“Jerusalem helt central for verdens tre store monoteistiske religioner” skriver Steffen Jensen på og udtrykker en af de mest typiske usagligheder i debatten. Jerusalem er kun central for jøderne, thi her havde de deres tempel i flere omgange. Kristus Rige var ikke af denne verden, skønt Jesus prædikede og helbredte en hel del i Jerusalem, hvor han også mødte sit endeligt Via Dolorosa. Og Jerusalems betydning Krisdendommen er betinget af dens centrale betydning for jøderne, da Jesus og hans disciple selv var jøder.

Og så er der islam, som ikke kan finde et ord om Jerusalem i Koranen, men begærer den ikke desto mindre. Muslimerne klynger sig til senere tolkninger af et par enkelte vers, hvor Muhammed drømmer, at han flyver til den østligste moske. Der lå ikke nogen moske i Jerusalem i det syvende århundrede. Således er niveauet. Jerusalem, som alt andet land, har kun interesse for muslimerne, når den er i de vantros hænder. Narrated Middle East Forum

Delving further in a seminal 2001 Middle East Quarterly article, Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes finds vast ebbs and flows in expressed Muslim views of Jerusalem’s sacredness over the centuries, peaking when the city is occupied or threatened by non-Muslims. While there were few hadiths (accounts of the Prophet Muhammad’s words and action) referencing Jerusalem prior to the Crusades, a rich flurry of them appeared when Muslim rulers needed a means of inspiring their subjects to wage jihad against the “Franks.”

Once safely in Muslim hands, however, interest in Jerusalem dissipated so rapidly that Saladdin’s grandson traded the city back to Europeans just 40 years later in exchange for military aid against a rival. Interest rose again until Jerusalem was regained in the thirteenth century, then declined for six-and-a-half centuries. It rose again during the British mandate period, when Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the infamous grand mufti of Jerusalem, needed a mechanism for inciting his followers to violence. Interest then declined (Al-Aqsa Mosque fell into disrepair, no Arab leader even bothered to visit East Jerusalem for nearly two decades) when the Jordanians ruled the Old City. Its falling into Israeli hands set in motion a new wave of Jerusalem-mania cultivated and instrumentalized by rejectionist Palestinian leaders and others (notably Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, as MEF writing fellow Burak Bekdil has discussed here and here). “The Muslim interest lies not so much in controlling Jerusalem as it does in denying control over the city to anyone else,” Pipes concludes.

“Islam carries the expectation that a land once under Muslim control (Dar al-Islam) is an endowment (waqf) that must inevitably revert to Muslim rule,” Pipeswrites in a more recent treatment. In this respect, the distinction between western and eastern Jerusalem – and, more generally, between territories held by Israel in 1949 and new ones captured in 1967 – is immaterial.

This is why even “moderate” Palestinian leaders balk at officially recognizing the right to exist of a Jewish state, whatever its borders. At most, they are prepared to accept that a state by the name of Israel exists and extend generic diplomatic recognition to it, and only provided that the “right of return” to Israel for millions of Palestinians – which would mean the evisceration of Israel’s Jewish majority if exercised – not be formally disavowed in a final status settlement, which is unacceptable to most Israelis.

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