Fabricating Palestinian History
The Battle over Silwan
by Shaul Bartal
On August 26, 2010, a violent clash broke out between Jewish and Arab residents
of Silwan, a predominantly Muslim village outside the southern end of the
walled Old City of Jerusalem. The name derives from the biblical “Shiloah”1
and its subsequently Graecized “Siloam.”2
On the face of it, the sparring that erupted over a gate built illegally by Arab residents3
may seem like a miniature version of the ongoing conflict between Israelis and
Palestinians over who controls the Holy Land. But reducing the struggle to a mere real
estate dispute misses a critical point in understanding the persistence of the larger conflict.
For the battle of Silwan is a microcosm of a larger fight, one in which one side, the
Palestinian, seeks to erase the existence of the other—not merely through traditional
armed conflict but also by rewriting history.
Shaul Bartal is a lecturer on Palestinian affairs at
Bar Ilan University and author of The Fedayeen
Emerge, The Palestine-Israel Conflict, 1949-1956
(Bloomington: Authorhouse, 2011).
ERASING THE PAST
The tactic of denying a Jewish past to sites
and holy places in the Land of Israel is of relatively
recent vintage in the Arab-Israeli conflict
but one that has increased dramatically in the past
few years.
Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, where both the
First and Second Temples stood for some eight
hundred years in total, now holds the Dome of the
Rock, al-Aqsa Mosque, and the underground
Solomon’s Stables mosque. Both in 1925 and again
in 1950, Palestine’s Supreme Muslim Council unequivocally
recognized the Jewish connection to
the Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary; i.e.,
Temple Mount), describing it as a holy site for
Jews in its self-published A Brief Guide to al-
Haram al-Sharif:
Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple
is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according
to universal belief, on which “David
built there an altar unto the Lord.”4
By the mid 1950s, this admission had been
expunged, and by 2001, the chief Muslim cleric
of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Jerusalem
mufti Ikrima Sabri, was able to state,
There is not [even] the smallest indication of
the existence of a Jewish temple on this place
in the past. In the whole city, there is not
even a single stone indicating Jewish history.
Our [Muslim] right, on the other hand, is very
clear. This place belongs to us for 1,500 years.5
The Western Wall, until recently the only visible
remnant of the Temple complex and the place
at which Jews have prayed for millennia, has been
1 Isa 8:6; Neh 3:15.
2 John 9:7, 11.
3 The Jerusalem Post, Aug. 27, 2010.
4 “A Brief Guide to Haram al-Sharif,” Supreme Moslem Council,
Jerusalem, 1925.
5 Die Welt (Hamburg), Middle East Media Research Institute
(MEMRI), Washington, D.C., trans., Special Dispatch, no.
182, Jan. 26, 2001.
32 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY SUMMER 2012
similarly transformed. Muslims have renamed it the
Wall of al-Buraq after the tethering place of the
horse on which the prophet Muhammad is reputed
to have taken his night flight to Jerusalem.6 Palestinians
continue to deny a Jewish connection despite
the likelihood that the Ottoman sultan
Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520-66) reaffirmed
Jewish rights to worship at the wall,7 or that three
centuries later, the Muslim
ruler Ibrahim Pasha
(son of Egypt’s viceroy
Muhammad Ali) issued a
decree regarding the site
that allowed Jews “to pay
visits to it as of old.”8
Even the Tomb of
Rachel in Bethlehem has
come under assault. For
centuries a pilgrimage site,
especially for barren Jewish
women, it is mentioned
by the twelfth century Arab historian, al-Idrisi, and
became a site of veneration for Muslims as well,
known as “Kubat Rahil.” In 1615, Jews were given
exclusive rights to the tomb by their Muslim ruler,
and again, in 1830, the Ottomans recognized the
legal rights of the Jews to the site. Sir Moses
Montefiore was permitted to purchase the site in
1841, at which time he restored the tomb and added
a small prayer hall for Muslims.9 Since 1996, however,
Palestinians have taken to calling it the “Bilal
Bin Rabah Mosque” claiming it as the burial place
of Muhammad’s first servant10 although there are
centuries-old sites in Damascus11 and Jordan that
have long-made that claim. In 2010, the heavily
politicized organization, UNESCO, joined the
Muslim deniers and demanded that Israel remove
the grave from its National Heritage List and
cede control of it to the Palestinians.12
The ultimate goal of the Palestinians and
their allies is to advance the idea that Jerusalem
in general, and neighborhoods like Silwan in
particular, have no Jewish ties. Archeological
remnants found in Jerusalem are thus presented
as either Canaanite or Muslim. As argued by
Nazami Amin al-Ju’beh, chair of Bir Zeit
University’s history department,
We do not agree with the biblical version, according
to which there was a tremendous kingdom
or the capital of a tremendous kingdom.
No castle has been uncovered and no remnants
have been found of the First Temple,
the one that was supposedly built in the period
of Solomon that would testify to this
size … The Hebrews reached Jerusalem in
the first century B.C.E. and their sovereignty
over Jerusalem was only for a short time …
Up until today, it is impossible to point to
any characteristics in Jerusalem that can be
attributed historically to this period. There is
no historical characteristic that is related in
this manner to a Hebrew culture.13
Arab spokespersons from across the political
spectrum and from many different fields work
enthusiastically to negate every archeological
claim that recognizes a link to the Jewish people
from the First or Second Temple periods. This
sentiment is echoed across the Palestinian spectrum,
including popular outlets on television and
in newspapers. For example, Yunes Amr, president
of al-Quds Open University, pointed out
the inaccuracy of the widespread view that the
Palestinians originated with a group of people
who emigrated from the Greek Isles and settled
in Palestine, claiming instead that the Palestin-
6 See Daniel Pipes, “If I Forget Thee: Does Jerusalem Really
Matter to Islam?” The New Republic, Apr. 28, 1997.
7 Rivka Gonen, Contested Holiness (Jersey City: KTAV Publishing
House, 2003), pp. 135–7.
8 Eliel Löfgren, Charles Barde, and J. Van Kempen, “Report of
the Commission appointed by His Majesty’s Government in
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with
the approval of the Council of the League of Nations, to determine
the rights and claims of Moslems and Jews in connection
with the Western or Wailing Wall at Jerusalem,” Dec. 1930,
UNISPAL doc A/7057-S/8427, Feb. 23, 1968.
9 YNet News (Tel Aviv), Nov. 3, 2010.
10 Nadav Shragai, “Rachel’s Tomb, a Jewish Holy Place, Was
Never a Mosque,” The Jerusalem Center for Public and State
Affairs, Nov.-Dec. 2010.
11 “Tomb of Bilal,” IslamicLandmarks.com, accessed Mar.
12, 2012.
The Ottoman
sultan Suleiman
the Magnificent
affirmed Jewish
rights to worship
at the Western
Wall in the
16th century.
12 “The Two Palestinian Sites of al-Haram al-Ibrahimi/Tomb
of the Patriarchs in al-Khalil/Hebron and the Bilal Bin Rabah
Mosque/Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem,” 184 EX/37, United
Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, Paris,
Mar. 19, 2010.
13 Fatah TV, Feb. 27, 2009.
/ 33
ians are Arab Canaanites
indigenous to this land.14
On another occasion,
he stated
They dug the Western
Wall tunnel ... and at the
heart of the tunnel, they
inaugurated a new synagogue,
the closest—according
to their illusion—
to the holy of holies of
the alleged temple.15
Yasser Arafat argued
at the Camp David negotiations
in July 2000 that
the Jewish temple was not
on the Temple Mount,
claiming that the Qur’an
proved that the temple was
not even in Palestine.16
This method of erasing
the Jews from Jerusalem
is very popular in Palestinian
academia,17 with PA officials,18 and religious
leaders19—and has infected an entire generation
of Muslims, both inside and outside the
state of Israel.
SILWAN AND
THE CITY OF DAVID
Despite these strident falsifications, there
is no doubt that the Jewish people were established
in Palestine long before the land bore
that name. In fact, the town of Silwan is, to
some degree, the epicenter of that long history,
perhaps explaining the ferocity of the current
uproar.
Many people incorrectly assume that what
is today termed the “Old City” of Jerusalem is
identical to the city taken by King David from
the Jebusites (a Canaanite tribe) sometime in
the eleventh century B.C.E. and subsequently
turned into the capital of the united Israelite
kingdom. Actually, there is abundant and growing
evidence that the “City of David” was outside
the present walls of Jerusalem, built on a
rocky promontory that is now part of the village
of Silwan. Excavations by European archeologists
in the nineteenth century, and accelerating
since the Israeli recapture of Jerusalem
in 1967, have revealed ancient and massive
structures that were the original Jerusalem.
Recent finds of seals and bullae (pieces of
clay stamped with seal impressions) with Hebrew
text, including at least two with the names
of royal officials mentioned in the book of
Jeremiah, have led archeologist Eilat Mazar to
argue that parts of the site were the palaces of
Bartal: Silwan
Notwithstanding Palestinian denials of the Jewish roots of Silwan,
they are much in evidence to the casual observer as can be seen
here where Arab homes are literally built atop ancient Jewish
tombs carved into the limestone hillside.
14 Al-Ayyam (Ramallah), Apr. 7, 2009.
15 Palestinian Authority TV, May 1, 2009.
16 Sari Nusseibeh and Anthony David, Hayo Hayta Aretz (Tel
Aviv: Schocken Publishing House, 2008), p. 312.
17 Marwan Abu Khalaf, Archaeological Center of al-Quds University,
Jerusalem, interview, Palestinian Fatah TV, Feb. 27,
2009; Yonas Amar, Open al-Quds University, interview, al-
Ayyam, Apr. 7, 2009; Hasan Sana-Allah, Center for Modern
Research, Jerusalem, al-Ayyam, Apr. 28, 2009.
18 Mahmoud al-Habash, Palestinian Authority agricultural
minister, Palestinian Fatah TV, Apr. 16, 2009.
19 Tayseer Rajab al-Tamimi, chairman, High Council of the
Shari‘a Court, al-Hayat al-Jadida, Mar. 2, 17, 2009.
34 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY SUMMER 2012
the Davidic and Judean kings.20
Both the City of David and the previous
Jebusite stronghold had been watered by the
nearby spring of Gihon, still a reliable source of
water for the area. Even in ancient times, a channel
had been cut to a man-made pool in order to
store water during periods of drought; this was
the “Shelah (sent) Pool to the King’s Garden”
mentioned in Nehemiah, 3, 15. In response to
the threat of siege by the Assyrian king
Sennacherib, an older, open-air aqueduct was
plugged and a tunnel carved through the bedrock
from the spring to the pool by King
Hezekiah (c. 715-686 B.C.E.).21 A Hebrew inscription
testifying to this ancient engineering marvel
was discovered in the late nineteenth century
and is now housed in the Istanbul Museum.
22 The central area of the modern town of
Silwan appears to have been built atop the
nearby necropolis of Judea’s elite as attested to
by roughly fifty tombs found in the area.
After the destruction of the First Temple in
586 B.C.E. and the return of the Judean
exiles, the city grew significantly but
the renamed Siloam and its environs
were still integrally connected to it.
Massive steps leading up to the Second
Temple from the Shiloah (Siloam,
Silwan), the powerful spring outside
the city walls, have been excavated.
Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian,
mentions Siloam frequently,
making a connection between the might
of the spring and the destruction of
the Second Temple. According to him,
before the coming of Titus, the waters
of the Shiloah and the rest of the
springs close to the city decreased.
But, at the time of Titus, the spring provided
enough water to quench the thirst of the
enemies of the Jews. The same phenomenon
occurred before the destruction of the First
Temple by the Babylonians, and Josephus used
it in his attempt to convince the residents of
Jerusalem to surrender.23
The story of Jesus and the blind man24
made the Pool of Siloam a pilgrimage site in the
Byzantine period, and the Gihon spring was at
some point renamed the “Fountain of the Virgin.”
The Church of Siloam as well as the City of
David/Wadi Hilweh section were inside
Jerusalem’s walls during the Byzantine period.
Meanwhile, hermits and monks took over the
tombs outside the walls and lived there, adding
an additional layer of significance to the site for
Christians. Remains of a church dating to the
fifth century C.E. were uncovered at the City of
David excavations by modern archeologists.25
A map from 1917 still shows a church close to
the pool, a structure that was likely converted
into the so-called Mosque of the Spring that
was the subject of the fight mentioned earlier.
20 The New York Times, Aug. 5, 2005.
21 II Kgs 20, 20; 2 Chron, 32, 3-4.
22 Eyal Davidson, Yerushalaim Mikol Makom (Petach Tikva:
Datiyur Publisher, 2003), pp. 30-1; Alon De Groot, “Jerusalem
Waterfalls in the Days of the First Temple,” Aidan, Jerusalem,
15, 1991, pp. 124-34; Roni Reich and Ali Shukrun, “The New
Excavations in the City of David,” in Avraham Faust and Eyal
Baruch, eds., New Development in Jerusalem Studies, the Third
Congress (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 2008), pp. 3-8.
23 Yosef ben Matityahu (Josephus Titus Flavius), Toldot
Milhemet Ha-Yehudim Im Ha-Romaim (Tel-Aviv: Modan Publishing
House, 1996), book 5, p. 298.
24 John 9:7, 11.
25 “City of David,” Conservation Dept., Israel Authorities
Antiquities, Jerusalem, accessed Mar. 12, 2012.
The “Hezekiah inscription” from the Siloam tunnel
testifies to the antiquity of Silwan and its Jewish
roots. The carving commemorates the joining of two
sides of a tunnel that helped bring water to Jerusalem
and is mentioned in II Kings and II Chronicles.
/ 35
In 638 C.E., Muslim armies under Umar ibn
al-Khattab captured Jerusalem. While no significant
remains dating to the early Islamic period
have been discovered in the City of David excavations,
the area appears to have become a Muslim
township. Though present-day locals spin
tales of the village having been established as
“Khan Silowna” by this conquering caliph,26 the
earliest reference by a Muslim author seems to
be from Muhammad al-Muqaddasi’s Ahsan at-
Taqasim fi Ma’rifat al-Aqalim (The Best Ways
to Know Geographical Places). Muqaddasi (945-
1000 C.E.), a Jerusalemite, wrote:
The village of Sulwan is a place on the outskirts
of the city. Below the village is the
Ain Sulwan [Spring of Siloam], of fairly good
water, which irrigates the large gardens which
were given in bequest [waqf] by the caliph
Othman ibn Affan for the poor of the city.
Lower down than this, again, is Job’s Well
[Bir Ayyub]. It is said that on the Night of
Arafat the water of the holy well Zamzam,
at Makkah [Mecca], comes underground to
the water of the Spring [of Siloam]. The
people hold a festival here on that evening.27
Othman (or Uthman) ibn Affan (579-656 C.E.)
succeeded Umar as the third of the “rightlyguided
caliphs,” a term bestowed by Sunni Muslims
on the immediate successors to Muhammad
indicating a veneration of their actions and
statements, which has tremendous significance
to the modern-day conflict as does the legend
recorded by Muqaddasi.
Silwan’s fortunes seesawed over time. The
Muslim biographer and geographer, Yaqut al-
Hamawi, wrote in 1225 that “in his day there was
a considerable suburb of the city at Sulwan and
gardens,”28 but less than a century later, the author
of the Marasid, a geographical dictionary
written around 1300 C.E., stated that “the gardens
had all disappeared, that the water of
Sulwan was no longer sweet, and that the buildings
were all in ruin.”29
Closer to modern times, Israeli geographer
Menashe Harel relates
that in the mid-1850s, the
villagers of Silwan were
paid £100 annually by
Jerusalem’s Jews in an
effort to prevent the desecration
of nearby graves
on the Mount of Olives.30
This fraught relationship
between the two communities
took a new turn late
in the century with the
arrival of Yemenite Jews into the town. Inspired
by a messianic desire to return to the land of their
forefathers, between 1881 and 1882, a group of
penniless Yemenite Jews came to Jerusalem. The
long-time Jewish inhabitants of the city initially
rejected their coreligionists but eventually built
homes for them in the Silwan area, creating a
neighborhood that became known as Kfar
Hashiloah (Shiloah Village) and the “Yemenite
Village.”31
During the pogroms of 1921 and 1929, these
homes were attacked by Arab neighbors, and in
1939, at the end of the three-year Great Revolt
against the British mandatory authorities, the
Yemenite Jews of Silwan were evacuated, their
homes soon occupied without compensation by
the neighboring villagers. Thus, both the area
of the City of David and the neighboring town
of Silwan had no Jewish residents until 1967.
Bartal: Silwan
No significant
remains dating to
the early Islamic
period have been
discovered in the
City of David
excavations.
26 Jeffrey Yas, “(Re)designing the City of David: Landscape,
Narrative and Archaeology in Silwan,” The Jerusalem Quarterly,
Winter 2000.
27 Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Muqaddasi, Ahsan at-Taqasim fi
Ma’rifat al-Aqalim (Leyden: E. J. Brill, 1967), p. 171; Guy le
Strange, Palestine under the Moslems: A Description of Syria
and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500 (London: Alexander
P. Watt for the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund,
1890), p. 221.
28 Yakut Ibn Abdullah ar-Rumi al-Hamawi, Mu’jam al-Buldan
(Leyden: E. J. Brill, 1959), vol. 3, pp. 125, 761; Strange,
Palestine under the Moslems, p. 221.
29 Safi ad-Din Abd al-Mu’min Abd al-Haqq al-Baghdadi,
Marasid al-Ittila ala Asma al-Amkina wa al-Biqa (Beirut: Dar
al-Ma’rifa, 1954), vol. 2, p. 296; Strange, Palestine under the
Moslems, p. 222.
30 Menashe Harel, Golden Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing
House Ltd., 2004), p. 244.
31 Tamar Wisemon, “Streetwise: Yemenite Steps,” The Jerusalem
Post Magazine, Feb. 28, 2008.
36 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY SUMMER 2012
THE KING’S GARDEN
The City of David and the bulk of the village
of Silwan are built on two opposing slopes
of the Judean hills through which runs the
Kidron Valley, named after the stream or wadi
that flows through it to the Dead Sea; the Gihon
spring essentially derives its water from the same
source. As a result, this valley has since antiquity
been more lush and better able to sustain
agriculture than the limestone hills of the region.
Known as “the King’s Garden” in the Bible,32 it
is said to be the source of inspiration for verses
in Ecclesiastes (“I made me gardens and parks,
and I planted in them trees of all kinds of fruit.”33)
and the Song of Songs, both traditionally ascribed
to David’s heir, King Solomon.
Regardless of who originally cultivated the
area (and it is likely that the pre-Israelite Jebusites
also took advantage of its verdure), under Ottoman,
British, Jordanian, and Israeli control, the
area was effectively left green. Since Israel reunited
the eastern and western halves of the
city, and as Jerusalem has grown in population,
Muslim residents have
moved illegally into “the
King’s Garden” and practically
erased its lush
character.
On March 2, 2010,
the Jerusalem Development
Authority (JDA), a
joint government-municipal
corporation under
the authority of the Minister
of Finance, the Minister
for Jerusalem Affairs,
and the city’s
mayor, presented a plan to rehabilitate the King’s
Garden and provide needed infrastructure and
other amenities to central Silwan. According to
the JDA’s promotional brochure,
The neighborhood of Silwan lacks adequate
planning. This led to a situation in which the
neighborhood lacks infrastructure on all levels:
educational facilities, roads, sidewalks,
community facilities, open recreational
spaces, electricity, water, parking, and more
… Under Ottoman, British, Jordanian, and
Israeli control, the [King’s Garden] area was
always zoned and preserved as a park. In the
past fifty years, about 700 Muslim residents
have moved into the area illegally. Because
current zoning still defines the area as a park,
there is a similar lack of adequate infrastructure
in the King’s Garden.34
The pamphlet continues:
up until 1967, the garden contained only four
structures on its southern side. However, the
laying of sewage pipes triggered the development
of massive, illegal construction in the
area. Currently, there are eighty-eight structures
inside the garden area, all of which were
built without building permits on an area that
had been preserved as a garden [for] thousands
of years.
The Silwan project would extend the boundaries
of the City of David National Park,35 and
according to the project’s plans, twenty-two out
of eighty-eight illegally built houses are slated
for destruction. Compensation would be given
to the evicted families plus additional aid to help
them legally rebuild their homes elsewhere in
Silwan.36 The rest of the existing houses in the
area would be approved retroactively and legal
proceedings against them dropped.
Thus, a park catering to both residents and
tourists would be built, providing an economic
stimulus for the entire neighborhood. Additionally,
according to the planners,
Currently, no public center serves the resi-
32 II Kgs 25:4; Jer. 52:7; Neh 3:15.
33 Eccles 2:5.
If a caliph
dedicated Silwan
as a Muslim
waqf, no Muslim
can change that
fact without being
charged as an
unbeliever.
34 “A Comprehensive Plan for Silwan: Development for Residents,
Visitors and Tourists,” Jerusalem Development Authority,
p. 6, accessed Mar. 12, 2012.
35 “Launch of the King’s Garden Plan,” The Jerusalem Development
Authority and the City of Jerusalem, Mar. 2, 2010.
36 Ha’aretz (Tel Aviv), June 30, 2010.
/ 37
dents of Silwan or surrounding villages such
as Abu Tor and Ras el-Amood with afterschool
programs, a library, senior citizen programs,
kindergartens, infant care center, or a
public swimming pool. The residents lack
access to these vital services provided to residents
in other parts of the city.
The SCC [Silwan Community Center] will
also focus on providing for the children of
Silwan with a brand new infant care center
… a day care center, and seven classrooms
for extracurricular programming. …
For the growing senior citizen population,
the SCC will have a special wing devoted to
senior citizen programming ... The roof of
the SCC will have several public sports
courts and a promenade looking out toward
the Old City and Temple Mount.37
This planned project has stirred up
Islamic and Palestinian organizations working
in Jerusalem, along with other groups
that have come out against this move by
the Israeli authorities. The mayor’s office
sought to reach compromises with area residents
including offering those Arabs whose
houses are to be demolished first crack at operating
tourist-related business in the park.38 Despite
this, under pressure from the Obama administration
and at the urging of Prime Minister
Netanyahu, Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat soon
announced that he would delay the plan’s
implementation.
The complaints against the project, however,
include not only legitimate grievances
about the destruction of (illegally built) homes
and the removal of the residents to another
area. Coupled with these criticisms are objections
against the biblical and historical narrative
that stands at the foundation of the plan
as well as a religious imperative with no room
for compromise.
“MOST IMPORTANT
PLACE IN AL-QUDS”
Notwithstanding Mayor Barkat’s temporary
suspension, Palestinian opponents continued
their fight against the plan. Al-Quds (Jerusalem)
Foundation for Development—a nonprofit organization
partnering with leaders from the Israeli
Arab Islamic Movement such as Sheikh
Raed Salah and al-Bustan Neighborhood Committee—
distributed an alternate communitybased
plan a month later in which not a single
home would be evacuated or destroyed.39
While acknowledging that the houses in the
King’s Garden/al-Bustan neighborhood were
built illegally, the authors upped the ante by
claiming that the garden’s residents were actually
refugees from the 1948 war who had origi-
Bartal: Silwan
When this picture was taken in 1901, Silwan was
a small village on the eastern slopes facing
Jerusalem. The King’s Garden was still verdant
and essentially uninhabited. In the past fifty years,
about 700 Muslim residents have moved into the
area illegally.
37 “A Comprehensive Plan for Silwan, p. 20.
38 Ha’aretz, Mar. 2, 2010.
39 Silwan … Siraa Bekaa Wawagud, al-Quds Foundation for
Development and the al-Bustan Neighborhood Committee,
Silwan, Jerusalem, Apr. 2010, pp. 1-3, 7-19.
38 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY SUMMER 2012
The City of David and the bulk of the village of Silwan are built on two opposing slopes of the Judean
hills through which runs the Kidron Valley, named after the stream or wadi that flows through it to the
Dead Sea. As this map shows, the City of David is a considerable distance from al-Aqsa Mosque.
Al-Aqsa Mosque
City of David
/ 39
nally been forced to move to the Ma’aleh Adumim
area, west of Jerusalem. There they lived until
they were forced to leave in 1967 to make way
for the building of the city of Ma’aleh Adumim.
They then settled in the Silwan area, and over
the years, built their homes in al-Bustan without
permission from the authorities. If the King’s Garden
plan were to move forward, this would be, in
their telling, their third expulsion.
Setting aside questions of historicity of that
claim, the pamphlet goes on to detail the Palestinian
narrative of the place in question. Under
the subhead “Silwan Is the Most Important Place
in Al-Quds which Was Dedicated by the Third
Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, the Righteous,” it
maintains that
In the city is a well-known spring known as
“Silwan’s Fountain” which is connected to
the history of the city of Jerusalem. This water
source was already established during the
Canaanite period. The water was transported
in sluices that were built by the Jebusites
[the original builders of Jerusalem], and today
there still exist archaeological remains
showing the existence [of this water system]
… The spring waters were the water supply
for the residents of the city during the
Canaanite period. Canaanite Jerusalem was
dependent on the spring waters up until the
Byzantine period. During Herod’s reign, he
built a portion of the spring’s water pool, and
this portion of the spring’s waters was enough
for him. During the early Islamic period, the
Muslims took care of Silwan’s Fountain and
the Third Righteous Caliph, Uthman ibn
Affan, expanded the spring and renewed it
and dedicated Islamic dervishes to it in the
temple. From this period, Silwan’s Fountain
and the land around was defined as belonging
to the Islamic waqf.40
With a slight nod to the universally reviled
King Herod (74-3, 4 B.C.E.), the committee expunges
all other ties Silwan has to Jewish history
but significantly stresses the connection between
the village, the waqf, and Caliph Uthman.
The word waqf used above has two inter-
Bartal: Silwan
connected meanings. It is both a Muslim religious
endowment and a body that manages and
oversees the endowment. The basic regulations
governing waqf trusts are interpreted by Shari‘a
law, but in essence, waqf property is absolutely
permanent, and once established, the contract
cannot be altered or the property sold. Furthermore,
by linking the establishment of Silwan as
waqf to Uthman, its existence as an everlasting
Muslim inheritance is made all the more inviolable.
Uthman as well as the three other Righteous
Caliphs were companions of Muhammad,
so close to him in Muslim telling that their deeds
and words are to be emulated almost as much as
Muhammad’s himself. If Caliph Uthman dedicated
Silwan as a Muslim waqf, no Muslim can
change that fact without being charged as an
unbeliever.41
This theme is expanded upon in the pamphlet
when the authors write,
During the second conquest of Jerusalem, [during
the period of Salah ad-Din (Saladin)] Yusuf
ibn Ayyub [i.e., Saladin] came and dedicated
the village inside of which was the Spring to
madrassa [Islamic religious school] as-
Salihiyya, and he returned
and renewed the
village and the spring as
a whole Islamic waqf.
This area was part of
the Islamic waqf for the
thousands of years that
passed since the conquering
of Salah ad-Din.
The spring is still under
the supervision of
the waqf and is a source
of income for the waqf.
The listing of the area as waqf was accepted
only at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The listing includes all of the income
from every part of the land that is found in
Silwan including the spring that is found in
the village.42
Al-Quds
Foundation has
alleged an Israeli
plot to replace
al-Aqsa Mosque
with a third
temple.
40 Ibid., p. 5.
41 Ephraim Herrera and Gideon Kressel, Jihad Ben Halacha
le-Maase (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Publishing House
and Kinneret Zmora Bitan, Dvir Publishing House, 2009),
pp. 105-7.
42 Silwan … Siraa Bekaa Wawagud, p. 5.
40 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY SUMMER 2012
44 Robert S. Wistrich, “Muslim Anti-Semitism: A Clear and
Present Danger,” The American Jewish Committee, 2002; al-
Jami’a al-Islamiya, al-Mufawadat min Nuzur Islami (n.p.), pp.
20-1; Muhammad Musbah Hamdan, al-Isti’mar wa-l-Sahyunia
al-Alamia (Sidon: Dar al-Kutba al-Asriya, 1967), pp. 94-112.
45 See Raphael Israeli, “The Islamic Movement in Israel,”
Jerusalem Letter, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Oct. 15,
1999; L. Barkan, “The Islamic Movement in Israel: Switching
Focus from Jerusalem to the Palestinian Cause,” Inquiry &
Analysis Series, report no. 628, Middle East Media Research
Institute, Washington, D.C., July 30, 2010.
46 Arutz Sheva (Beit El and Petah Tikva), Feb. 16, 2012.
It is only fitting that the figure of Saladin is
brought forward to justify the belief in eternal
Islamic ownership of Silwan, despite there being
no evidence in medieval Arab writings to
attest to the tale. As the ruler who defeated the
Crusaders and returned Jerusalem to Muslim
control, who better to return Silwan as waqf to
fellow Muslims?
“JUDAIZATION” OF
JERUSALEM
Admitting that Silwan’s designation as waqf
may actually be a late episode in the village’s history
does not diminish the belief in Silwan’s holiness
professed by these and others. In fact, it goes
hand-in-hand with another more pernicious myth:
the supposed Jewish design to “Judaize the
blessed city of Jerusalem” with a view to transforming
it into “a Jewish Talmudic Jerusalem”:
West Jerusalem’s municipality
is trying to
lead with its plan to
prove the existing reality
according to the
theories that appear in
the Talmudic literature
despite the fact that we
are talking about Islamic
land and Arab holy land.
In order to realize that
goal, the city has created
and inaugurated a Visitors Center in the
City of David, which is a part of the plan for
the City of David. That is how the hikes
through the Silwan Fountain tunnel began,
hikes which end up at the pool of the Silwan
Fountain close to Silwan’s Fountain mosque.
During the same hike, visitors are accompanied
by Israeli guides who present the legend
of the City of David and the establishment of
the First and Second Temples and the efforts
to build [today] the Third Temple in the place
of the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque.43
Thus alongside the notions that Jews fabricate
their history and that Silwan and its environs
are a sacred waqf, opponents create a conspiracy
of Talmudic Judaization of the city whose
goal is the eradication of al-Aqsa Mosque to be
replaced by a third temple. The trope of a perverted
Talmudic Judaism is a favored one used
by anti-Semites throughout the ages and most
recently picked up and amplified by Muslim and
Arab opponents of the Jewish state.44
In their fixation on the Judaization of Jerusalem,
the pamphleteers echo a 2006 piece in Sawt
al-Haq wa-l-Huiriya (Voice of Truth and Freedom)
the journal of the Islamic Movement centered
in Umm al-Fahm and led by Raed Salah,
where the plan to Judaize Silwan is discussed in
great detail. The Islamic Movement, a local
branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is at the forefront
of organizing Israeli Arabs to identify themselves
strictly as Palestinians with Salah leading
the campaign to “defend” Jerusalem and “liberate”
it from Israeli “occupation.”45
The other image used by al-Quds Foundation
is the alleged Israeli plot to replace al-Aqsa
Mosque with a third temple—despite the fact
that the Israeli authorities have consistently restricted
the movement of non-Muslims on the
Temple Mount to the point where they have been
accused of discrimination against Jews and
Christians.46
A pamphlet from the group Islamic Jihad-
Beit al-Makdas uses melodramatic language to
further illustrate the evil intents of the Jews, accusing
Zionists of attacking Jerusalem, Silwan—
“the gateway to al-Aqsa Mosque,” and al-Aqsa
Mosque itself, which is “the rock of grace of
Jerusalem and the crown of the whole Islamic
nation.”
43 Ibid., p. 6.
According to one
Palestinian group,
Silwan is the
doorway through
which the settlers
are trying to
Judaize Jerusalem.
/ 41
The Palestinian
Arab assault
on the Jewish
connection to
Jerusalem is
abetted by some
Israeli Jews.
The authors thank those “who protect al-
Aqsa and its gates and the residents of the village
of Silwan” and informs them that the way is
clear “to the temple, from Silwan, the aristocratic,
the symbol of steadfastness at the gates of al-
Aqsa Mosque.” The authors ask “Would you
like to be a guard [on watch] at the blessed al-
Aqsa and nothing will pass by you?” and warn,
“Do not let into your homes the flocks of the
settlers.”47
According to this line of thought, Silwan
becomes the doorway through which the settlers
are trying to pass to Judaize Jerusalem
and at the same time, enter the Temple Mount
in order to dismantle al-Aqsa and rebuild the
temple. The steps that are being carried out,
according to Islamic spokespersons, will lead
to a third intifada.48
CONCLUSION
The Palestinian Arab assault on the Jewish
connection to Jerusalem continues apace aided
and abetted not only by radical Islamists or angry
Silwanites but by fellow travelers in the media
and in academia, including Israeli Jews.
Consider the tours carried out by Emek
Shaveh, an Israeli nonprofit organization, and
Palestinian residents of Silwan with a view to
rebuffing the “political archaeology of the Jews”
and to prove the area’s “true” archaeological
significance.49 Emek Shaveh’s founder Yonathan
Mizrachi, who has voluntarily left his job at Israel’s
Antiquity Authority, spares no effort to downplay
the Jewish biblical history of the area. As he put it:
“After three hours on [an Israeli-organized] tour,
you are convinced that
you are at a totally Jewish
site where evidence of
Canaanite, Byzantine, and
Muslim, and, of course,
Palestinian [civilizations]
are pushed aside. Jerusalem
has 4,000 years of history.
They only focus on
the marvelous stories of
King Solomon, David, and
Hezekiyah, of which, by
the way, they haven’t
found any archaeological evidence that ties them
to the place.”50
Mizrachi’s website contains an essay of over
5,000 words—“Archaeology in Silwan”—which
transforms archaeology into a handmaiden of
social science pieties and criticizes even the use
of the phrase City of David as a manifestation of
settler objectives. In doing so, he also manages
to rewrite history, claiming falsely that “during
the main periods of prosperity under the kingdom
of Judah … the cultural identity of the town
and its inhabitants was contested.”51
Sadly, the battle over Silwan (and for that
matter the wider Palestinian-Israeli conflict) is
likely to continue as long as Palestinian Arabs
and their brethren refuse to recognize that another
people, the Jews, have a claim to the Land
of Israel.
47 “Al-Hay’a al-Islamiya al-Masihiya lenasra al-Quds wa-al-
Maqdassat,” Islamic Jihad-Bait al-Makdas, Dec. 2009, p. 8.
48 See “Sarakha Tahdhir min Mukhatat ‘Kedem Yerushalaim’
Urshalim Awalan,” al-Aqsa Foundation for Waqf and Heritage
ad; Ibrahim Abu Jaber, “Mashari Ta’hid Madinat al-Quds wa-
Fars Ishti’al Intifada Thalitha,” Modern Learning Center ad,
Mar. 4, 2010.
49 “About Silwanic,” Wadi Hilweh Information Center, Jerusalem,
accessed Mar. 29, 2012.
50 Aviv Lavi, “Ha-Politika shel Nikbat Ha-Shiloa’h,” NRG
(Maariv news website, Tel Aviv), July 27, 2009; Idan Landu,
“Me-Nishul Mufrat le-Militsiot Mufratot,” Haokets website,
Nov. 25, 2010.
51 Yonathan Mizrachi, “Where Is King David’s Garden?”
Emek Shaveh, Jerusalem, accessed Mar. 29, 2012.
Bartal: Silwan
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