cartoon of religious man praying at the kotel and an old man in a suit with his back turned away from the kotel looking miserable. not sure who that man is meant to be

Weight of history supports Jerusalem as the capital of Israel

Le shanah ha ba’ah bi Yerushalayim,next year in Jerusalem: the words spoken at the conclusion of every Passover Seder.

Jerusalem has been at the centre of Jewish life, culturally and spiritually, since long before Jesus Christ walked its streets and long before the advent of Islam.

Archaeological evidence ob­jec­t­ively demonstrates the connection of Jerusalem to the Jewish people for more than 3000 years. Antiquities don’t lie; relics don’t have political agendas. Yet while the science of climate change is embraced as gospel by the UN, the scientific proof of ancient Jewish habitation of Jerusalem is not.

The UN General Assembly passed a resolution last Thursday declaring “any actions taken by Israel, the occupying power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no ­validity whatsoever”.

A total of 151 countries voted for the resolution, six against and nine abstained, including Australia. We should not have abstained; it is inconsistent with our strong position in support of Israel.

Contrary to the UN’s anti-­Semitic lies, for centuries Jerusalem was the capital of the Jewish people. That is until AD70, when all but one wall of the Second Temple was destroyed and the Jews were expelled by the ­Romans.

In 1967, Jerusalem finally ­returned to Jewish control after the tiny state of Israel resoundingly defeated its vastly larger Arab neighbouring states in the Six-Day War. Since then Jerusalem has been a peaceful inter­national city, with Jews, Chris­tians, Muslims, Baha’i and other faiths all worshipping freely under the control of the state of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.

The language of the UN’s resolution last week fails to distinguish between East and West Jerusalem. This is a disturbing ­development. West Jerusalem has never been part of the Palestinian peace process.

 

Read the full article by Kate Ashmor at The Australian (subscription only).