Temple denial

Temple denial is the assertion that the successive Temples in Jerusalem either did not exist or were located elsewhere than on the Temple Mount. Israeli writer David Hazony has described the phenomenon as "a campaign of intellectual erasure [by Palestinian leaders, writers, and scholars] ... aimed at undermining the Jewish claim to any part of the land", and compared the phenomenon to Holocaust denial.^[1][2] Daniel Levin calls Temple denial a "relatively new phenomenon" that "has become a central tenet of Palestinian nationalism".^[3] He stated: "The Islamic land trust is destroying Judeo-Christian ruins beneath the Temple Mount so as to deny any connection between Judaism and Christianity and Jerusalem."^[4]

Denial by Palestinians[]

Reconstruction of the appearance of the Herodian Temple

Sack of the Second Temple depicted on the inside wall of the Arch of Titus in Rome.

Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, used the term "Temple denial" in his 2007 book, The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City.

The New York Times noted that "Temple denial, increasingly common among Palestinian leaders, also has a long history: After Israel became a state in 1948, the Waqf removed from its guidebooks all references to King Solomon's Temple, whose location at the site it had previously said was 'beyond dispute'."^[5][6][7]

According to Gold and Dennis Ross, at the 2000 Camp David Summit, then-Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat told then-American President Bill Clinton that "Solomon's Temple was not in Jerusalem, but Nablus."^[8][9] In the recollection of then-Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak, referring to a conversation he had with Clinton, Arafat said to the American President, "there is nothing there" (i.e., no trace of a temple on the Temple Mount).^[10]

Ross later wrote about an August 2000 meeting he had with Arafat: "Since we would be discussing the options on the Haram, I anticipated that Arafat might well again declare that the Temple—the most sacred place in Jewish tradition—did not exist in Jerusalem, but was in Nablus. ... I wanted Gamal, a Christian of Coptic origin who was originally from Egypt, to tell Arafat that this was an outrageous attempt to delegitimize the Israeli connection to Jerusalem. ... Finally, after nearly ten minutes of increasing invective, I intervened and said 'Mr. Chairman, regardless of what you think, the President of the United States knows that the Temple existed in Jerusalem. If he hears you denying its existence there, he will never again take you seriously. My advice to you is never again raise this issue in his presence.'"^[11]

According to Gold, in the wake of Arafat's remark at Camp David, Temple denial "spread across the Middle East like wildfire", and even "subtly slipped into the writing of Middle East-based western reporters".^[12]

In 2005, in a book entitled From Jerusalem to Mecca and Back: The Islamic Consolidation of Jerusalem, Yitzhak Reiter describes the growing tendency of Islamic authorities to deny the existence of the Jewish Temples on the Temple Mount, characterizing it as part of a campaign to increase the status of Jerusalem and the Temple mount in Islam as part of the effort to make Jerusalem a Muslim city under Arab governance. According to Reiter, this narrative "reflects the mainstream in many Islamic communities around the world", and is promoted by "religious figures, politicians, academics and journalists".^[13][14]

In January 2017, newly elected Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres made clear reference to the fact that a temple once stood on the Temple Mount, and positively asserted its destruction during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE during a speech commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and in subsequent remarks, including an interview on Israel Radio.^[15][16] High-ranking PLO and Palestinian government officials demanded that Guterres recant this claim and submit an apology to the Palestinian people.^[17][16] In response, Guterres instead directly affirmed the existence of a Holy Temple on the Temple Mount, and was condemned by the Palestine National Authority for violating, "all legal, diplomatic and humanitarian customs", and chastised Guterres for overstepping his role as secretary-general.^[18]

Not all Islamic scholars accept Temple denialism. Imam Abdul Hadi Palazzi, leader of the Italian Muslim Assembly and a co-founder and a co-chairman of the Islam-Israel Fellowship, quotes the Quran to support Judaism's special connection to the Temple Mount. According to Palazzi, "[t]he most authoritative Islamic sources affirm the Temples". He adds that Jerusalem is sacred to Muslims because of its prior holiness to Jews and its standing as home to the biblical prophets and kings David and Solomon, all of whom he says are sacred figures also in Islam. He claims that the Quran "expressly recognizes that Jerusalem plays the same role for Jews that Mecca has for Muslims".^[19] Furthermore, both classical Islamic literature and Muslims' scripture recognize the existence of the Temple – albeit as the "Farthest Mosque" rather than Beyt al-Maqdis – and its importance to Judaism.^{[20][21][22][19]}

Journalistic response[]

In October 2015, the New York Times published an article stating that "The question, which many books and scholarly treatises have never definitely answered, is whether the 37-acre site, home to Islam's sacred Dome of the Rock shrine and al-Aqsa Mosque, was also the location of two ancient Jewish temples, one built on the remains of the other, and both long since gone."^[23] Within a few days, the newspaper responded to feedback by changing the text to "The question, which many books and scholarly treatises have never definitively answered, is where on the 37-acre site, home to Islam’s sacred Dome of the Rock shrine and Al Aqsa Mosque, was the precise location of two ancient Jewish temples, one built on the remains of the other, and both long since gone."^[24][25] A few weeks later, the newspaper further corrected the story, backdating the Islamic waqf that controls the site from 1967 to 1187.^[24]

See also[]

• Antonia Fortress
• Anti-Zionism
• Islamization of the Temple Mount
• Ernest L. Martin
• Quds Day

Footnotes[]

References[]

• Gold, Dore (2002). The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City. Regnery Publishing. ISBN 1-59698-029-X.