This has nothing to do with the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians - This is about double standards regarding the sanctity and preservation of Holy places with a mini rant thrown in.
This is an edit of comments made in another diary.
Today, in Iraq, there are those who would sufficiently "restore" the Tomb of Ezekiel to its pristine Islamic state by removing the Hebrew inscriptions there since the Babylonian Captivity.
http://blog.bibleplaces.com/...
What this post will not tell you, is that the "restoration" is erasing all evidence of the site being a Hebrew tomb.
The Jerusalem Post and various watchdog groups have reported that the Iraqi Cultural and Antiquities Authority are implementing plans to erect a mosque on top of Ezekiel's Tomb. Last month, the process began as the ancient Hebrew inscriptions adorning the inside of the Tomb were defaced, perhaps irrevocably, and covered over by plaster.
Only ONE Muslim cleric has spoken out about this willful destruction of Hebrew history in Iraq. http://www.thejc.com/...
One of Iraq’s leading clerics, Ayatollah Shaykh Ayad al-Rikabi, has denounced the proposed conversion of the ancient tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel into an Islamic site.
Iraq’s Department of Antiquities and the Iraqi Shi’i "waqf", which controls religious heritage sites in the country, has stated that the historic tomb does not belong to Iraq’s dwindling Jewish community.
It asserted that since Ezekiel is described in the Koran as a Muslim, the tomb should be declared an Islamic site. Plans are now under way to turn the site into a mosque.
Where is the West's outrage? With historical religious places, I see a double standard. The World screamed rightly at the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and silence over the loss of Ezekiel's tomb, I presume figures into Christian theology too. If not, stop quoting his prophecies, mmmkay? Once the memory of Jews as being indigenous to the Middle East is gone, then, and only will those that say Jews are all Khazari converts will maybe, have a legit point. Or my family wasn't in Spain when the Romans occupied it, but came with the Muslims, (as one author claims in an attempt to deligitimize middle eastern jewry) and, the OT will indeed be a Fairy Tale.
There is only outrage from the Christian world when it's anything BUT a Hebrew holy site. ONE cleric. ONE Muslim Cleric, is saying "Do not do this" but he is one lone voice in a sea of vocal extremism. Then there is this man: Sheikh Taysir Tamimi Who claims the OT is a forgery, that the Temple never existed, and in essence says Islam is the Eternal religion.
The Palestinian cleric denied the validity of dozens of digs verified by experts worldwide revealing Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temples throughout Jerusalem, including on the Temple Mount itself; excavations revealing Jewish homes and a synagogue in a site in Jerusalem called the City of David; or even the recent discovery of a Second Temple Jewish city in the vicinity of Jerusalem.
He said descriptions of the Jewish Temples in the Hebrew Tanach, in the Talmud and in Byzantine and Roman writings from the Temple periods were forged, and that the Torah was falsified to claim Biblical patriarchs and matriarchs were Jewish when indeed they were prophets for Islam.
"All this is not real. We don't believe in all your versions. Your Torah was falsified. The text as given to the Muslim prophet Moses never mentions Jerusalem. Maybe Jerusalem was mentioned in the rest of the Torah, which was falsified by the Jews."
He said Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Jesus were "prophets for the Israelites sent by Allah as to usher in Islam."
(my apologies for linking to Worldnut.)
Where is the UN's stance on this? I am indicting the Western World for it's hypocrisy and deeply rooted indifference to their pre-Christian roots.
The West was silent when the Tomb of Joseph was destroyed by Palestinian vandals, who in their anger destroyed the tomb of one of their prophets, I might add. They are silent as the Tomb of Ezekiel takes another step towards "Islamization" by the erasure, and plastering of all Hebrew. The world only cares about the European Jew, and once Iraq has made itself historically "Judenfrei", then the rest of the process will be easier in delegitimizing the indigenous Hebrews, in Jordan, Syria, and, Iran. The Mizrahi and Sephardi are second-class Jews in Israel. Don't kid yourselves, by pointing out that the extremists in Israel are for the most Sephardim, think of them as Israel's "teaparty". There is as much prejudice against us brown Jews, by the Askenaz as there is against brown people here. Don't believe me?
In comments, I state repeatedly and proudly that I am of Sephardic descent. My maternal ancestry is traceable to the 12th c. which only means that's when the surname (of Basque origins) was first recorded. We were there before the Caliphate. We were there trading in Barcelona while the Romans occupied "Hispania". What is it about the Ashkenaz that would deny us our culture and history? We do not call them "quaint" "superstitious" "folksy" but then, Yiddish is not on the UN's list of Endangered Languages as is Judeo-Spanish. But back to my plaint: Why is the the world silent? Why are they not outraged over a few who wish to make Hebraism a lie in reality?
Watch this video about the expulsion of the North African/ Middle East. Why are we lesser than the Ashkenazim? Why does the World wish to forget our existence? The destruction of Hebrew Holy sites runs parallel to the destruction of my culture. Not all Jews are White European.
To paraphrase Gaspar in "The Paladin of the Lost Hour" (Harlen Ellison): "When no one remembers, then you are truly and completely dead