Jerusalem, the ancient
capital of Judea, has been resuscitated today as a microcosm of the entire world,
in all its contrasts and most glaring contradictions. Stand at an intersection in
the city, and you’ll see pass by a collection of the world’s most diverse people,
hailing from every country and century.
Since 1950 I have watched these crowds—crowds which no-one could have imagined or
planned. The government of Israel opened the gates of Jerusalem to all Jews who wanted
to move there. They have flowed in since from around the world, becoming neighbours
in the city of Christ with Japanese Makuyas1, members of 45 different Christian denominations
and Muslims representing all the rites and geographic origins of Islam.
The merchants of the Old City hawk their products to passers-by and, in honour of
trading tradition, barter over prices. Depending on the season, market stalls overflow
with oranges, grapes, dates and all the other fruits and vegetables that grow in
the city’s many orchards and gardens.
Spices, incense, cakes, pitta bread and sweets proliferate alongside religious trinkets
and local crafts, made from wood and metal according to age-old techniques in little
workshops nestled in the Old City’s narrow streets. It is here that tens of thousands
of pilgrims from every corner of Christendom flock to gaze on Christ’s tomb.
Alongside Judaism and Christianity, another religion born from the Bible’s fertile
soil takes special interest in the city, for Jerusalem is also the place where the
Prophet Muhammad ascended to Allah’s heaven to meet Abraham, Moses and Jesus. All
of Jerusalem—all 30 centuries of fervent history—are concentrated in 90 hectares
enclosed by ramparts.
The city has roots in the Hebrew Bible (or the Book of the Covenant), the New Testament
(or Book of the New Covenant) and the Koran (or Book of the Realization of all the
Covenants since Abraham). A revived Jerusalem became the land of Israel’s homecoming
after the Balfour Declaration (1917) and the United Nations resolutions on November
29, 1947, which recommended the creation on territory then under a British mandate
of two states—one Israeli, one Palestinian—around Jerusalem, placed under UN control.
That homecoming was to reconcile all of Abraham’s children—Jews, Christians and Muslims—and
enable them to achieve together their common ideal: the universal covenant of humanity.
The conflict, which the United Nations had hoped to settle, has continued to this
day through war between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people’s representatives.
The creation of a Palestinian state would help to end the violence that still drenches
the city of peace in blood. The union of two states, one Israeli, the other Palestinian,
in a single confederation open to other countries in the Middle East, could bring
peace and progress to all in the future.2
No one, however, can speak of Jerusalem without mentioning its prophets, the tragedies
of its history, the 2,000-year-old exile of its people and their homecoming after
the Shoah. Then, the foundation of the state of Israel and its tragic consequences
for the Muslim population, the Arabs’ refusal to create a Palestinian state, the
resulting inextricable conflict and the consecutive stalemate, made worse by a smouldering
war that dares not speak its name.
No war can settle the conflict between two nationalisms and the three religions that
share blood-soaked Jerusalem. Let us recognize that, and proclaim that this city
is the historic capital of the three religions which have their roots there. Let
us unite the people who live in the city by dividing their responsibilities: the
holy sites are already administered by the religions laying claim to them.
Let us bring the Hebrew Bible, the Greek New Testament and the Arab Koran back to
what they originally stood for: peace and reconciliation. Let Jerusalem at last become
the model capital for universal peace, as the prophets of the three religions stemming
from Abraham had always dreamt.
Is it utopian to believe that in the New Israel and its reborn capital, Muslims,
Christians and Jews can dwell together in peace? If you think so, know that the future
of world peace depends on achievement of this utopia. And that is probably why the
psalms attributed to King David already exhorted:
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! (Psalm 122.6).
Why especially Jerusalem? Because this city is where cultures, religions and people
of all ages and languages meet. Yes, let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem, a peace
that could foreshadow that of the world’s other cultures, when, quite simply, all
men and women will recognize each other as their brothers and sisters.
1. A group of
Japanese Christians who since WWII have sought closer ties with traditional Christianity,
the “people of the Bible” and Judaism.
2. André Chouraqui: Lettre à un ami arabe, J.-C. Lattès,
1994, and Jérusalem revisitée, Ed. du Rocher, 1995. |
Let
Jerusalem at last
become the model capital
for universal peace
This
city is where cultures,
religions and people of all ages
and languages meet.
|
