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Other Readings

 

The following works will be useful for understanding the historical narrative of the Arab-Israeli conflict.  Throughout the semester, you should read substantial portions of at least one of these:

 

1. Charles D. Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 6th edition (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006). On reserve at Reinert

 

2. Ian Bickerton and Carla Klausner, History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 5th ed. (New York: Prentice Hall, 2006). On reserve at Reinert.

 

3. U.S. Department of the Army, The History of Palestine, on-line at: http://hem.passagen.se/gs/Palestine.htm

 

In addition to the above, I will occasionally provide you with hard-copy handouts.

 

The Temple Mount (Heb., Har Habayit; Arabic, Haram esh-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary),is identified in both Jewish and Islamic traditions as the area of Mount Moriah where Abraham offered up his son in sacrifice Geneis 22:1-18; the Qur'an, Sura Al-Saffat 37:102-110).
 

Here King Soloman built the First Temple almost 3,000 years ago. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, but 70 years later Jews returning from exile built the Second Temple on the same site.  King Herod refashioned it into an edifice of great splendor.

In Muslim tradition, the place is also identified as the "furthermost sanctuary" (Arabic, masjid al-aksa) from which the Prphet Muhammad, accompanied by the Angel Gabriel, made the Night Journey to the Throne of God (The Qur'an Sura Al-Isra’ 17:1).

Following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70, the area of the Temple was deliberately left in ruins (first by the Romans, then by the Byzantines). This desecration was not redressed until the Muslim conquest of the city by the Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab in 638. He ordered the clearing of the site and the building of a "house of prayer".

Some 50 years later, the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock to enshrine the outcrop of bedrock believed to be the "place of the sacrifice" on Mount Moriah. He (or his son, the Caliph al-Walid I) also built the large mosque at the southern end of the Haram, which came to be called al-Aqsa after the Qur'anic name attributed to the entire area.

Source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/geo/Mount.html