Episode Transcript
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Jerusalem, previously referred
to as the City of David,
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was in some ways not a city
as we would see it today.
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It was more like a fortress in the Judean Hills.
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Jerusalem, with its rises and falls over time,
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presents us with an opportunity to reflect
on its story and its history.
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We hope you enjoy
The Navel of the Earth:
Jerusalem in time, theology and imagination.
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Perhaps the best-known
poem in English about Jerusalem is
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William Blake's remarkable poem,
which is simply called Jerusalem,
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and which is often sung
to a memorable melody.
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So let me just read you in this last
of the podcasts on Jerusalem.
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The poem of the visionary William Blake.
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And did those feet in ancient time
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walk upon England's mountains green?
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And was the Holy Lamb of God
on England's pleasant pastures seen?
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And did the countenance divine shine
forth upon our clouded hills?
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And was Jerusalem builded here
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among these dark satanic mills?
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Bring me my bow of burning gold.
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Bring me my arrows of desire.
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Bring me my spear.
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Oh, clouds unfold.
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Bring me my chariot of fire.
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I will not cease from mental fight.
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Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand.
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Till we have built Jerusalem.
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In England's green and pleasant land.
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The poet's vision
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is a vision of Jerusalem, a new Jerusalem.
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As we saw in the last podcast.
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A new Jerusalem built in England.
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There was
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an old myth
that Jesus had, in fact visited
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the British Isles, well,
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Blake here builds upon
that vision or that myth.
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To speak of the New Jerusalem.
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Even in the midst of the dark
satanic mills, as he refers to them.
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And that this building of Jerusalem
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will require mental fight.
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A sword in the hand.
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Arrows of desire, a bow of burning gold
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and a chariot of fire.
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So, it seems for Blake that
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the New Jerusalem is only built
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with blood, sweat and tears.
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Now, if you look at Jerusalem now,
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Jerusalem has been built
in the most remarkable ways.
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Not in England,
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but in the Holy Land.
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And this,
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in a sense, looks back to 1967.
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When we had the Six-Day War.
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And as a result of the Six-Day War,
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and this is not the time or place to go
into the detail of that extraordinary conflict.
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But the result
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of the military conflict
was that for the first time
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since the year 70 AD,
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Jerusalem became a Jewish city again.
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This was an extraordinary moment,
which in many ways changed everything.
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Because until 1967, Jordan
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had had control of Jerusalem.
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But after the Israeli victory
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in the War of 67,
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Israel acquired control of the city.
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And that, as I say, in a sense,
has changed everything.
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Not just for the Jewish people,
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who were, of course, jubilant.
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All Jews in all parts of the world
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had a sense of exhilaration
at this extraordinary victory
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that led to the resumption
of Jewish control of Jerusalem.
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But it changed everything for
the Palestinian people too.
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That wasn't obvious at first,
but it has become clearer since.
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But also, for the Christians
who have been such
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a long-standing presence in Jerusalem.
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So, for everyone, in different ways,
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everything was changed by
what happened in 1967.
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For the Jewish people,
it meant that they had,
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they could worship in the Holy City.
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Freely for the first time in a very,
very long time.
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And they had access to the temple.
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Not so much to the temple,
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but to the Temple Mount.
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Certainly, access to the Western Wall,
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which is the last remaining
element of Herod's Temple.
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And in Jewish understanding, the sense is,
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and this is poetry, but it's powerful.
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That if the glory of God, if there is,
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if there are sparks of God's
glory, still left somewhere.
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It would be in the stones of
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the Western Wall, which was the
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platform upon which the
temple building stood.
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And these are the original stones,
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and they were extraordinary stones
to see, of course.
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So, for the first time,
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Jewish people had full access
to the Western Wall.
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And there began, again,
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a quite remarkable process
of rebuilding the city.
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Much of which had been
destroyed by conflict.
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Certainly, the Jewish quarter had been.
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So that the whole area
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around the Western Wall was cleared.
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It was an extraordinarily cluttered space.
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So, the clutter was removed.
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And what you see now,
the wonderful open esplanade
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that leads to the Western Wall
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is something quite new and recent.
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But what it does is it
gives unlimited access
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to those who wish to pray at the wall.
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The Temple Mount itself,
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the noble sanctuary, as it's called in Arabic,
the Haram al-Sharif.
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There was,
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thank God, I have to say, there was
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a very wise compromise reached
with regard to the Temple Mount.
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And that was that
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control of the Temple Mount
would remain with Jordan
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and therefore in Muslim hands.
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Others can have access to the Temple Mount.
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But it is restricted.
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And the Jews are expected
not to go onto the Temple Mount.
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However much they may want to.
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At times there have been
aggressive attempts
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of Jewish individuals or leaders
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and groups to enter the Temple Mount,
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and this has caused a great deal of
tension and even violence at times.
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So that compromise remains, that the
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Temple Mount itself
remains in Jordanian control.
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But the Western Wall
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is the responsibility of
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the city of Jerusalem
and the Israeli government.
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For a very long time, the mayor of Jerusalem
was a man named Teddy Kollek,
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who was an extraordinary character.
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He was the mayor of Jerusalem
for twenty something years.
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And he was extraordinarily good at holding
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the different communities and interests
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together in some kind of uneasy peace.
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And through his time, Jerusalem
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not only became bigger,
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but it became,
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a wonderfully refurbished city.
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The Jerusalem,
the Jewish quarter rather, was rebuilt.
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And when you walk
through the Jewish quarter now,
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you have to say that it's a marvel.
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Given what it was and what it's become.
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So architecturally,
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Jerusalem has never been quite as it is now,
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nor has it been as large.
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Even from the point of view of,
scientific work,
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I think particularly of archaeology.
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Under Israeli control, the archaeological
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investigation of Jerusalem has flourished
in the most remarkable way.
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And, as one who was trained in biblical
studies, archaeology was part of my brief.
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And when I was in Jerusalem,
I saw some of the archaeological work
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that is being done and
it is quite extraordinary.
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Because the Jewish archaeologists are among
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the best in the world, and certainly,
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when it comes to the extraordinary
archaeology of Jerusalem.
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Because you see the Western Wall and
you see the Temple Mount, but beneath both
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there is this labyrinth of tunnels
and all kinds of things.
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So, there's a Jerusalem you don't see,
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but which tells its own story
and has its own fascination.
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So, in one sense, you'd have to say that
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the city is bigger and in better shape
than it has been for a very long time.
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That's only part of the story, however.
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Because there have been
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since 67.
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There have been endless,
and I have to say,
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fruitless peace negotiations.
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That have,
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led to little or nothing in part,
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and I have to say,
in large part because of intransigence
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on both sides.
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People have spoken about
a two-state solution
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and a shared capital.
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So, everyone knows what that might
look like and what it might require.
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It would certainly require a quality
of compromise on both sides.
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And that's the thing that
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has been missing from all
of these negotiations.
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Another complicating factor is,
of course, the interference, shall we say,
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of the great powers,
to use the language of another time.
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I mean, the USA, I mean the European Union,
I mean Russia, and I mean Iran.
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If you look at what's happening now in Gaza,
but particularly Lebanon.
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It's really a war between
two very powerful nations,
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Israel and Iran.
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But it's a battle being
fought out on other soil,
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the soil of Lebanon,
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and in some ways, the soil of Gaza.
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But that's not going to change, and
it hasn't changed down through history.
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So, in a sense, what's new?
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The great powers that I've named
are not going to step back.
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In part because
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they see Jerusalem as somehow their city.
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This is something Teddy Kollek,
that mayor of Jerusalem I mentioned,
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something he said long ago in an interview is,
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everybody has two cities,
his own and Jerusalem.
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How true that is.
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And I say that as one who
spent a bit of time there.
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That sense of it being my place
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is somehow in the DNA of just about all of us.
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So that all of these great powers
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regard Jerusalem as,
in some sense, their place.
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But that doesn't always help.
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If you look at the current conflict,
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with all its tragic aspect.
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You have to say that it makes some
kind of compromise or even peace
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more distant than ever.
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Because there is a sense that what is
going on at the moment in the Middle East
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is not just another
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violent episode in an ongoing conflict,
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it has another aspect about it,
a sense of being the end game.
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And it seems to represent,
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total rejection of the two-state solution.
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Now, I've got no illusions
about a two-state solution.
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Partly because the land itself is so small.
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I mean, you're dealing with a
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parcel of land that's about
a seventh the size of Tasmania.
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And one of the
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difficult things for Israeli warplanes
is for them to stay in their own airspace.
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So that has to be a question,
and it has been long a question.
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Is there just enough land
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for a two-state solution?
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And the idea of a shared capital,
again seems a very, very distant prospect
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because not surprisingly,
Israel insists upon
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Jerusalem as the eternal capital
of the Jewish state.
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And similarly,
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the Arab states claim
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their stake in Jerusalem.
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See and one of the difficulties
is that in all of this,
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both sides, to use that language,
have strong claims.
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It's not as if it's a strong claim
against a weak claim.
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They both have strong claims historically.
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They both have strong arguments
in favour of their position.
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Whatever about their tactics or strategies.
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Because sometimes you get noble words and
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treacherous and violent action.
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So, where you have strong claims
and strong arguments,
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and passion, because again, Jerusalem
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stirs passions in a way
that no other city does.
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Certainly not Athens or Rome
or whatever historically
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reaches as deep into the human heart
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and even the human soul as Jerusalem.
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But where you get these strong claims
and arguments and no compromise,
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there seems to be an endlessness to it.
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So, when you survey the scene now,
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we seem as far from
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reconciliation of some kind.
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Certainly, a two-state solution
and a shared capital.
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Which, by the way,
has always been the position of the Holy See
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within this conflict.
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That there should be, compromise, dialogue.
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And that that should lead
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to a Palestinian state and a Jewish state
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side by side, each with safe borders.
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And that Jerusalem itself should be
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a kind of an open city,
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with the old city at the heart of Jerusalem,
almost like a kind of Vatican.
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Policed by,
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an independent force,
perhaps like the Swiss Guard.
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I'm not saying the Swiss Guard,
but that sort of force
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rather than either being a force of
the Arab states or the Jewish state.
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So, that's the Holy See's position.
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But it looks to be,
a pipe dream at this time.
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So that as you stand and look
at where we have come to,
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you have to acknowledge
the extraordinary achievements of,
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Israel in its management,
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as it were, of Jerusalem and what it has done.
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But at the same time,
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the injustices that are there on both sides.
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And this is another crucial point, that
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both sides not only have strong claims
and strong arguments, but both
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can point to grave injustices.
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And blood has been shed on both sides.
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And that's the sort of thing
that's never forgotten.
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And this is a part of the world
where nothing is ever forgotten.
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So that's why I say the
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prospect at the moment is as,
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disheartening as it's been
for a very long time.
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And there doesn't seem to be
any resolution in sight.
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Except a total military victory.
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And one wonders, inevitably,
what kind of a resolution that is,
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or whether it's a resolution of any kind.
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So, the story of Jerusalem,
which reaches back across
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thousands of years,
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it began in
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a violent seizure of a mountain fortress.
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And it continues as violence,
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not so much in Jerusalem itself.
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If you go there now,
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you wouldn't see it as a violent place.
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And yet it's deceptive,
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because I have found living
there for a longer time,
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that it's corrosive.
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Even if there is not violence
on the streets of Jerusalem,
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there can be occasionally
with tear gas and so on.
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And there’s certainly the emblems
of violence are everywhere.
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The soldiers with guns, and so on.
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So, you see it all.
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And that has a kind of, it eats into you.
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It has a corrosive effect.
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So that, it's a war zone
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without always seeming to be a war zone.
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It's a bit like Tel Aviv.
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If you walk down the main street
of Tel Aviv on a nice day,
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you'd swear you're in some peaceful,
prosperous part of the world.
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In fact, you're in a war zone still.
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But it's, there's an illusion of,
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calm and peace and prosperity.
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And I can understand that
if you're living in the midst of it.
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I found it difficult enough
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living in the midst of it for a shorter time.
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But when you think of the Israeli people
living with this day in, day out,
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and indeed the Palestinian people,
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what it does to them is hard to measure.
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But absolutely impossible to deny.
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To be living in that sort of,
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atmosphere of violence and distrust and,
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where the other is the enemy all the time.
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This does something to the human heart,
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but it also does something to the human soul.
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And yet, in the midst of all of that.
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There is still the vision of what might be.
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The violence never ceases,
but the hope never dies.
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And that is why there is something
strangely addictive about Jerusalem.
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Each time I have
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left Jerusalem, I have said,
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certainly to myself and probably to others,
good riddance.
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I'm happy to be leaving
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and to go to a more peaceful
and settled place.
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But each time I have returned,
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I have said, it is wonderful to be back.
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And how do you explain that?
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I think partly it's because
Jerusalem embodies,
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in quite a small space,
the best and the worst of the human being.
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And that sense that this is where
heaven and earth meet,
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is undeniable in some sense.
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And the embodiment of a hope.
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Again, I come back to seventeen times
destroyed, eighteen times rebuilt.
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And that vision of the New Jerusalem.
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The Jerusalem that is my city
and your city, all of that.
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So, let me leave you with
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00:22:05,720 --> 00:22:10,000
some words taken from a very fine book
on Jerusalem I read not long ago
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called Jerusalem: The Biography
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00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:18,240
written by Simon Sebag Montefiore,
who's an historian of Jewish background.
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And this is a rather large book.
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I don't read many very large books
these days, but I have read this one with,
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enormous interest, really.
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And, he has some marvellous, quotations.
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So, I'll just leave you with some
of these quotations from his
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big and rather fine book.
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The reconciliation of the celestial,
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national and emotional in Jerusalem
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is a puzzle within a labyrinth.
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And that's about right.
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A puzzle within a labyrinth.
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He goes on, during the twentieth century,
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there were over forty plans for Jerusalem,
which all failed.
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And today there are at least
thirteen different models
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just for sharing the Temple Mount.
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Further on he has this,
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Jerusalem so lovable in many ways,
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so hate filled in others.
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Always bristling with the
hallowed and the brash,
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the preposterously vulgar
and the aesthetically exquisite.
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Seems to live more intensely
than anywhere else.
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Everything stays the same,
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yet nothing stays still.
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Spot on, that
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And he includes, at one point,
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words of a poem written by an Arab poet,
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Nizar Qabbani, called Jerusalem.
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So, I'll leave you with the words
of a Palestinian poet.
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O Jerusalem.
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Fragrant with prophets.
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The shortest path between heaven and earth.
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A beautiful child with burned fingers
and downcast eyes.
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O Jerusalem, city of sorrow.
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A tear lingering in your eye.
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Who will wash your bloody walls?
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00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:47,440
O Jerusalem, my beloved.
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00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:51,000
Tomorrow the lemon trees will blossom.
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00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:53,680
The olive trees rejoice.
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Your eyes will dance.
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And the doves fly back to your sacred towers.
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Thank you for listening to this final episode of
The Navel of the Earth:
Jerusalem in time, theology and imagination.
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We hope that you enjoyed this series.
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You can find more podcasts from
the Archdiocese of Brisbane
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00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:21,200
from most major podcast providers
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00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:25,560
or from our website: brisbanecatholic.org.au
