The battle for Jerusalem - Ideas have consequences

America today is Israel's only staunch ally, being a nation built upon a similar foundation stone. But without the Protestant Reformation there could have been no America as we know it. That Reformation tore the power from central authority of Rome and handed it to the individual, bringing a fundamental paradigm change in Western thought and history. When the printing press was invented, the first book produced on that press was that Jewish book, the Bible, which was then translated into languages of the common people to read for themselves, without an authoritarian priesthood above them. The sanctity of the individual and his own conscience then led to what has been called the Enlightenment, where the individual was set free to explore and experiment and express his views. It was into this world that the founders of the American Dream were raised, and who would write the unique revolutionary idea of the Declaration of  Independence  removing kings and powerfully oppressive government, setting free the individual- "under God."

That Idea of freedom under God was inherited by the founders of America who wrote in their founding document, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." That fundamental Idea was not born in Rome or Athens, in Babylon or Egypt or Mecca, but in Jerusalem.

The message that went forth from the Jewish prophets of Jerusalem spoke of one Creator who is Love, which was a revolutionary Idea in a world of multiple capricious gods and often cruel kings. That was a God who describes Himself in the first of the Ten Commandments as a liberator: "I am YHVH who brought you forth out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." His was a Law of liberation and health and equitable society. That liberating Idea was most embodied in the message of the Jew Yeshua (Jesus), whose word of forgiveness and love to individuals went forth from Jerusalem to all the nations of the Earth for the last two millennia. Shortly after the ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem, the city was sacked by the Roman legions, and the Jews exiled and dispersed around the world. Until today.

Since a Six Day War in 1967 when the surrounding Muslim legions failed in their attempt to annihilate the reborn Jewish nation, Jerusalem was once again in the hands of the Jews after two thousand years. The Jews had returned with the same Message as their forefathers, to the same city from which it had gone forth to alter the world's consciousness and history, and revived the original ancient dead language of the prophets and of Jesus, Hebrew.

This phenomenon was the spark that inflamed the fury of the new religion in the region, Islam, a late-comer which was born only in the 7th century AD- six centuries after Jesus.  Islam is an Idea that claims to have replaced all other religious and political  Ideas by their "final prophet," Muhammad, and his god of fear, Allah, who commanded his followers to eradicate all who did not follow the prophet. By the edge of the Jihadi sword Muhammad's Idea was spread across the planet to the now billions of Muslims. Islam is now penetrating the vacuum of what was once the predominantly Christian West, now even occupying high seats of power... And the return of the Jews has also spawned a backlash among some Christians who have replaced Jerusalem with a numinous one of their own, and replaced the Jews with "the church." For that branch of Christianity, and for Islam, who once conquered the Holy City under Islamic rule and built their golden mosque on the ruins of the Jewish temple, there can be no room for a real revived Jewish presence in Jerusalem, even by the hand of God, which would contradict their rigid theologies. For the Muslim 'true believer' there can be no backtracking for the universal Jihad.

No, it is not about the Palestinians or a Palestinian state in the midst of an already existing and vast oil-rich twenty-two Muslim nations. It is about the clash of Ideas in the heart of Jerusalem, where the irreconcilable ends of the universe meet head-on, resounding across the globe, sifting the hearts of humanity.