Jerusalem Betrayed: Ancient Prophecy and Modern Conspiracy Collide in the Holy City by Mike Evans

Author:Mike Evans
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Jerusalem - History, History, Jerusalem, International Relations, Jerusalem - History - Religious aspects, 1973, Arab-Israeli conflict, General, Religion, Middle East, Political Science, Biblical Studies, Prophecy, Arab-Israeli conflict - 1973-1993, Jewish-Arab relations
ISBN: 9780849940026
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc
Published: 1997-03-31T05:00:00+00:00

Nine &

Reclaming the Land

ON the eve of the United Nations partition vote, Israeli leader David Ben-Gurion sent Golda Meir to meet with King Abdullah of the Transjordan. They would rendezvous at night at an out-of-the-way little spot near where the Jordan flows out of the Sea of Galilee.

Golda was, in many ways, an American. She had been bom in 1898 in Kiev, the ancient capital of the Ukraine. At the age of eight she had emigrated to America with her family and settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She grew up there and worked for a time as a school teacher. But by the age of seventeen she had discovered her Zionist faith, the cause to which she would dedicate the rest of her life.

The electricity that served the king's palace and the rest of the city of Amman came from a hydroelectric station built and run by the Jews along a stretch of the east bank of the Jordan that lay just inside Galilee. It was here, at the home of the plant's director, that Golda Meir and King Abdullah held their secret meeting.

Though it was their first meeting, they greeted each other as friends with a common enemy: the mufti Haj Amin. In the event of partition, Abdullah confided, he would prefer simply to annex the Arab sector to his kingdom. Mrs. Meyerson (Golda's name at the time) thought that sounded much better than a separate state led by Haj Amin. She pledged that the Jews would leave the Arab sector to its own devices and devote themselves entirely to the establishment of their own sovereignty within the borders assigned to them by the UN.

Abdullah was not an anti-Semite. Instead he recognized the Zionists as fellow Semites returned to their homeland after long exile. Their presence in Palestine had already profited him and his people immensely. And he knew better than to think he could put a stop to the establishment of a Jewish state. The mufti was a fool who thought of the Jews in terms of the pale rabbinical students so easily cowed by his ruffians7 clubs.

The Syrians and Iraqis were perhaps deceived by the relatively docile and subservient Jewish communities of Damascus and Baghdad. But Abdullah knew the Zionists for what they were: a vigorous and capable people who could put up a stiff fight.

Despite his desire for peace with his Jewish neighbors, however, Abdullah would be pressured intolerably by the other Arab states in the coming months. He met a final time with Golda Meir just before Israel declared its statehood. He offered the Jews autonomy within his kingdom and full representation in parliament, but was not surprised when the Zionists turned him down. Reluctantly, Abdullah entered the war against Israel when the nation eventually declared its independence.

In the months between November 29,1947, when the UN General Assembly voted for partition, and May 14,1948, when the last British troops left Palestine, Jerusalem was the scene of almost interminable conflict. It was Haj Amin's season of opportunity to seize final control and turn Palestine into an Arab state with himself at its helm.

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