This year Jerusalem Day was a quite emotional experience. Friends had urged me to read The Hope and The Glory both by the late Herman Wouk. I’ve not had much free time to read of late, and so I did something I haven’t really done before. I bought a book on, well, not tape, but a audio book. In fact, since I’ve got a mountain of work to do, I considered the books good bribe value. The Hope is the story of pre-state Israel on up to the 1967 Six Day War. I have to tell you, it is an incredibly moving experience to be listening to the battle of Jerusalem scene during the Six Day war from The Hope on Yom Yerushalyim, Jerusalem Day.

Initially Israel had not planned to recapture part of Jerusalem and reunite it. They begged Jordan to stay out of the war. But the King of Jordan was a fan of cnn and msnbc (#FakeNews) so when Camel Abdel Nasser (yes I meant to spell it like that) lied about the damage Israel’s air force inflicted on the Egyptian air force, he believed him and wanted to be a dog in the fight tearing tiny Israel to shreds.

Prime Minister Levi Eshkol sent a message to King Hussein on June 5 saying Israel would not attack Jordan unless he initiated hostilities. When Jordanian radar picked up a cluster of planes flying from Egypt to Israel, and the Egyptians convinced Hussein the planes were theirs, he ordered the takeover of the UN headquarters located near Talpiot and the shelling of West Jerusalem. Snipers were shooting at the King David Hotel and Jordanian mortars had hit the Knesset. It turned out that the planes were Israel’s and were returning from destroying the Egyptian air force on the ground.

Jordan attacked.

The fight to reclaim Jerusalem was fierce. Ammunition Hill was one of the toughest battles of the war.

Eventually Israel prevailed and it’s eternal capital was once more reunited. The Jews living in Jerusalem had been forced to flee in 1948. Yes, there were Jews living in east Jerusalem before Israel was declared a state.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who can forget Motta (Mordachai) Gur’s famous pronouncement: הר הבית בידינו

Har HaBeyit B’Yadenu, the Temple Mount is in our hands. It gets me every time.

And about 15 minutes later Moshe Dayan gave back the Temple Mount. He foolishly thought that the arabs would play by the same rules he was.

But when it comes to Israel, the world doesn’t play by the same rules they expect Israel to play by. One of the threads running through the book was the constant struggle to get arms, ammunition, tanks, planes, all the weapons a state needs to defend itself. Where Britain and other countries would sell or give arms to the arabs, pressure was put on countries not to sell any arms to the Jews. In fact, when Britain was there, the Jews had to hide their weapons, if they had any. In one part of The Hope, the character Yossi Nitzan gives a speech talking about how the Jews of Europe were defenseless. They had relied on the Goyim Police to keep them safe, and they had no weapons. He said that’s why it was so important Israel be able to defend herself, and why he was a tank commander. Darn skippy! That’ll do it.

Another one of the events the book talked about was the building of the “Burma Road” and the siege of Jerusalem. The arabs held the fort at Latrun and so controlled the road down below. They had cut off Jerusalem from food and water. Part of The Hope talked about Col. David “Mickey” Marcus. Col. Marcus went to Israel under the name of Michael Stone to help in the siege of Jerusalem. But for a period of time he went back to the US. In this film clip it talks about how the Jews had almost no weapons to fight with. Since the book recounted Colonel Marcus’s contribution, I felt like the puppy and I needed to watch Cast A Giant Shadow again. The puppy had never seen it, and what kind of derelict mother would I be?

The book also talked about Israel taking the Golan Heights, It seems the arabs located on the Golan heights were shelling the farming communities down below. Ahh, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Right? Even after a ceasefire ended the most recent round of escalation, systematic launching of incendiary and IED balloons from the Gaza Strip continues. Pieceful arabs expressing their love of the land by burning it, and it’s people to charred remains. Much like they display their deep love of the Temple Mount by rioting, attacking people and leaving totally trashed.

The UN was it’s usual UN-helpful self,

The Syrian army used the Golan Heights, which tower 3,000 feet above the Galilee, to shell Israeli farms and villages. Syria’s attacks grew more frequent in 1965 and 1966, forcing children living on kibbutzim in the Huleh Valley to sleep in bomb shelters. Israel repeatedly protested the Syrian bombardments to the UN Mixed Armistice Commission, which was charged with policing the cease-fire, but the UN did nothing to stop Syria’s aggression — even a mild Security Council resolution expressing “regret” for such incidents was vetoed by the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Israel was condemned by the United Nations when it retaliated.

What other country is told to give back land it won fair and square in a war that it didn’t start? The UN also wanted to make Jerusalem a “international city”. But not allow Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital. Try that with the Germans and Berlin, or the French and Paris!

Moshe Dayan’s mistake still haunts us. Is the Temple Mount really in our hands? This year Jerusalem day came during the month of Ramadam. During Ramadan non-muslims are not allowed on the Temple Mount. But this year the Police did allow a few Jews to ascend the Temple Mount, but only on Jerusalem day. After Jerusalem day they closed it to non-muslims.

The late Rabbi Kahane points out, it isn’t really in our hands, is it?

In this day and age I also think what John Wayne’s character was saying at the end of the clip is equally true. Stand up. Stand up and be counted. In this day and age of BDS-BS and falestinians and biased news reporting. The answer is stand up.

Enjoy, from Rabbi Sacks