Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dore Gold, Israel ’s U.N. ambassador from 1997 to 1999. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Hatred’s Kingdom and of Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos. His new book is The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City.

FP: Dore Gold, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Gold: I appreciate the opportunity to get into real substance, which has become a trademark of Frontpage.

FP: Well thank you.

What inspired you to write this book?

Gold: Originally, I felt it was necessary to respond to the charges that Yasser Arafat made at the end of the Camp David summit in July 2000 that denied the core of our Judeo-Christian heritage. As you might remember he tried to assert that there never had been a Temple in Jerusalem.

But what he essentially did was to throw a stone of historical lies into a lake and its ripples spread all over the Middle East. "Temple Denial" became a common theme at seminars in the UAE or in Jordan in the years that followed. European professors joined this anti-biblical trend. A friend of mine in Britain, who works in the Gulf states, told me that most of his Arab contacts these days tell him that there never was an ancient Kingdom of Israel or Kingdom of Judah.

I felt I must at least begin the effort to negate these trends. So in the beginning of the Fight for Jerusalem, I dealt with these issues but I also put into the book striking color photos from the Israel Antiquities Authority with some of the greatest archaeological finds of recent years that bolster the veracity of the Biblical narrative and contradict the trend Arafat sought to initiate. How can you deny there was a Kingdom of Judah when you see in my book royal seals of the Davidic dynasty--like the seal of Hezekiah, King of Judah?

FP: Why is the battle for Jerusalem intensifying today?

Gold: The battle for Jerusalem began with the war of ideas I just described, but it has since become far more intensive. One of the key figures in inciting Palestinians with the lie that Israel's reconstruction of an access ramp to the 35 acre Temple Mount endangers the foundations of the al-Aqsa Mosque has been Sheikh Raed Salah, the head of the northern wing of the Islamic movement in Israel. While he is an Israeli, Salah has been well-connected with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, more generally. When I started this book I noticed that upon leaving an Israeli prison last year, Salah announced that Jerusalem will become the capital of a future global caliphate. I was stunned by his statement. I knew that Jerusalem was never the seat of any of the Islamic caliphates in the past, like Damascus or Medina. His declaration indicated that the role of Jerusalem was changing for some radical Muslims--clearly intensifying in manner that most foreign policy experts did not follow.

FP: What are the greatest threats to Jerusalem today?

Gold: The greatest danger to Jerusalem comes from mistaken Western policies crafted on the basis of the assumption that in order to reduce the flames of the rage of radical Islam toward the West, Israel should be encouraged to undertake further withdrawals in the West Bank and even in Jerusalem. I conclude in my book that rather than lowering the flames of jihad, a withdrawal in Jerusalem will likely shoot up these very same flames to unprecedented heights.

What I uncovered is that while Jerusalem was the third most important holy city to Islam, after Mecca and Medina, nonetheless for those engaging in apocalyptic speculation about the "end of days" in Islam, its importance is actually rising. Sheikh Salah is not alone in this sense. There is a widespread literature in Sunni Arab states--some of which has appeared as bestselling books--that anticipates the coming of an Islamic Messiah called the Mahdi, who fights the anti-Christ (known as the Dajjal) in Jerusalem, and then launches a great global jihad. These books do not always have the backing of the religious establishment but they have created important undercurrents that should not be ignored.

Now if Israel pulled out of parts of the Old City--or even began speaking about such a possibility in the context of giving the Palestinians a "political horizon," it would inadvertently be confirming many of these apocalyptic scenarios for many of the masses. I doubt that most Western embassies are aware of these undercurrents and would not be able to warn their governments that they are advocating a policy on Jerusalem that could be at a minimum highly self defeating and my result in what I can a new terrorist tsunami.

FP: How is uncovering Jerusalem's past a key to saving it?

Gold: There are three choices of what to do with Jerusalem: split it with the Palestinian Arabs, which I assert would be a disaster, asking the UN to step in (we tried that in 1947 and only Israel saved the people of the city--not the UN), or leaving it united under the sovereignty of Israel. I believe that only a democratic Israel can protect the free access to Jerusalem of all the great religions. We must create a modus vivendi in Jeruslaem based on the mutual respect of all the great monotheistic faiths. But that modus vivendi will be impossible to reach if the radical Muslims succeed in spreading a culture of total denial with regard to the historical connection of the Jewish people and Christianity to Jerusalem. Classical Islam had no problem recognizing these earlier connections. Indeed the great Islamic historian al-Tabari describes the first visit of the second caliph, Umar bin al-Khatab to Jerusalem, during which the caliph asks where the Temple stood. Umar did not engage in "Temple Denial," but Arafat and his contemporaries did.

FP: Tell us what would happen to Jerusalem if it was split with the Palestinian Arabs or if the UN stepped in.

Gold: Today the Palestinian Arabs are ruled by a mixed Hamas-Fatah regime. In any case, Fatah does not have its own clerics and even in the 1990's was reliant on religious issues on Hamas.

In the last decade, the immunity of holy sites across the Middle East has been lost, as many pre-Islamic monuments have been attacked. Sunni radicals in Iraq regularly bomb Shiite mosques. I write in my book how Sheikh Yusuf Qaradhawi, the spiritual ehas of the Muslim Botherhood (Hamas, it is to be recalled is its Palestinian branch) originally opposed the Taliban destruction of the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan, because he feared retaliation against Islamic institutions. But once the statue destruction was a fait accompli, he supported the Taliban action. He then began dealing with the status of pre-Islamic monuments in Egypt. In short, with radical Islam on the rise, many of the religious institutions of Jerusalem would be compromised if Israel were to turn over most of the Old City to Palestinian rule.

Internationalization under the UN is not a serious option. Remember the UN first proposed a ten year internationalization regime in 1947, and when five Arab armies attacked Jerusalem and shelled its holy places, the UN didn't lift a finger to stop the assault--only the nascent Israeli army protected Jerusalem from destruction in those years. Who would take care of Jerusalem today under such an international arrangement--the UN forces that served in Rwanda? There are many holy cities in the world that interest other faiths or the various divisions of certain faith--Istanbul, Mecca, Karbala. No one demands internationalization today in those cases. Why do they talk about internationalization with respect to Jerusalem?

FP: What is your own personal outlook? Are you pessimistic or optimistic about Israel’s ability to defend itself in a sea of hate and hostility?

Gold: They key for Israel to defend itself is to understand the justice of its cause. Israel has a strong case under international law, but it doesn't make the case. Some of our older leaders are tired, but I am confident in the young generation that still volunteers for dangerous combat units in the Israeli Army and believes in their country.

FP: Dore Gold, thank you for joining us today.

Gold: My pleasure.

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