How To Address A Letter To Jerusalem

in october 2016, unesco condemned israel forrestricting access to part of the holiest site in the world for jews, muslims and toa lesser extent, christians. recent violence between israel and palestinecenters around the site, called the temple mount, which has a long history of sparkingconflict between israel and the surrounding muslim countries.

How To Address A Letter To Jerusalem, but what makes the temple mount so important? in a nutshell, this little hill in jerusalemhosts structures representing each religion: the al-aqsa mosque, which is considered thethird holiest site in sunni islam, the western wall, which is considered the holiest placefor jews to pray, and for christians, the

temple mount is where jesus issued a challengeagainst temple authorities, which ostensibly led to his crucifixion. the triple-claim on this area is further complicatedby the dual-control of it by both muslim and israeli authorities. the mount itself is within israeli bordersand has been controlled by the state since 1967. to reach the site you need to go through oneof 11 gates, ten of which are reserved exclusively for muslims, and one for non-muslims, althoughall the gates are patrolled by israeli police. even more confusingly, the mosque on the templemount is administered by an islamic trust

funded by the king of jordan. non-muslims are prohibited from prayer andare only allowed to visit as tourists although in 2016 some non-muslims were allegedly allowedto pray within the structure. but even within the jewish faith, prayingin the mount is prohibited, and jews may only visit it at certain times. the current conflict centers around the unescoresolution which would have declared the western wall a part of the al-aqsa mosque, and thusbegan a process of banning jews entirely from one of their holiest sites. this clause was added by a number of muslimstates, but was ultimately dropped before

the resolution went through. but even the revised version was widely criticizedby israel and its supporters, who say that the language of the resolution condemningisrael refers to the location exclusively in arabic terms, thus, quote, erasing thejewish connection. even hillary clinton has come out callingthe resolution “disappointing and wrong”, criticizing unesco for failing to recognizeand respect the “deep and historic ties of the jewish people to jerusalem and itsholy sites”. but israel’s strict control over the sitehas many, including unesco, worried. when there are high tensions in the region,or fear of riots, muslim men under a certain

age are restricted from entering portionsof the temple mount, although muslim women of all ages can come and go freely. this is called the “dilution policy”. there have even been times when the israeligovernment has blocked all access to the mount for muslims and non-muslims alike. many say that this level of control is unreasonable,while the israeli government maintains that it is for security and safety, rather thanfor any ideological or religious reason. as with most conflicts centered around israeland palestine, or jews and muslims, this is an issue unlikely to be resolved quickly.

if you're like me and love history, scienceand exploration, you should check out discovery go, where you can binge watch all seasonscurrent and past of your favorite discovery channel shows. check out the link in the description belowto learn more. the heart of all these conflicts is the cityof jerusalem. but why is there so much religious overlapin this region, and how is it propelling so many violent disputes between israel and palestine? find out by watching this video. during this conflict, israel captured eastjerusalem and annexed it as part of their

own country. many do not recognize this annexation as legal,including the united nations. thanks for watching seeker daily don’t forgetto like and subscribe for new videos every day!