Renewed tragedy has been occurring in Gaza for weeks now. Before it’s over, there will be much destruction, and many lives will have been lost or seriously impacted in other ways.
The near-sighted blame this on President Trump’s recognition that, since King David purchased it from Jebusites three thousand years ago (with Jerusalem subsequently becoming the heart and soul of Jewish existence), he would heed Congress’s call to acknowledge Zion as Israel’s capital, moving America’s embassy there on the 70th anniversary of Israel’s rebirth, May 14, 2018. Like all other nations on Earth, Israel finally got to choose its own most important city.
Mentioned over 600 times in the Hebrew Bible, the Arabs’ Qur’an does not mention Jerusalem even once. Medieval Arab historians themselves, like Jalaluddin, admitted that Islam’s 7th century C.E. prophet, Muhammad, only paid respect to Jerusalem to gain support from influential tribes of Jews who, fleeing Roman conquest in Judea earlier, founded the date palm oasis of Medina in the Arabian Peninsula. Muhammad fled there to escape fellow pagan enemies in Mecca. After giving him refuge, introducing him to Jewish monotheistic beliefs, important human and non-human luminaries (like Abraham, Moses, the important Angel Gabriel), and such, when the Jews refused his religio-political claims, Islam’s prophet decapitated all their men and enslaved the women and children.