World Jewry has only ever had one spiritual capital, Jerusalem, the same one they’ve had for 3000 years not withstanding the various hordes of barbarians, vandals, interlopers, gatecrashers and warlords that have swarmed across the Middle East at various times.
Interestingly, chief among the warlords, the warlords, warlord, Mohammad, personally, wasn’t one of them
I say personally because although his physical presence never set foot in the holy land he had a dream or a vision around 620/21 that he visited on a winged horse during what is known as The Night Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem.
There is a rather major discrepancy in the story of The Night Journey and that is that the temple Mohammad said he visited and described had in fact been torn down some 500 years earlier by the Romans in 70AD. Hmmm.
How all this voodoo and hocus pocus of dreams and visions squares with our 21st century knowledge and Information Age is impossible to imagine.
Dream or vision or not, that was enough to invade and lay claim to the Jewish holy city in 637AD, five years after Mohammad died, and build their Dome on The Rock on top of the Jewish Temple Mount. The same Temple Mount over which UNESCO in October 2016 passed a resolution that denies Jewish ties to its most holy religious sites: the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. The vote was 24 – 6.
The sheer effrontery and dare I say, chutzpah, of the Arab states sponsoring the resolution is unbelievable.
But my question is this. Apart from their two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, why the need to also lay claim to Jerusalem?
How many holy cities is enough without laying claim to others that were there 1600 years before these Islamic gate crashers came crashing in as was the case with Jerusalem.
Perhaps it was a test run for other things in the 20th and 21st century.