Dateline Jerusalem — It is said that when Moshiach (the Messiah) comes, all the
dead will be resurrected and the starting place will be the
Mount of Olives.
Jews have been buried there since biblical times until now, except for about 19 years, from 1948 to 1967 when it was under
the control of Jordan.
The entire hillside is terraced with graves and headstones
made of Jerusalem stone that glisten in the sunlight.
There is a road running throughout the middle of the cemetery that was built by the Jordanians. They destroyed thousands of graves in order to build the road.
At the top of the road
is a hotel called 7 Arches. The Jordanians used the Jewish
headstones not only to build the road, but they were used as
latrines for soldiers and urinals in the hotel. Although
the hotel no longer has the headstones as urinals, it is
quite disgusting that they allowed it to occur in the first
place. Supposedly under Jordanian control, over 50,000
graves were either destroyed or defaced.
Special Status
There is a new special section of the Mount of Olives for the
people who were once buried in Gush Katif (in Gaza). Three
years ago the Israeli government, pressured by the U.S. and
European nations, insisted on evicting Jewish residents of
Gaza.
Some had lived there prior to 1967. In no sense of the word could they be called “settlers.”
In the “disengagement” from Gush Katif, as another
unilateral gesture of goodwill to the Palestinians, not
only were Israeli families forced out of their homes, but
people buried in Gaza were forced out of their graves!
Removing Bodies
Those who had nowhere else to go were buried in this
section of the Mount of Olives. The bodies were dug up and
removed from Gaza because the Palestinians also have a
history of desecrating and destroying Jewish graves.
From the Mount of Olives there is a view of the eastern and
southern walls of the gated Old City of Jerusalem and where
the Temple Mount stood before it was covered up by the
Arabs’ gold-domed mosque.
What History?
Whenever Moslems take control
of another religion’s holy sites, they immediately build
over those sites in an attempt to erase their prior existence. At night the Arabs excavated around the Temple Mount so as to remove any trace of Jewish presence. They scattered the excavated dirt in East Jerusalem
neighborhoods, and now Jews are sifting through tons of dirt
looking for these Jewish antiquities.
On the eastern wall are the Gates of Mercy, where the
Messiah is supposed to walk and enter the Temple grounds.
That is why the Arabs sealed up that gate and built a
cemetery along the entire wall — to prevent the Messiah from
entering. What they did not realize is that the Messiah is
not a Kohain or Levi, but is a descendant of David who was
from the family of Judah, an Israelite.
Therefore, there
are no prohibitions about entering a graveyard. It is
ironic, but the Muslims believe in the concept of a messiah
more so than most Jews and gentiles of today. They also
believe that Islam is the perfect religion that will overtake all religions, formed from the failures of Judaism and Christianity, that they are G-d’s chosen people, not the Jews.
This is also one of the reasons they are threatened by the Jews returning to Israel, and Jerusalem in particular.
By G-d returning the Jews here after the Holocaust, the legitimacy of Islam is in question.
L'hitraot. Shachar
Shachar is the Hebrew name of a California-based attorney and former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy who moved to Israel last year.