It was 10:00 a.m. on June 7; Colonel Motta Gur made the now famous announcement via a scratchy broadcast through army radio: “Har Habayit Be’yadenu! Har Habayit Be’yadenu ! In English: “The Temple Mount is in our hands, I repeat: The Temple Mount is in our hands!”
For the first time in over nineteen hundred years, the Temple Mount, the holiest in Judaism, home of the two Holy Temples to G-d, was back in the hands of the Indigenous people of all of the Holy Land, the Jews.
Immediately after the Motta Gur’s announcement, soldiers gathered near the Kotel; some cried as they emotionally recited the Shehechianu prayer: “Blessed art Thou L-rd G-d King of the Universe who has sustained us and kept us and has brought us to this day.”
Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the lead Ashkenazi Rabbi for the IDF, recited another prayer. Afterward, the soldiers broke out into Hatikva, Israel’s national anthem.
According to the book The Lions Gate by Steven Pressfield, Colonel Gur’s number two, Moshe Stempel, was on the Temple Mount, looking for the top of the Kotel. A Jew from Brooklyn who became an Arab by choice led Stempel and a few soldiers through his home to the top of the Kotel:
Yorum Zamosh,” A” Company Commander, said Stempel extracts the flag from under my web gear. “You must write on it, Zamosh.”
Stempel’s hands are trembling.
I have been awash with emotions all morning. Now, suddenly, I am calm.
“What should I write?”
(…) I set the flag upon my knee using my thigh as a writing surface
“This flag of Israel was placed here by paratroopers of the 55th brigade…”
“What’s the date?”
“Nobody knows. The days have run together.”
“Seven June”
I switch to writing on the edge of a stone step. It’s more stable than my knee.
“7 June1967 who have captured the Old City’
” Wait Zamosh” Stempel Stops me “its not captured, write liberated.”
During the nineteen years after the armistice agreement, Jews were not allowed in Jerusalem. The occupying country of Jordan treated the holy city like a garbage dump.
The ancient Mount of Olives cemetery is home to biblical figures, post-biblical heroes, a giant list of famous Rabbis, and former Prime Minister Menachem Begin. The cemetery was disgustingly treated. Ancient Tombstones were taken down and used for military roads, a major hotel, and a gas station, and roads were built on top of graves. An estimated 38,000 Mount of Olives graves were destroyed or desecrated.
The Kotel was used as a garbage dump and a urinal.
34 out of 35 synagogues in the old city were destroyed. Some were demolished, and others were converted into stables or chicken coops.
The desecration of these and other Jewish holy sites, as well as holy sites of other faiths, stopped after Israel liberated the east part of the city of Jerusalem.
I used to detest Moshe Dayan because I was told he gave up the Temple Mount out of fear that people would try to build a third temple. My teaching was that the Temple would not be rebuilt until Elijah sobered up from all the wine he drank during Passover and announced the coming of the Mashiach (“Messiah” or “the anointed one). A human being descended from King David.
I thought, who the heck did Dayan think he was? Did his ego make him think he had Elijah’s phone number and was told when the prophet told him when he was getting back on his golden chariot to announce when Dayan himself was the anointed one?
Comparing what I thought Dayan’s reason for giving up the Temple Mount was to what research taught me, his real reason changed my feelings about the hero of the Six-Day War. I still disagree with his actions, not because he believed he was the high priest of the Jewish faith, but because he believed his actions would help keep the peace,
On June 7, when he got the message, the paratroopers reached the Kotel. He took the chief of staff, Yitzhak Rabin, and the leader of the central command, Uzi Narkiss, to see the victory. He ordered the other two to join him in wearing their uniform, including their helmets.
Per the Lion’s Gate With the victory, Dayan believed the Six-Day War had erased the inconclusiveness of the 1956 war and created the “Warrior Jew.” And “The Army of Israel has taken its place among the world’s elite corps-at-arms.”
He spoke of the newfound pride of Diaspora Jews. But it didn’t last. The Warrior Jew’s victory has angered 1.25 million Arabs who hate them more than ever before and will never accept Israel’s Authority.
“My every instinct cries for grace, generosity, greatness at heart.” That’s why Dayan says the only time he lost his temper was when he saw that flag put up by Moshe Stempel and Yorum Zamosh. “We must be strong enough to yield when yielding serves the long-term interests of all.”
The end of that quote, “serves the long-term interests of all.” sounds like one of those cheesy comments made by an American running for a political office. But unlike the politician, Dayan really meant it. The issue still is that sometimes his actions should have served only the long-term interest of Israel and the Jewish diaspora.
The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA) Wrote
Dayan’s most significant act on the Temple Mount, which sparked controversy over the years and was widely criticized, was to forbid Jewish prayer and worship there, unlike the arrangements that emerged at the Machpelah Cave in Hebron, where a functioning mosque also exists. Dayan decided to leave the mount and its management in the hands of the Muslim Wakf while at the same time insisting that Jews would be able to visit it (but not pray at it!) without restriction. Dayan thought, and years later even committed the thought to writing, that since for Muslims the mount is a “Muslim prayer mosque” while for Jews it is no more than “a historical site of commemoration of the past…one should not hinder the Arabs from behaving there as they now do.” The Israeli defense minister believed that Islam must be allowed to express its religious sovereignty – as opposed to national sovereignty – over the mount, that the Arab-Israeli conflict must be kept on the territorial-national level, and that the potential for a conflict between the Jewish religion and the Muslim religion must be removed. In granting Jews the right to visit the Mount, Dayan sought to placate the Jewish demands for worship and sovereignty there. In giving religious sovereignty over the mount to the Muslims, he believed he was defusing the site as a center of Palestinian nationalism.
Too many times, the Palestinians have falsely accused Israel of disturbing the Temple Mount status quo. Those false changes usually result in violence against Israelis. Violence that would have never happened if the Temple Mount hadn’t left Israel’s hands.
Moshe Dayan gave away the holiest spot in Judaism because he believed it would bring peace. Instead, it became an opportunity for the Palestinians to bring violence against Israel.
If Dayan truly wanted peace, his orders would have been that all religions, including Jews, should be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount. As the indigenous people of the land, the Jewish Nation should claim the Temple Mount for Jewish prayer. And as the Torah teaches us to respect other faiths, Jews should also allow others to pray on the Temple Mount.
His mistakes may have been made with good intentions, but they still resulted in poor outcomes. Moshe Dayan’s Temple Mount actions proved that Ze’ev Jabotinsky was correct when he said, “It is incredible what political simpletons Jews are. They shut their eyes to one of the most elementary rules of life that you must not ‘meet halfway’ those who do not want to meet you.”
Jeff Dunetz (The Lid) serves as the Director of Special Projects and sits on the Board of Herut NA, The Unapologetic Zionists. Herut is an international movement dedicated to Zionist pride and education, founded on the ideals of pre-World War II Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky. For more information about Herut, please visit http://www.herutna.org/. Please click on this link and consider joining me at this great organization.
