Mike Huckabee beat me to it. The newly arrived US ambassador to Israel made a beeline from the airport to the Western Wall (Kotel Ma’arvi or Kotel for short in Hebrew). He prayed there and dropped off a note penned and given to him by President Donald Trump. It is an old tradition to write a note to God and put it between the cracks in the ancient stones. Many do like the ambassador: from the airport, they make their way directly to the Kotel, which is the part of the retaining wall around the Temple Mount. The site is the number one tourist attraction in the country, however much Israel tries to add F1 racing or Giro d’Italia stages or multiple marathons. People come to Israel, go to Jerusalem, enter the Old City and find themselves face-to-face with stones that saw the smoke from the Temple sacrifices go up into the sky. Oftentimes, people cry when they start to pray spontaneously in front of the ancient stones that witnessed the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 at the hands of Titus and his Tenth Legion.
Architect Moshe Safdie wrote in one of his books on Jerusalem that there was a competition after the 1967 war to design the prayer area in front of the Wall. Several proposals were submitted, including one from a Japanese architect who suggested a large black cube representing the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust. Safdie’s proposal had earth movers remove all of the junk that the Jordanians had put there and just leave the space open for prayers. And that is what the Israeli government did. There are times when there are a few dozen people praying in the open courtyard and there are holidays or special occasions when tens of thousands pack into the open space. Live cameras show what’s going on there around the clock.
On Monday—a week after the ambassador—I made my way with my wife and one of our boys to the Western Wall. I always get emotional when I go there. As we passed through the Arab market on our way to the Wall, I realized that only under Israeli control can Jews, Muslims and Christians share the space of the Old City. Before you accuse me of bigotry, let’s review some facts. Before 1948, going to the Wall was dicey for Jews. Arabs often attacked Jews with impunity, and my wife’s aunt was killed in the Old City, her body never recovered. After the Israeli War of Independence, Jews could not go to the Kotel—unless they were non-Israelis with diplomatic passports. My mother-in-law and her family fled the Jewish Quarter and moved to new Jerusalem. Between the new city and the Old City was a no man’s land. The Israeli buildings facing the Jordanian-held Old City still bear the scars of many rounds fired at the Jews in the fledgling state of Israel from 1948-1967.
After the 1967 Six Day War, Israel retained full control of the Wall and the rest of the Old City. To this day, Arabs live and work in the Old City, and Christians have complete control of the churches and other relevant sites. When members of my family went to the Old City on Saturday, they were told that the main entrance, the Jaffa Gate, would be closed to foot traffic due to a Christian holiday parade. The Old City is still divided between Jewish, Armenian, Muslim and Christian quarters. Yes, there can be disputes, such as when Jews legally purchase properties in the Muslim quarter. But unlike anything under the Jordanians, all faiths can live safely and with equal protections.
And this reality is one that the world wishes to ignore. If Israel in 1967 had treated the Old City as the world wants it to treat Gaza today, it would have left it to the Arabs. To this day, no Jew could live or set foot in the Old City. Only under Israeli control can all people live, work and co-exist in the shared spaces of Jerusalem and elsewhere. When we finished our stay at the Western Wall, we went to a popular cafe just outside the ramparts. Arabs and Jews both worked and ate at the cafe. No one was threatened and nobody was threatening. This state of affairs can exist under Jews and as we see in the US and Europe under Christians as well. Where Muslims take control in European cities, they do not tolerate non-Muslims. “Don’t bring your dogs here.” “No alcohol in this neighborhood.” “Women, cover yourselves if you wish to pass through our streets.”
The cafe is located in a very nice mall in that former no man's land. The first time I passed through there in 1989, it was only closed stalls with no signs of life, a reminder of decades of neglect. Today, the mall has standard American fare like Tommy Hilfiger and Rolex as well as Israeli stores and restaurants. It is popular with Israelis, tourists, and East Jerusalem Arabs who can access it by foot and not have to enter the Jewish new part of the city. When I interviewed the Palestinian prime minister’s son for his application to Harvard, he was happy to meet me at the same cafe.
Just as Israel allows people of all faiths to live together, the US truly is the world’s melting pot. Ignoring the push over the past few decades to not integrate immigrants—illegal or legal—the US has always been open to all. Look at how the Chinese treat the Uyghers. A Palestinian craftsman from Hebron who once did some work around the house said that he had lived in Saudi Arabia and there the sheep were treated better than the Palestinians. Many stories came out during the construction of Qatar’s World Cup infrastructure about death and poor living conditions for the imported workers. Many first-generation US immigrants like Elon Musk, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Larry Ellison, and Igor Sikorsky came to a country that accepted them and gave them the opportunity to succeed. We take such things for granted but not all cultures allow for equality of opportunity.
Just after I finished my prayers at the Wall, a Brink’s truck backed into the prayer area. I said, “God, that was really fast. Thank you.” I expected some guys to jump out with big sacks of money, screaming “Bauer! Who’s Bauer?” Apparently I jumped the gun. They came to pick up the mounds of money that people from all over the world leave in the charity boxes around the prayer area. That’s okay. God knows where we live.