History Etched in Stone: The Temple Mount and Jewish Continuity

Separating historical fact from political narrative

The assertion that Zionism is a “colonial” project often simplifies history, characterizing Jews as foreign settlers in the land of Israel. As discussed in Blood Libel #4, this narrative ignores the deep, continuous Jewish connection to the region, most profoundly demonstrated by the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This article examines the Temple Mount’s history to affirm Jewish indigeneity, scrutinize competing claims, and clarify why the term “colonialism” is historically misapplied to the Jewish return.

The Unbroken Jewish Connection to the Temple Mount

The Temple Mount has been the spiritual and ceremonial heart of Jewish life for nearly three millennia. The First Temple, built under King Solomon around 950 BCE, was the center of Jewish worship until its destruction by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.¹ The Second Temple served as the focal point of Jewish religious and cultural life until the Romans destroyed it in 70 CE.² Even across centuries of exile, Jews maintained their spiritual orientation toward Jerusalem, praying toward the site and expressing their desire to return with the Passover declaration, “Next year in Jerusalem”.

Archaeological evidence corroborates this history. In Jerusalem and around the Temple Mount — including the City of David, the Ophel, and the Western Wall area — excavations have uncovered remains from the First and Second Temple periods.³ In addition, material recovered by the Temple Mount Sifting Project, which processes debris removed from the Mount, contains coins, pottery, architectural fragments, and seals from those eras. Together these finds attest to a sustained Jewish presence and cultic life in this precinct long before the rise of Islam or the emergence of a distinct modern Arab identity in the region. These findings establish an undeniable and continuous Jewish presence on the site long before the rise of Islam or the emergence of a distinct modern Arab identity in the region.

Islamic Construction and Historical Context

In 691 CE, the Umayyad Caliphate built the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount.⁴ While the structure is a sacred shrine today, its construction, less than seventy years after the death of Muhammad, was also a potent political statement. Built on the natural summit of the Temple Mount platform, the structure served not only as a sacred shrine but also as a potent political statement less than seventy years after Muhammad’s death over both the defeated Byzantines and the Jewish population.

Early Islamic sources reveal an awareness of the site’s Jewish significance. The Dome and the sanctuary was associated with Bayt al-Maqdis, an Arabic term for Jerusalem derived from the Hebrew Beit HaMikdash (“the Jewish Holy Temple”), and early inscriptions such as the Nuba inscription link the site to the ancient sanctuary.⁵ While the Dome of the Rock today holds profound spiritual meaning for Muslims, its establishment reflected a pattern where a new power asserted dominance over a conquered territory, constructing a monumental structure atop a pre-existing sacred site to confirm political and religious supremacy.⁶

Rebutting Claims Against Jewish Indigeneity

Critics often present two primary arguments against Jewish indigeneity. The first is based on the pre-Israelite inhabitants, the Canaanites, who lived in the land before 1200 BCE.⁷ The second is the assertion that Arab Palestinians, as possible descendants of ancient populations, have an equal claim to the land. These arguments falter under historical scrutiny.⁸

1. First, the Canaanites are not a contemporary group challenging Jewish claims; their culture and political entities were absorbed or displaced in the 8th century BCE.⁹ Modern Palestinians, while genetically tied to ancient populations (as do all Arabs), do not represent a direct continuation of Canaanite identity nor political identity or claims. In contrast, Jews have maintained a distinct cultural, religious, and ethnic identity continuously tied to the land of Israel for over three millennia.¹⁰

2. Second, the claim of equal Arab Palestinian indigeneity based on shared ancestry requires historical context. The political and cultural identity of the Arab population in the region was fundamentally shaped by the Islamic conquests of the 7th century CE, over fifteen hundred years after the Jewish presence was established.¹¹ While the majority of the local population eventually adopted Arabic and Islam, their new political structure was imposed by imperial and colonial expansion. The Jewish people, conversely, have maintained a continuous, though often persecuted, presence throughout all these periods.¹²

Addressing the Colonialism Charge in the Modern Era

The central challenge to Zionism is the labeling of modern Jewish statehood as a colonialist venture, often citing 19th and 20th century Jewish immigration.¹³ This framing relies on a redefinition of the term “colonialism,” divorcing it from its conventional historical criteria to serve a political narrative. Colonialism involves a foreign power exploiting a territory and displacing its native population.¹⁴ A critical analysis requires distinguishing between two scenarios:

1. Imperial Conquest: The Arab conquests of the 7th century, which established new political and cultural structures over a pre-existing population (including the Jews), align more closely with traditional imperial and colonial expansion.¹⁵

2. Ancestral Return: Modern Jewish immigration to Israel was driven by centuries of persecution and a desire to reclaim an ancestral homeland, documented across scripture, liturgy, and archaeology, and not an outpost of a European metropole¹⁶

Jewish immigration in the modern era did not occur as an agent of a foreign empire, but as the return of a people reclaiming their heritage. To equate this return with historical colonial projects, which were movements of foreign populations seeking to extract resources and establish new sovereignty unrelated to their own ancestry, is to misapply the definition¹⁷ and obscure the truth of Jewish indigeneity.

Acknowledging and Protecting Holy Sites

The Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque are profoundly sacred sites for Muslims, revered as part of the Al-Haram al-Sharif complex and linked to the tradition of Muhammad’s Night Journey.¹⁸ This spiritual significance is undeniable and deserves respect. However, this respect cannot justify the denial of the verifiable Jewish historical connection to the Temple Mount.¹⁹

Israel’s policy towards religious sites demonstrates a commitment to pluralism. Since gaining control of Jerusalem in 1967, Israel has preserved the Dome of the Rock, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and other Islamic sites, ensuring their accessibility to Muslim worshippers and upholding a status quo that maintains Muslim administrative authority.²⁰ This policy is backed by Israel’s legal framework, which guarantees religious freedom for all Israel’s citizens. About 21 percent of Israel’s citizens are Arab, and recognized minorities include roughly 2 percent Christian and around 1.6–2 percent Druze, all protected by law.²¹

In stark contrast, Jewish religious sites in areas under Palestinian control have faced destruction or restricted access, a dynamic that Palestinian’s claim were heavily influenced by the political conflict.²² During Jordan’s control of the Old City from 1948 to 1967, Jewish access to the Western Wall and Temple Mount was barred, and 58 synagogues in the Jewish Quarter were destroyed or desecrated, with gravestones from the Mount of Olives cemetery repurposed for construction and military use. Today, Jewish visitors to sites like Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus have required military escorts and faced repeated vandalism and violence.²³ This documented asymmetry in religious tolerance, Israel’s protection of all sites versus the pattern of exclusion and violence faced by Jews in Palestinian controlled areas, must be acknowledged as part of the historical truth.

Conclusion

The Temple Mount serves as powerful evidence of Jewish indigeneity and resilience, documenting a continuous history that stretches back nearly three thousand years. While we must respect the significance of the site to Muslims today, the historical facts affirm the Jewish presence long before the Arab conquests. Arguments that equate ancient Canaanite claims or later Arab claims with Jewish indigeneity reverse the historical sequence, ignoring the continuity of Jewish connection and the imperial context of later expansion. The claim that the Jewish return constitutes colonialism misapplies the term. True coexistence requires acknowledging that the Jewish claim is grounded in a verifiable history that predates Islam by over a millennium, and fostering mutual respect without resorting to narratives that deny or seek to erase one people’s heritage.

Footnotes

1. Finkelstein, Israel, and Neil Asher Silberman. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. New York: Free Press, 2001, p. 128. (See on Google Books)

2. Schiffman, Lawrence H. From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism. Hoboken, NJ: KTAV Publishing House, 1991, p. 45. (See on Google Books)

3. Mazar, Benjamin. The Temple Mount Excavations in Jerusalem, 1968–1978, Directed by B. Mazar. Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2002, p. 67. (Archaeological findings are often summarized in National Archaeological Databases)

4. Grabar, Oleg. The Dome of the Rock. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996, p. 52. (See on Google Books)

5. Rabbat, Nasser. “The Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock.” Muqarnas 20 (2003): p. 14.

6. Dever, William G. Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003, p. 191.

7. Biale, David. The Uses of Jewish History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007, p. 92.

8. The claim of equivalent or superior Arab Palestinian indigeneity to the land is a central pillar of the counter-Zionist narrative, yet it faces significant challenges regarding the nature and timing of the Arab presence and political identity:

1. Arab Arrival as Conquerors (7th Century CE): The initial, transformative influx of Arab identity and language came not as an organic evolution of the indigenous population but through the Islamic Conquests beginning in 637 CE. Prior to this, the region was populated by Jews, Samaritans, and Aramaic-speaking Christian communities under Byzantine rule. The new Arab elite arrived as conquerors and imperial administrators, establishing a political structure that was demonstrably foreign to the existing Byzantine and Jewish inhabitants. The subsequent process of Arabization and Islamization of the local populace occurred over centuries and was a consequence of imperial rule, not a continuous political or ethnic presence from antiquity. This historical sequence—conquest followed by assimilation—is fundamentally different from a claim of uninterrupted, organic political and cultural sovereignty.

2. The Emergence of “Palestinian” Identity: While the term Filastin was used historically as an administrative district, the distinct, secular, national identity of “Palestinian Arab” is generally acknowledged by historians to have roots in the early 20th century, evolving amid Ottoman reforms, British Mandatory policies, and opposition to Zionism. This identity solidified further in the mid-20th century, particularly post-1948 and with the PLO’s amplification in the 1960s. Before this, the local Arab population generally identified through local loyalties (village, clan, city) or broader pan-Arab or pan-Islamic movements. The national narrative often retroactively projects this modern identity onto medieval and ancient inhabitants, blurring the distinction between ethnic presence and national-political indigeneity.

3. Economic Migration in the Modern Era (1880s–1940s): The historical record suggests that the Arab population in Ottoman Palestine grew from ~250,000–300,000 in 1800 to ~689,000 by 1914, and then to ~1.3 million by 1947 under the British Mandate. While natural increase (due to improved health and sanitation) was the primary driver (accounting for 70–90% of growth per demographic studies), migration contributed 10–30%, fueled by economic opportunities from Zionist development. Zionist land purchasing, agricultural innovation (e.g., draining swamps and introducing irrigation), and industry (e.g., in Tel Aviv and Haifa) created jobs and higher wages, attracting migrants from surrounding regions like Syria, Lebanon, and Transjordan.

4. Zionist Development as a Pull Factor: As the Peel Commission Report (1937) noted, the “shortfall of land is...due less to the amount of land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population.” Much of the land legally purchased by the Jewish National Fund and individuals was sparsely populated, uncultivated, or malarial swamp, which Zionist settlers transformed into productive areas.

The assertion of equivalent or superior Arab Palestinian indigeneity, therefore, relies heavily on a genetic-cultural link to the land’s ancient populations (an argument that applies equally to the Jews) while downplaying the political and military context of the 7th-century Arab arrival and the role of economic migration in the 20th century—factors that complicate the narrative of exclusive native presence.

Relevant sources for the historical and migration discussion include: Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples (for the 7th-century conquest); McCarthy, Justin. The Population of Palestine: Population History and Statistics of the Late Ottoman Period and the Mandate (for demographic data); Schmelz, Uziel O. “The Population of Palestine and the Demographic Problem”; and studies related to the British Mandate’s Hope-Simpson and Peel Commissions (for economic migration patterns)

9. Dever, William G. Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003., p. 206. (See on Google Books)

10. Take a journey of epic proportions through the sacred streets of Jerusalem, the eternal centre of faith, history, and culture. In this documentary, enter into the sacred sanctuaries of the Western Wall, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the prayers of pilgrims have echoed for centuries from all over the world. Explore the vibrant tapestry of Jerusalem’s markets, quarters, and communities, each imbued with the spirit of resilience and coexistence that defines this holy city. Join us as we uncover the ancient legends and enduring legacies that make Jerusalem the holy city for many.

11. Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1991, p. 13. (See on Google Books)

12. Biale, David. The Uses of Jewish History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007, p. 92.

13. Wolfe, Patrick. “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.” Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4 (2006): p. 388.

14. Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1991, p. 13. (See on Google Books)

15. Armstrong, Karen. A History of Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996, p. 241. (Available on Audible)

16. Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1991, p. 13. (See on Google Books)

17. The critique that labels Zionism as “colonialism” is typically rooted in “Settler Colonialism Theory (SCT)”, primarily associated with scholars like Patrick Wolfe. While SCT is an established academic theory applied to cases like Australia, the US, and South Africa—where it describes settler replacement of natives through a “logic of elimination”—its application to Zionism faces significant challenges from a historical and objective standpoint:

• Failure to Meet Conventional Criteria: Historically, Zionism was not an extension of a European metropole. It was a movement of an exiled people seeking refuge and national self-determination, often in the face of outright rejection or indifference from major imperial powers. Unlike conventional colonial projects, its economic goal was not to extract wealth for a foreign sovereign but to build a self-sustaining society in the land.

• The Indigeneity Problem: SCT’s effectiveness hinges on labeling the Jewish returnees as entirely “foreign” settlers. This ignores the documented, unbroken spiritual, religious, and, at times, physical presence of Jews in the land for over three millennia. If the Jewish claim is one of ancestral return, the foundational premise of SCT—that the settlers are wholly alien agents of external power—is fundamentally undermined.

• Rhetoric vs. Analysis: Critics of this theoretical application argue that redefining historically specific terms (such as colonialism, apartheid, or genocide) allows for moral inflation. By stretching definitions beyond their established legal and historical meanings (which delineate the specific criteria of the worst crimes against humanity), the critique functions more as a powerful rhetorical tool for political de-legitimization than as a tool for objective, historical analysis. Its fit to Zionism remains contested, particularly given Jewish indigeneity and the context of persecution-driven return.

18. Busse, Heribert. The Sanctity of Jerusalem in Islam. Edited by F. E. Peters. Leuven: Peeters, 1998, p. 23. (For general context, see JERUSALEM - A Holy City)

19. Abu El-Haj, Nadia. Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 45. (See on Google Books)

20. Oren, Michael B. Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 89. (See on Google Play Books)

21. Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel). “Population of Israel on the eve of 2024,” January 1, 2024. (Reported in The Jerusalem Post). (Jewish Virtual Library, 2023 data; CBS 2024)..

22. The argument that destruction and exclusion are simply a by-product of “political conflict and occupation” and not inherent religious intolerance is a narrative used to minimize the historical record of systematic denial of religious rights. A critical deconstruction reveals three key factual distinctions:

1. The 1948-1967 Jordanian Precedent (Systematic Exclusion):

• Fact of Violation: Following the 1948 war, the Jordanian military occupied the Old City. The 1949 General Armistice Agreement (Article VIII) explicitly obligated Jordan to permit Jewish access to the Western Wall and to the cultural institutions on Mount Scopus. Jordan systematically and completely violated this agreement for 19 years.

• Fact of Desecration: The destruction was not incidental. Jordanian forces systematically razed the entire Jewish Quarter, including the destruction or desecration of 58 synagogues and centers of learning. Thousands of tombstones in the ancient Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives were destroyed and repurposed for construction, latrines, and military infrastructure. This goes beyond the unavoidable consequence of “war” and constitutes willful religious and cultural cleansing.

2. Post-1967 Vandalism Outside Israeli Control:

• Joseph’s Tomb (Nablus): Following the Oslo Accords, Joseph’s Tomb was left under Palestinian Authority security control. The site has been repeatedly attacked, set on fire, and vandalized by Palestinian mobs, particularly after the start of the Second Intifada (2000), which necessitated the complex and heavily guarded nocturnal visits by Jewish worshippers. This deliberate destruction of a Jewish religious site—occurring when the area was not under immediate Israeli “occupation”—demonstrates that the hostility is not solely a reaction to Israeli control, but targets the Jewish presence itself.

3. The Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif Dynamic:

• Israeli Concession: Upon capturing the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif in 1967, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan immediately implemented a Status Quo by handing administrative control of the site to the Jordanian-backed Islamic Waqf. This was a deliberate political and security decision to prevent a global religious war and represents a concession of sovereign religious rights over Judaism’s holiest site.

• The Provocation Claim: Critics argue that Israel’s security control over the site (including restricting access to Muslim worshippers during times of heightened tension and allowing Jewish visits but not prayer) is the “daily religious provocation.” The historical fact, however, is that Israel actively upholds the exclusion of its own people from prayer at its holiest site to appease the Waqf and maintain the fragile Status Quo. The ‘provocation’ is therefore rooted in the refusal of the Waqf to grant any religious parity, and the assertion that the mere non-Muslim presence on the site is an unacceptable violation of an exclusive Islamic claim.

• The Legal Status: The claim that Israel’s control constitutes an “occupation” is rooted in the widely held international legal position regarding East Jerusalem. However, Israel’s legal argument—that the territory was not taken from a sovereign state (Jordan’s 1950 annexation was recognized only by Pakistan and the UK and rejected by the Arab League) but liberated during a defensive war (1967)—challenges the applicability of the term “occupation” in the traditional sense, particularly as UN Resolution 242 called for withdrawal from “territories occupied” and not “all the territories occupied.” The conflict is therefore not just political, but a fundamental dispute over historical religious and legal title.

In conclusion, while political conflict exacerbates tensions, the historical evidence—particularly the 1948-1967 Jordanian policy and the recurring post-withdrawal destruction of holy sites, demonstrates a pattern of religious exclusivity and intolerance that is independent of, and often defines, the political conflict.

23. Human Rights Watch. Justice Undermined: Balancing Security and Human Rights in the Palestinian Justice System. New York: Human Rights Watch, 2001. (For general context of the period, see HRW Report on the Justice System)