Sarah Palin pulls out of Bethlehem visit

Up against the Wall
Sarah Palin, the ex-candidate and present day minor celebrity, apparently had second thoughts about crossing an Israeli checkpoint on Monday to visit Bethlehem during a three-day visit to Jerusalem. Why didn't she cross over by foot, like most Christian tourists, and hire a Bethlehem-based guide? Conal Urquhart reports from the Holy Land for the Guardian newspaper:

The former governor of Alaska pulled up to the checkpoint run by the Israeli border police to the south of Jerusalem in a white people carrier, with her husband, Todd, her assistant and Israeli guides.

None of the occupants left the car nor did they speak to the police officers at the checkpoint, according to photographers at the scene. They then turned around and drove away. A spokesman for the Israeli police said there was no incident at the checkpoint and a spokesman for the Israeli army said that Palin's group had not co-ordinated a visit to the occupied Palestinian territory.

Palin's group then stopped at a nearby Greek Orthodox monastery before returning to her hotel in the centre of west Jerusalem from where they later continued their tour of the city.

Tourists need to carry passports to cross checkpoints into the occupied Palestinian territory and Israelis are not normally permitted to enter areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, such as Bethlehem.

From the checkpoint Palin would have been able to see the high concrete walls that separate Bethlehem from Jerusalem.

Palin arrived in Israel on Sunday night after a delivering a speech in India on a rare foreign trip. She is due to meet Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, on Monday evening.

On arriving in Jerusalem Palin visited the tunnels next to the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, which is believed to have been part of the walls of the Jewish temple destroyed by the Romans in 70AD.

Palin wore a Star of David, the symbol of Judaism, around her neck, prayed close to the wall and lodged a written prayer in a crevice, according to tradition.

Palin told reporters: " It's overwhelming to be able to see and touch the cornerstone of our faith. I'm so thankful to be able to be here and I'm thankful to know the Israel-American connection will grow and strengthen as the peace negotiations continue."

Danny Danon, the Likud party member of the Knesset who invited Palin to Israel and accompanied her to the Western Wall, said Palin was moved by being close to the wall. "The visit was educational and spiritual. She was a strong friend of Israel and she will become a stronger advocate of Israel in the future," he said.

"The main purpose of the visit was to get acquainted with Israel and the holy sites. It was her first visit but I am sure she will come again."

Verbatim - US consular message to Americans in Jerusalem

Forget the uplift and avoid the stun grenades and the riot sticks, folks.
This message, emailed to all registered yanks in the Holy Land, shows a disconnect between secular and religious concerns. Violence is becoming a sideshow to some of the religious celebrations It begs the question - what about Jewish Americans who want to pray at the Western Wall or on the Temple Mount, or American Muslims who want to ascend the Noble Sanctuary and pray in the mosque. Or Christians or Messianic Jews who celebrate inside the churches in the Old City

WARDEN MESSAGE October 2, 2009

The final two of the local autumn holidays, Sukkot and Simhat Torah,
will be celebrated this weekend and next. American citizens should
avoid the Old City for one week from sundown Friday, October 2nd,
through sundown on Friday, October 9th, 2009. Vehicle traffic in and
around the Old City will be restricted by the Israeli National Police
(INP).

Although it is a good idea to avoid the Old City for the entire week,
Monday, October 5th, is expected to draw the largest crowds due to the
annual pilgrimage by Jewish worshipers who will assemble at the Western
Wall for special prayers.

Additionally, political and religious tensions are expected to be high
in the areas immediately adjacent to the Al Aqsa Mosque compound
throughout this period. A large police presence in the area may provoke
spontaneous violence in the form of civil unrest and police actions.

Finally, the crowded environment could result in an uptick in criminal
activity to include pickpockets, physical assaults and other crimes.
American citizens should avoid crowds and walking or driving around the
Old City. Carry a mobile phone and stay cognizant of your surroundings.


For the latest security information, Americans should regularly monitor
the Department's web site at http://travel.state.gov, where the current
Worldwide Caution, Travel Warnings, including the Travel Warning for
Israel, West Bank and Gaza, and Travel Alerts can be found.

Dung Gate shoveling begins anew

Here we go again.
Can you dig it? On again, off again; and what carries more weight? Archaeo-politics or getting to grips with antiquity? These politicians are dancing with persistence and a certain flair for publicity. This excavatikon is worth watching, to see how the Arab world responds and to see what is unearthed. MOst seems to be Byzantine rubble so far, according to Izzy Bee's sources.

"If political elements want to use the IAA as an umbrella, the minister's eye is watching and he will not allow any work to be done that invites friction and disturbances during this period of diplomatic negotiations. I am glad that the prime minister supports the policy of creating understanding and tranquility in order to protect the holy places," Majadele said.

The phrase "removing any find that is not archaeological" refers to all Palestinian finds and most of those of the Ottoman period. The Turkish English-language daily Today's Zaman recently published a report stating that a team of Turkish experts who had examined the excavations at the Mughrabi walkway recommended that Israel stop work immediately.

The team's report said that Israel was attempting to disrupt Jerusalem's history by stressing the Jewish aspect of Jerusalem, and that the excavations were part of a plan to destroy cultural elements from the Islamic period in Jerusalem. The report also stated that "the large amount of soil extraction shown to our mission along the Wailing Wall give the impression that this is an intervention of great scale and depth and that this intervention goes beyond scientific purpose."

Attorney Danny Zeidman, legal counsel to the Ir Amim association, which appealed the ministerial committee's decision to the attorney general, said Sunday that an internal contradiction existed between the cabinet decision's call for "transparency" and "coordination" and decisions of an operative nature.

Temple gifts from afar: a kilo of gold plus wedding ring meltdown

Visitors from Papua New Guinea donated heaps of gold for rebuilding Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, according to the latest report from Kobi Nahshoni:

A delegation of 34 devout Papua New Guineans visited the Western Wall last week and left a kilo of gold and several thousand dollars to the Temple Institute, an organization dedicated to rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem.

The delegation's participants, who define themselves as members of "The Bible Circle", told the institute's workers that they study the bible on a regular basis.

Recently, they read the prophecy of Zechariah, where it says: "And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord, and ye shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you," and decided to follow the verse and come to Israel.

The Papuans explained that since their country was rich in gold mines, their donation was "nothing out of the ordinary," but added that in the future they hoped they would be able to send valuable exotic wood for the new Temple's construction.

"They pulled gold bullions out of their bags, and even started to take off their jewelry, apologizing it was too little," head of the institute Yahuda Glick told Ynet. "There was even a married couple who gave me their wedding rings and said they wanted to marry God."


"The scene reminded me of the legends of King Salomon I read when I was young, and pictures of the Queen of Sheba bringing gold and precious gems to the Temple. The vision is literally coming to life before our eyes," Glick said enthusiastically.

What a journey: they came 7856 miles with their golden offering! Just how it gets put to use remains to be seen. Here is one rather controversial, if inclusive, blueprint:


"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning.
May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy." (Psalms 137:5-6)

Love Thy Neighbor

Portraits of Jerusalem, an exceptional radio broadcast on the BBC 4, touches on some of the problems of a righteous city which is holy to a trinity of faiths: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Land is scarce and scrapping over it becomes fierce.
Some hardliners see redemption in ratcheting up a Jewish presence inside the Old city walls, and Star of David banners are aggressively displayed in some of the newly-purchased upper story properties in the Christian sections.
The quotes from Father Jerry (Jerome Murphy O'Connor, professor at the Ecole Biblique) are quite poignant, as he copes with the decline of the Christian minority that he has witnessed over the past four decades.
With such a long history of rancour, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the city fathers of Jerusalem have done a quiet U-turn and scrapped the controversial bridge they were constructing up to the Temple Mount, which caused tensions to mount. The previous access ramp was damaged by an earthquake and a fluke snowstorm,and deemed to be dangerous. It overlooks the Kotel or Wailing Wall; this is the only entrance for non-Muslims to access the Haram esh-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, the third holiest site in Islam. An archaeological dig beneath the pillars, to protect or salvage any artifacts from construction damage, is about to wind up, too.
Had Jerusalem officials announced this decision any sooner, it would have been seen as a giving into international Muslim pressure. (see Unruly Bridge & Tunnel Crowd.) Clashes between 3000 Israeli security forces and throngs of irate Muslims, who were convinced that the Israelis' digging was designed to undermine their al Aqsa mosque, put the sacred space on high security alert in March and touched off protests around the world.

As can be seen in this photo, there is little room to maneuver in this holiest of hotspots. Israeli intelligence trumpeted the arrest of 11 Hamas operatives who they said were intent on wresting control of the Temple Mount from Jordan's Waqf authority and determined to fire up passions on this incendiary pilgrimage spot.

Cherrypickers,Gnostic Nasties,Unholy hype

Here is Simcha, the self-dubbed Naked Archaeologist, who insists he found Jesus. Literally. Then got James Cameron in on the deal.

No bones about it, the most hits in the brief history of the Israelity Bites blog came this weekend after Izzy Bee posted that Discovery Channel docu-drama preview of the disputed “Lost Tomb of Jesus” on Friday. James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici triggered a major cyber-spasm on this site with their claim that a suburban Jerusalem tomb had contained Jesus Christ & son, plus a clutch of other relatives. So the Holy Sepulcher’s not wholly holy? The implication made some clergymen get rather hot under the dog collar. Nuns were having none of it. After all, second Temple-era stone ossuaries, similar to the two caskets unveiled at the NYC public library this week, are so common that Israelis frequently use them as planters for begonias or geraniums. But when a Canadian journo and the Titanic showman teamed up to think outside the box, plenty of people got that sinking feeling.

Hey, I did not intend for my blog to be another conduit for the James Cameron publicity machine, but it turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. The comments poured in for days and Izzy pored over them in fascination.

They ranged from testimonies of faith, rationalist discourse, gnostic nasties and Monty Python shtick, with some doubting Thomases and furtive freemasons weighing in, too. And all blasphemers were cursed in CAPS by a fire-and-brimstone believer in a vengeful deity. Izzy Bee hopes that after the controversial show runs on Sunday, sceptics and believers will resume their dialogue here. Time to curb your dogma, sharpen your tongue, and go at it with logic and vigor.

This afternoon, Izzy Bee followed the senior archaeologist Dan Bahat through a subterranean tunnel that skirts the sacrosanct Western Wall of the Temple Mount. An Al-Jazeera film crew came along too, trailing the heritage protection team from UNESCO, and after a few snarls from the Israeli security detail, all were allowed inside. Dr Bahat is both a scientist and a religious man, and besides teaching at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, is on the theology faculty at the University of Toronto. Like most experts on Jerusalem’s past, the professor seemed to be bothered by the sketchy science behind the “Lost Tomb” program. The Talpiyot cave's 10 caskets were catalogued and the bones reburied 27 years ago, so this earth-shattering hypothesis is a non-starter in Israeli scientific circles. The video trailers suggest that evidence was cherrypicked to support the documentary’s premise that the body of Jesus, son of Joseph and worshipped as Christ, was stuffed in a box outside the walled city for 2000 years. This strikes Jerusalem-based scholars as pseudo-science based on conjecture. But interesting if true...

As our group walked past enormous Herodian stone blocks, where Jewish prayers on paper slips were tucked into some ancient crevices, then beside Byzantine arches, Umayyad masonry, old Roman toilets, moats, cisterns and the like, this unholy row over Cameron’s slight-of-hand documentary seemed carefully manipulated for maximum profit. Watch this space.