the Jordanians had built another road instead-and the Old City would no longer need Israeli electricity after Jordan worked out a different source of electrical power. (Raphael Israeli, Jerusalem Divided: The Armistice Regime 1947-1967, London , 2002, 58).
During these years, prominent Jerusalem Arabs grumbled about the increasing primacy of Amman over Jerusalem . A typical complaint was uttered by a Jerusalem candidate to the Jordanian parliament. "See the palaces which are being built in Amman," he remarked, "those palaces should have been built in Jerusalem, but were removed from here." (Quoted in Gilbert, Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century, 249. See also Wasserstein, 189).
Another reason for discontent was Jordanian radio's broadcasting of Friday prayers from a mosque in Amman instead of the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. (Daniel Pipes, "The Muslim Claim to Jcrusalcm" Middle East Quarterly, September 2001).
Noticing that the British and U.S. ambassadors to Israel in 1954 were presenting their credentials to the Israeli president in Jerusalem, one Palestinian writer bemoaned that Israel had made Jerusalem into a capital while Jordan had reduced it "from a position of preeminence to its Current place that does not rise above rank of a village." (Kimberly Katz, Jordanian Jerusalem: Holy Places and National Spaces, University Press of Florida, 2005, 85).
This downgrading of Jerusalem unquestionably had a political background. During the Mandate period, the city was the center of power of the Jerusalem mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husseini. Seeking to displace Husseini's authority, King Abdullah had Husseini replaced as mufti in December 1948. Husseini was banned from Jerusalem, and in 1951 the Jordanians abolished the Supreme Muslim Council that he had headed. (Gilbert, Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century, 248).
The Jordanians also moved the Muslim religious appeals court from Jerusalem to Amman. The commemoration of the Nabi Musa festival, which had been effectively manipulated by Husseini for political purposes, lapsed in these years as well. In the meantime, the Jordanian government was providing public sector jobs and assistance to the regime's core supporters. These were the East Bank tribes, not the Palestinian Arabs on the West Bank and in Jerusalem. The mufli remained active after the 1948 war from exile in Egypt. With the help of sympathizers in the Egyptian Army tied to the Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, he managed to escape on September 28, 1948, to Gaza, where an "all-Palestine government" was established a few days later on October 1. The mufti was declared president of a Palestine National Council that adopted a vote of confidence in the Gaza-based government. Not surprisingly, the mufti's council declared that Jerusalem would be its capital. (Mattar, 132).
The mufti's Gaza government was not recognized by a single state and it had no meaningful financial resources or armed forces. Yet it posed a political challenge to Jordan. Given this rivalry, it should have come as no surprise that King Abdullah would be vulnerable to assassination attempts. On July 20, 1951, Abdullah was shot dead by a Palestinian gunman at Friday prayers in the al-Aqsa Mosque. Just next to him was his grandson, Hussein, who would become king less than a year later. The mufti was widely believed to be the chief instigator of the assassination. (Ibid, 136).
Now that Jordan had unilaterally created a new political status for itself in Jerusalem, would it be more careful about observing its armistice responsibilities, particularly with respect to religious freedom? As previously noted, the wartime behavior ofJordan's Arab Legion in the Old City of Jerusalem had been contemptible. Colonel Abdullah al-Tal, the local legion commander, would later admit in his memoirs, "I knew the Jewish Quarter was densely populated with Jews embarked, therefore, on the shelling of the Quarter with mortars, creating harassment and destruction." (Quoted by Yosef Tekoah, Israel 's permanent representative to the United Nations in a letter to the UN secretary-general, March 5, 1968. See Msgr. John M. Oesterreciher and Anne Sinai, eds., Jerusalem, New York, 1974, 281).
