Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 16:12:19 -0800 (PST)
From: Wolf Factory <wolf_factory-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: holy cities


Charles,

Your reasoning is deeply flawed.

The Palestinians and the Israelis are at each other’s
throats. Over a thousand people have been killed (the
vast majority Palestinian). Suicide missions have
peaked like no other time before. The violence is as
bad as it has ever been. 

Right now any peace proposal that takes the two
parties away from this mad deadlock has to be
welcomed. Clearly there are a thousand and one things
wrong with Saudi Arabia. What you pointed out, the
prevention of non-Muslims from entering the holy
sites, is the least troublesome thing about that
country. Its human rights violations ought to be of a
higher concern.

By your reasoning, the United States should have been
rejected outright by the Palestinians as a refereeing
party in the middle east peace process. The
Palestinians could have pointed out the various
atrocities the United States has committed against so
many (mostly developing) countries of the world. They
could have argued that a country founded on the
extermination of an indigenous population and who has
a clear bias towards Israel is not fit to play the
role of a peace mediator. They did not take that
#high# moral road. 

I find the Saudi proposal flawed because it does not
address the issue of the Palestinian exodus. What is
to become of the millions of Palestinians who were
forcefully evicted out of their homes? This is a more
pressing question than the division of Jerusalem. 

Of course Israelis were only prevented from visiting
their holly sites before 1967 because Israel was at
war with the Arabs. Right now most Arabs are prevented
from visiting their holly sites in Jerusalem. Thus if
one wants to be logical and non-hysterical about this
issue, one would have to find  Israel more at fault
than Saudi Arabia. Mecca does not have, as far as I
know, any major Jewish or Christian holly sites.
Whereas Jerusalem has two very important mosques: The
mosque of the rock and Al-Aqsa (which is often
confused with the mosque of the rock).

Finally you end your e-mail with a dramatic question:
> How can Saudis and other Moslems expect Israel to
> take the proposal 
> seriously, as long as Mecca and Medina are off
> limits for seemingly no other 
> reasons than historical ones which no longer apply,
> or because of ingrained 
> intolerance or arrogance toward anyone whose beliefs
> are different from their 
> own?

A wonderful illustration of the typical blind spot
certain people have when it comes to Israel. Israel is
never intolerant, never arrogant and everything it
does is simply for #security reasons#…..right? 


--- Charrl-AT-aol.com wrote:
> There were interesting responses to my query about
> prohibiting non-believers 
> from visiting Mecca and Medina.  It seems there is
> no theological reason, 
> only a line in the Koran about pagans or
> idol-worshipers or polytheistic 
> people not being allowed to approach the Ka'aba. 
> Several respondents cast 
> the prohibitions in strictly power terms, and there
> were suggestions of 
> earlier military threats from other religions and of
> "a group that is closed 
> - not open to interaction with or...examination by
> outsiders".
> 
> One of the most interesting posts discussed a
> "symbolic statement about the 
> power of the IN group" which included a reference to
> sharing of buildings for 
> worship among Moslems, Jews, and Christians in an
> earlier era.  (Just today, 
> I learned that a Jewish architect, Louis Kahn,
> worked in the Islamic Republic 
> of Pakistan in the 1960s and 1970s to design what
> became the National 
> Assembly building in Dacca, Bangladesh.)
> 
> The reason I asked about Mecca and Medina has to do
> with a recent "land for 
> peace" proposition made by the Saudi crown prince,
> which has been the subject 
> of widespread interest and of calls for more detail.
>  The proposition would 
> have the Israelis pulling back to pre-war borders
> which existed in early 
> 1967, when Jews were not allowed even to visit many
> of their holy places, 
> including the wailing wall of the second temple in
> Jersualem.
> 
> While getting to an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire is
> now a huge challenge, 
> resolving the status of Jerusalem is a much thornier
> impediment to a 
> comprehensive political agreement.  How can the
> Saudi leader, whose people 
> have long prohibited anyone not Moslem from even
> setting foot in Mecca and 
> Medina, reasonably expect the Jewish people to cede
> control of Jersualem?  
> How would he feel if Mecca were to be walled off to
> Moslems?  How would he 
> feel if Mecca were to be "despoiled" by the mere
> presence of non-believers?  
> How can Saudis and other Moslems expect Israel to
> take the proposal 
> seriously, as long as Mecca and Medina are off
> limits for seemingly no other 
> reasons than historical ones which no longer apply,
> or because of ingrained 
> intolerance or arrogance toward anyone whose beliefs
> are different from their 
> own?
> 
> Charles Orlowek  
> 
> 
>      --- from list
> postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


===="All the wolves in the wolf factory paused at noon, 
for a moment of silence."
........from laughing Gravy by John Ashbery.
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