By Stan Goodenough
Courtesy of The Jerusalem Post

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post in 1994.

Something strange happened to me on the Temple Mount a few weeks ago.

There, for the first time in all the years I have been in Israel, I was physically accosted while praying and forced to leave the area which, while under Muslim oversight, is territorially past of the sovereign State of Israel.

This state prides itself in guaranteeing adherents of all religions freedom to enter and worship at sites special to them. As a Christian, I enjoyed the security provided by this policy – until I went to pray on the Temple Mount.

Israel’s recent decision to give high priority to a Muslim king’s custodianship “rights” over this mount has moved the most controversial site in the Middle East to center stage.

It is perplexing enough for me, a Gentile, to try and understand how the Jewish authorities could ever have agreed, in 1967, to limit their nation’s access to Judaism’s most holy site. It is even more difficult to accept that this strong, sovereign Jewish state is now moving to reinforce this situation.

And as for the deafening silence greeting this decision, I find its nearly universal acceptance by Jews in Israel and abroad totally incomprehensible.

Have I got this right?

You, the Jewish nation, believe you have every right to your homeland here in Israel. Many of you base your claim on your biblical history. For you, no dichotomy exists between biblical history and the more contemporary Jewish history of the last 2000 years.

Many Gentiles comprehend this Jewish history, as it pertains to the Temple Mount, as follows:

Around 3000 years ago, King Solomon built the first Temple on that hill. The Bible tells us that, after he dedicated the Temple, fire fell from heaven and the divine presence filled the sanctuary. (Of special interest to Christians is Solomon’s prayer that the God of Israel would also hear the prayers of foreigners who come to pray on the Mount.)

So began the most glorious era your nation ever knew, with Israel’s borders secured and extending further than at any other time in history.

Tragically, your forefathers lost that fear of God. As a result, Israel fell in battle and was exiled. But as you longed for your land and prayed to return, your prophets encouraged you with promises that you would be restored. You return, build the Second Temple, are defeated in battle again, and go into exile for close to 2000 long, pain-filled years.

For centuries, your communities are scattered among the nations of the world; welcomed by few, pursued by most. In retrospect, it seems virtually the whole Gentile world was intent on your destruction.

Still, in your synagogues, on the numerous roads of your exile, hounded and hunted by Christian and Muslim, you held fast to the belief that one day you would return to Israel, to Jerusalem, and ultimately to your Temple Mount. You looked forward to the day when God’s glory would be restored to you, and Israel would indeed be a light to the nations.

Eventually, your ranks decimated by antisemitic tyranny, the remnant of what should have been one of the mightiest nations in existence began making its way home.

The rest is recent history. In 1948, Jewish dominion was restored to part of the land. Arab wars of aggression led to the extension of that sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, the Golan heights and Gaza and, finally – on that glorious day – over all Jerusalem.

And then, for some unfathomable reason, you stopped. Although the ultimate answer to your centuries of praying and longing was at last within legal reach, you permitted the Temple Mount to remain in Muslim hands.

Instead of opening the way for the rebuilding of your Temple, you restricted yourselves to 27 years and more of praying at a ruined Herodian wall. Until today, Jews and Christians are barred from praying openly on the Mount. And now your political leaders are virtually unopposed in their decision to entrench this status quo.

Modern-day Israel makes much – not without justification – of its policy of guaranteeing free and protected access too all religious holy places in Jerusalem. It is historical fact that, before the restoration of Jewish sovereignty, the sites sacred to Judaism – and Christianity – were anything but unrestricted or protected.

Following the extensive improvement in this situation during the past 27 years, many Christians want Israel to retain sovereignty over the Mount – and over all the sites Christians hold dear, including many of Judaism’s. At the very least, should Israel not confine Islamic custodianship on the Temple Mount to the inner walls of its mosques and open the rest of the hill to all Jews and Christians wishing to pray there?

As a Christian who loves the nation who gave me my Bible, my commandments and my Messiah, and who aches to see an end to the suffering of your people, I join with you in longing for the day when true and lasting peace comes to this land.

But how can it come, I wonder, when the people to whom you stretch out your hands in peace remain unrepentant of their hatred of your nation? How can it come, when the man you are willing to recognize as custodian of your most holy site represents the religion that has fuelled and fed the war against you?

© The Jerusalem Post