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Rav Y.S. Eliashiv (wikipedia)
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| By Israel Insider staff October 13, 2007 |
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| Jews mourning at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem last Tisha b'Av, commemorated the repeated destruction of the Jewish temples. Is it conceivable that the Israeli government will allow control of the site to be handed over to the Palestinian Authority or an international committee? (Photo: Flash90) |
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Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, revered by hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews, has indicated his supported for massive public protest against the willingness of the Israeli government to surrender Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem's Old City and other parts of the Israeli capital in negotiations with the Palestinian terror group Fatah.
Eliashiv, a powerful political figure in Jerusalem as representative of the Lithuanian (Litvak) community, said ominously that "the hand of fate is on Jerusalem." He urged the public to turn out in huge numbers in the coming days and weeks to protest the government's diplomatic platform which has overturned the Israeli government's longstanding policy concerning sovereign Israeli control over Jerusalem's Old City and the holy places it contains.
Eliashiv is expected attend a large gathering planned for Sunday at the Ramban Synagogue in the Old City organized by Chief Rabbi of the Old City, Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl, and Rabbi Eliyahu Medina, under the banner "Over Jerusalem they cast lots" -- a verse from Ovadiah (1:11) -- and will include "prayers and supplications to G-d," Israel National News reported. The event will begin after the 12:30 PM afternoon prayer at the synagogue, which is located in the Jewish Quarter's main square.
Vice Premier Haim Ramon, with the tacit support of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert -- the most unpopular leader in Israel's history with only a 17% approval rating and facing multiple criminal investigations on various corruption charges -- has floated a plan to partition Jerusalem by transferring control over the city's Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinian Authority.
Earlier this month, he described his plan to split the city: "The Jewish neighborhoods will be recognized by both sides as Israeli neighborhoods under Israeli sovereignty. Likewise, Arab neighborhoods such as Shuafat will be recognized as Palestinian neighborhoods. There will be arrangements to ensure, free, safe passages between the various Israeli neighborhoods and likewise between the Palestinian ones."
With regard to the Old City, Ramon wrote: "On the matter of the 'holy basin' -- as the area including the Temple Mount and other holy sites is called by the negotiators -- there will be a special authority that will include the expression of Israel?s special interests and manage the holy sites.... The Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter and the other Jewish holy sites in the Jerusalem region will stay in the hands of Israel forever," Ramon claimed.
Right wing and religious group expressed outrage at remarks Thursday by a senior minister in the PA, who insisted that Palestinians own and soon would control the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City.
MK Effie Eitam (National Union-National Religious Party) called on Jews across the world to urgently protest the attempt to damage the Jewish connection to Jerusalem. He warned that any change in the capital's status would physically endanger the ability of Jews to even visit their holiest places: "Jews who wish to visit the Western Wall will have to travel there in an armored vehicle, and will be exposed to sniper fire from the Old City's rooftops as Jerusalem residents were before the unification [in 1967]."
Likud MK Yuli Edelstein said that the readiness of ministers in Olmert's government to make statement in favor of concessions over the capital and Jewish holy places would only serve to whet the Palestinians' appetites for more concessions.
The Jewish religious community in Israel and abroad is just beginning to awaken to the prospect of Jerusalem being dismembered.
On the eve of the Sukkot festival, just prior to his death, former Chief Rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva of the Merkaz HaRav Kook religious-Zionist center Rabbi Avraham Shapira came out strongly against the redivision plan for the holy places of Judaism and the Jewish People. "The Land of Israel belongs to the Nation of Israel and was granted to us as an inheritance by the Creator of the world. Neither the Prime Minister nor anybody else has the right to give away areas, or even a grain, of the holy Land of Israel. The entire Land of Israel, according to the borders outlined in the Torah -- belonged in the past, and belong in the present and future, only to the Nation of Israel, and it is forbidden by severe Torah prohibition to give up any of the territory of our holy land."
Rabbi Shapira z'l, who had issued a call prior to the Disengagement for soldiers and police to disobey orders to take part in the expulsion, continued in the statement: "Did we not learn a lesson from the expulsion of our heroic brethren from Gush Katif and northern Samaria who were uprooted from their homes? We call upon the public to protest against these statements, for the Prime Minister to repudiate them, and to show concern for the rights of the Nation of Israel in its land." |
On the eve of the Sukkot festival, just prior to his passing away, former Chief Rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva of the Merkaz HaRav Kook religious-Zionist center Rabbi Avraham Shapira signed a strongly-worded statement against the plan. "The Land of Israel belongs to the Nation of Israel and was granted to us as an inheritance by the Creator of the world. Neither the Prime Minister nor anybody else has the right to give away areas, or even a grain, of the holy Land of Israel. The entire Land of Israel, according to the borders outlined in the Torah -- belonged in the past, and belong in the present and future, only to the Nation of Israel, and it is forbidden by severe Torah prohibition to give up any of the territory of our holy land."
The rabbi, who had issued a call prior to the Disengagement for soldiers and police to disobey orders to take part in the expulsion, continued: "Did we not learn a lesson from the expulsion of our heroic brethren from Gush Katif and northern Samaria who were uprooted from their homes? We call upon the public to protest against these statements, for the Prime Minister to repudiate them, and to show concern for the rights of the Nation of Israel in its land."
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