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GUNSHOTS | 0:00:02 | 0:00:04 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:00:05 | 0:00:08 | |
Jerusalem, the Holy City. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:10 | |
Coveted, prized and disputed by three of the world's great faiths, | 0:00:13 | 0:00:18 | |
Judaism, Christianity and Islam. | 0:00:18 | 0:00:22 | |
Jerusalem has been conquered and occupied | 0:00:28 | 0:00:31 | |
more than any other city in history. | 0:00:31 | 0:00:34 | |
In Jerusalem, the history is drenched in blood. | 0:00:34 | 0:00:37 | |
It's been destroyed and rebuilt many times. | 0:00:37 | 0:00:41 | |
The more it's destroyed, the more revered it's become. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:45 | |
These stones have been fought over for centuries. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:49 | |
The holiness of the city dates back long before the arrival of Islam, | 0:00:51 | 0:00:56 | |
long before the advent of Christianity, | 0:00:56 | 0:00:59 | |
long, even, before Judaism. | 0:00:59 | 0:01:02 | |
Each borrowed the sanctity of those who came before, | 0:01:02 | 0:01:06 | |
making Jerusalem the centre of the world. | 0:01:06 | 0:01:08 | |
Today, it's a divided city, the capital of two peoples. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:15 | |
Its sacred sites have never been more intensely contested | 0:01:17 | 0:01:21 | |
nor with such universal implications. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:25 | |
So why did this holy city become the object of such violent competition? | 0:01:26 | 0:01:32 | |
And how did the nationalist struggle for Jerusalem | 0:01:33 | 0:01:37 | |
become so infected with apocalyptic religious fervour? | 0:01:37 | 0:01:41 | |
I'm a historian but I also have a personal connection to the city, | 0:02:09 | 0:02:15 | |
I've been coming here with my family, since I was a boy. | 0:02:15 | 0:02:19 | |
Some 4,000 years ago, Jerusalem was a minor Canaanite stronghold, | 0:02:21 | 0:02:25 | |
with a vital spring and a pagan shrine. | 0:02:25 | 0:02:29 | |
With the arrival of the Hebrews, | 0:02:31 | 0:02:34 | |
Jerusalem became the holy city of the Jews. | 0:02:34 | 0:02:38 | |
In the Hebrew Bible, it's described as the City of the temple, | 0:02:38 | 0:02:42 | |
existing in heaven and on earth, | 0:02:42 | 0:02:45 | |
the setting for the final day of judgement. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:49 | |
With the spread of Christianity, | 0:02:51 | 0:02:53 | |
the fame of Jerusalem's holiness became truly global. | 0:02:53 | 0:02:57 | |
When the new faith of Islam was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed, | 0:02:57 | 0:03:02 | |
he too revered Jerusalem. | 0:03:02 | 0:03:04 | |
At first Mohammed directed his prayer not to Mecca but to here. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:12 | |
And it was here that Muslims built the Dome of the rock | 0:03:12 | 0:03:16 | |
on the very place sanctified by the Jews before them. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:20 | |
This is the place where some believe Adam's skull was buried, | 0:03:20 | 0:03:26 | |
where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac, | 0:03:26 | 0:03:29 | |
where the Jewish Holy of Holies supposedly stood. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:33 | |
This is the place whence Mohammed the Prophet ascended to heaven. | 0:03:33 | 0:03:37 | |
In the Middle Ages, | 0:03:38 | 0:03:40 | |
this became the epicentre of a clash of civilisations. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:45 | |
Christian Crusaders competed for control of the Holy City | 0:03:45 | 0:03:49 | |
with its Islamic rulers. | 0:03:49 | 0:03:52 | |
The conflict that followed left the city in ruins. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:57 | |
By the late 13th century, the prospect of Jerusalem becoming | 0:04:00 | 0:04:03 | |
once again a city of world renown, must have seemed highly unlikely. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:09 | |
After the bloody trauma of the Crusades, | 0:04:16 | 0:04:19 | |
Jerusalem had been devastated by the Tartars | 0:04:19 | 0:04:22 | |
and laid waste by the Mongol hordes. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:25 | |
Not for the first time in its history, | 0:04:25 | 0:04:27 | |
most of the population had either been slaughtered or had fled. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:31 | |
Even the walls had been reduced to rubble. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:33 | |
And now, scarcely 2,000 ragged souls struggled to survive | 0:04:35 | 0:04:39 | |
amongst the ruins. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:41 | |
Indeed, Jerusalem's very survival as a city was in doubt. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:45 | |
Jerusalem was in need of a saviour. | 0:04:48 | 0:04:51 | |
When he emerged, it was in the form of a brutal Islamic soldier | 0:04:53 | 0:04:57 | |
who'd risen to power from the slave markets of Central Asia. | 0:04:57 | 0:05:02 | |
Baibars was a pagan orphan, sold as a boy into | 0:05:03 | 0:05:06 | |
an Egyptian army of slaves, known as the Mamluks. | 0:05:06 | 0:05:10 | |
As he climbed the ranks, he was freed by his master | 0:05:12 | 0:05:15 | |
and rose to become a general. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:18 | |
By the time he was 30, | 0:05:18 | 0:05:21 | |
Baibars was the most formidable officer in this new empire. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:26 | |
And he was ready to take on the might of the Mongol hordes. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
Baibars' Mamluk army defeated the Mongols in the hills of Galilee. | 0:05:38 | 0:05:44 | |
Baibars then declared himself ruler from Egypt to Syria. | 0:05:45 | 0:05:49 | |
Jerusalem lay at the centre of his new domain. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:53 | |
Baibars was a spectacularly cruel warlord, | 0:05:57 | 0:06:00 | |
he liked to build towers of the skulls of his fallen enemies, | 0:06:00 | 0:06:04 | |
his favourite punishment was public bisection, slicing in half. | 0:06:04 | 0:06:08 | |
No wonder he adopted the prowling panther as his personal symbol. | 0:06:08 | 0:06:14 | |
The Mamluk capital was in Cairo, | 0:06:23 | 0:06:25 | |
but Jerusalem was the religious heart of their world. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:29 | |
Although they were born pagans, | 0:06:29 | 0:06:32 | |
these former slaves had been forced to convert to Islam. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:35 | |
The Mamluks possessed all the fanaticism of the convert | 0:06:36 | 0:06:40 | |
and they revered Jerusalem as the jewel of their faith. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:43 | |
Baibars embarked on a mission to re-embellish | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
and re-sanctify the Holy City. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:49 | |
The Mamluks' religious enthusiasm for Jerusalem gave rise to | 0:06:55 | 0:06:59 | |
some of the city's finest buildings. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:02 | |
Baibars also helped to restore its sacred status in Islam. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:07 | |
The most important legacy that Baibars left Jerusalem | 0:07:07 | 0:07:12 | |
was not a building, it was a festival. | 0:07:12 | 0:07:15 | |
Baibars borrowed from Christian | 0:07:15 | 0:07:17 | |
and Jewish traditions to create a new religious celebration. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:22 | |
Every Easter Jerusalem was still dominated by Christian pilgrims | 0:07:22 | 0:07:27 | |
and so, at the time of Christian Easter and Jewish Passover, | 0:07:27 | 0:07:32 | |
Baibars gave Jerusalem its own festival. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:36 | |
After Baibars, every year | 0:07:42 | 0:07:44 | |
thousands of Jerusalemites and Palestinian Arabs | 0:07:44 | 0:07:48 | |
from the rest of Palestine would gather here on the temple mount, | 0:07:48 | 0:07:52 | |
they would party, they would celebrate and they would gallop out | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
on horses and camels all the way to the shrine, near Jericho, | 0:07:55 | 0:07:59 | |
of Nebi Musa, the Prophet Moses. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:03 | |
And this festival remained | 0:08:03 | 0:08:05 | |
Jerusalem's own special festival for 700 years. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:09 | |
The festival celebrated Moses, originally a Jewish patriarch, | 0:08:12 | 0:08:17 | |
now revered as a prophet in Islam. | 0:08:17 | 0:08:21 | |
Eventually, Baibars himself became a victim | 0:08:23 | 0:08:26 | |
of his own murderous instincts. | 0:08:26 | 0:08:28 | |
Baibars, that most talented but also most cruel of generals, | 0:08:30 | 0:08:34 | |
died after absentmindedly drinking a glass of poisoned qumiz, | 0:08:34 | 0:08:40 | |
fermented mare's milk, | 0:08:40 | 0:08:42 | |
that he'd meant to give to one of his dinner companions. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:45 | |
I guess that's bound to happen sooner or later | 0:08:45 | 0:08:48 | |
if you're in the habit of poisoning too many of your dinner guests. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:53 | |
Baibars' successors may have lacked his manic style, | 0:09:05 | 0:09:09 | |
but they were his equal in piety | 0:09:09 | 0:09:11 | |
and surpassed him in their love of architecture. | 0:09:11 | 0:09:15 | |
They built many of the finest buildings in the Old city. | 0:09:15 | 0:09:18 | |
Some of them were rediscovered in the 1970s | 0:09:18 | 0:09:22 | |
by the architectural historian Michael Burgoyne. | 0:09:22 | 0:09:25 | |
This is, I think, one of the most interesting Mamluk buildings | 0:09:26 | 0:09:31 | |
in Jerusalem, it has fabulous architecture, | 0:09:31 | 0:09:35 | |
architecture that's as good as any in the world, in my view. | 0:09:35 | 0:09:39 | |
It's beautifully built | 0:09:39 | 0:09:42 | |
with joints that you can hardly get a razor blade into for instance, | 0:09:42 | 0:09:47 | |
this stalactite canopy here, is something that a stonemason today | 0:09:47 | 0:09:52 | |
couldn't even begin to think about building | 0:09:52 | 0:09:55 | |
and yet, this is now 700 years old and still standing. | 0:09:55 | 0:09:59 | |
How important was Jerusalem for the Mamluks? | 0:09:59 | 0:10:03 | |
Well, judging by the architecture they built here, very important. | 0:10:03 | 0:10:08 | |
The Mamluks really re-ignited | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
the idea of pilgrimage to Jerusalem, | 0:10:11 | 0:10:15 | |
it had kind of fizzled out during the period of the crusades | 0:10:15 | 0:10:21 | |
and it was re-introduced right at the start of the Mamluk period. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:24 | |
Throughout history, Jerusalem has been most prosperous | 0:10:28 | 0:10:31 | |
when it's been most holy. | 0:10:31 | 0:10:35 | |
Pilgrimage has always been its greatest industry. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:39 | |
With this religious renaissance, | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
Jerusalem under the Mamluks once again became splendid and affluent. | 0:10:42 | 0:10:46 | |
But their affluence was not to last. | 0:10:48 | 0:10:51 | |
By the early 16th century the Mamluk Empire was exhausted | 0:10:53 | 0:10:57 | |
by war, corruption and plague. | 0:10:57 | 0:10:59 | |
Its hold on the Middle East was starting to look tenuous. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:03 | |
The Mamluks were now threatened by a dynamic new Islamic empire | 0:11:06 | 0:11:11 | |
that had already conquered the Balkans and Turkey. | 0:11:11 | 0:11:14 | |
The battle that followed would decide Jerusalem's destiny | 0:11:14 | 0:11:18 | |
for the next 400 years, right up into the twentieth century. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:22 | |
North of Jerusalem, in what is now Syria, | 0:11:23 | 0:11:26 | |
a sophisticated, modern army from Turkey confronted the Mamluks | 0:11:26 | 0:11:31 | |
with their old-fashioned swords and lances. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:33 | |
The Mamluks were routed by what would become the world's | 0:11:35 | 0:11:38 | |
greatest Islamic Empire. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:40 | |
The ruler of this great empire exulted in the name Selim the Grim. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:52 | |
Selim was given the keys to the Haram al Sharif, | 0:11:54 | 0:11:58 | |
the Islamic Noble Sanctuary. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
When Selim the Grim arrived in Jerusalem, | 0:12:03 | 0:12:05 | |
he came here to the al Aqsa mosque. He prostrated himself and declared, | 0:12:05 | 0:12:10 | |
"I am the now possessor of the first qibla", | 0:12:10 | 0:12:13 | |
the direction of prayer, because Mohammed had originally decreed | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
the Muslims should pray towards Jerusalem, | 0:12:16 | 0:12:19 | |
only later changing it to Mecca. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:23 | |
Like all the Muslim rulers before him, | 0:12:23 | 0:12:26 | |
Selim agreed to tolerate the Jews and Christians | 0:12:26 | 0:12:28 | |
as long as they paid a tax of submission | 0:12:28 | 0:12:32 | |
and recognised the supremacy of Islamic rule. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:36 | |
He had earned his macabre soubriquet by killing all his brothers, | 0:12:38 | 0:12:42 | |
and probably some of his sons. | 0:12:42 | 0:12:46 | |
When he died, he was survived by just one son, Suleiman. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:51 | |
At the age of 25, shrewd, lean and inscrutable, | 0:12:53 | 0:12:57 | |
Suleiman became the most powerful man in the world. | 0:12:57 | 0:13:01 | |
His empire stretched from the Balkans to the borders of Persia, | 0:13:01 | 0:13:05 | |
and from Egypt to the Black sea. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:08 | |
Ottoman expansion seemed unstoppable, | 0:13:08 | 0:13:11 | |
challenged only by a coalition of Christian monarchs in the West. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:16 | |
In a dream, the Prophet came to see Suleiman and told him that, | 0:13:16 | 0:13:20 | |
if he wished to defeat the Christians and be a great emperor, | 0:13:20 | 0:13:24 | |
he must first rebuild the walls of Jerusalem | 0:13:24 | 0:13:27 | |
and restore the Haram al Sharif, the temple mount. | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
The Haram al Sharif had become Jerusalem's most important shrine, | 0:13:37 | 0:13:41 | |
an Islamic site of global renown. | 0:13:41 | 0:13:44 | |
Surrounded by high retaining walls, | 0:13:44 | 0:13:46 | |
it housed the Aqsa mosque | 0:13:46 | 0:13:49 | |
and the Dome of the rock. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:51 | |
The Dome was built on a rock that | 0:13:51 | 0:13:54 | |
had already been revered for 2,000 years. | 0:13:54 | 0:13:57 | |
The site of the first Jewish temple during the reign of King Solomon. | 0:13:57 | 0:14:02 | |
Suleiman regarded himself as a world emperor and a monarch of Islam. | 0:14:07 | 0:14:12 | |
His name Suleiman actually means Solomon. | 0:14:12 | 0:14:16 | |
Therefore he took his responsibilities in Jerusalem | 0:14:16 | 0:14:19 | |
especially seriously. | 0:14:19 | 0:14:21 | |
He immediately set about, restoring this, | 0:14:21 | 0:14:24 | |
the Dome of the rock. | 0:14:24 | 0:14:26 | |
He began by replacing its fading mosaics with tiles. | 0:14:26 | 0:14:31 | |
So many tiles were needed, 450,000 in fact, | 0:14:34 | 0:14:38 | |
that Suleiman ordered that | 0:14:38 | 0:14:40 | |
a factory be created up here, on the temple mount. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:44 | |
And this is a beautiful tribute to the glory of Suleiman, | 0:14:44 | 0:14:48 | |
the majesty of his new Ottoman dynasty | 0:14:48 | 0:14:51 | |
and, of course, the splendours of Islam. | 0:14:51 | 0:14:55 | |
Jerusalem had been without walls for 300 years. | 0:15:02 | 0:15:06 | |
Now Suleiman embarked on the enormous task | 0:15:06 | 0:15:09 | |
of building new defences for the city. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:13 | |
Today's walls and gates, including the magnificent Damascus Gate, | 0:15:13 | 0:15:18 | |
are all the work of Suleiman. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:21 | |
Suleiman's achievements in Jerusalem were so colossal | 0:15:21 | 0:15:25 | |
that it's true to say that the Old City today, | 0:15:25 | 0:15:28 | |
belongs as much to him as it does to anyone else. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
Under Suleiman, Jerusalem, though still small, began to thrive again. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:38 | |
The population more than tripled to 16,000. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:42 | |
But among the Muslim population there was also | 0:15:42 | 0:15:46 | |
a growing minority of Jews. | 0:15:46 | 0:15:49 | |
The Jews had been stateless since they were expelled from Jerusalem by the Romans. | 0:15:57 | 0:16:01 | |
Most Jews now lived scattered across Europe and the Middle East, | 0:16:01 | 0:16:06 | |
but they never lost their longing for a return to Jerusalem, | 0:16:06 | 0:16:10 | |
which they called Zion, | 0:16:10 | 0:16:12 | |
after the Biblical name for David's original stronghold. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:17 | |
During the Spanish inquisition, | 0:16:17 | 0:16:20 | |
the Christian king expelled tens of thousands of Arabic speaking Jews. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:24 | |
They sought refuge in the more tolerant Ottoman Empire. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:28 | |
By the time of Suleiman, many of these Jews, known as Sephardi, | 0:16:30 | 0:16:33 | |
from the Hebrew word for Spain, had come to the Promised Land. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:37 | |
The Sephardic Jews now felt safe enough to build | 0:16:41 | 0:16:44 | |
four new Synagogues in what was becoming the Jewish Quarter. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:50 | |
This is one of them, the Ben Zaki synagogue. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:11 | |
And it would have been the centre of all Jewish life | 0:17:11 | 0:17:14 | |
in Suleiman's Jerusalem. | 0:17:14 | 0:17:17 | |
There was also a new influx of Jews | 0:17:20 | 0:17:22 | |
fleeing persecution in eastern Europe. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:24 | |
They were known as the Ashkenazis, | 0:17:24 | 0:17:28 | |
after the son of Noah, | 0:17:28 | 0:17:30 | |
said to be the original ancestor of the northern tribes. | 0:17:30 | 0:17:35 | |
Since the construction of the Islamic Haram al Sharif, | 0:17:37 | 0:17:40 | |
the Jews had been banned from visiting their holiest site. | 0:17:40 | 0:17:46 | |
But the temple mount was so holy | 0:17:46 | 0:17:48 | |
that Jews continued to pray as close to it as they could get. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:53 | |
For generations, Jews had prayed | 0:17:54 | 0:17:58 | |
at all the gates and walls of the temple mount. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:01 | |
But Suleiman the Magnificent saw himself as the Islamic emperor | 0:18:01 | 0:18:06 | |
and custodian of the Dome of the Rock sanctuary, | 0:18:06 | 0:18:10 | |
so he restricted the Jews to one small section of wall | 0:18:10 | 0:18:14 | |
with a narrow passage way, just nine feet wide. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:20 | |
From now on, this narrow section of the western wall of Herod's temple | 0:18:20 | 0:18:25 | |
became the focal point for the prayers of the Jewish faithful. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:31 | |
They were subject to bouts of repression | 0:18:31 | 0:18:33 | |
and with no outside champions, they were ultimately powerless. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:37 | |
But, according to Islamic tradition, | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
the Jews were tolerated, as people of the book. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
The Ottomans also tolerated the city's other religious minority, the Christians. | 0:18:44 | 0:18:49 | |
Some of the Christians were indigenous to Palestine, | 0:18:52 | 0:18:56 | |
some lived here as monks and thousands more came annually, | 0:18:56 | 0:19:00 | |
as pilgrims to the Sepulchre, where Jesus had been buried. | 0:19:00 | 0:19:04 | |
Since its foundation, Christianity had spread throughout Europe, | 0:19:05 | 0:19:09 | |
the Middle East and the horn of Africa. | 0:19:09 | 0:19:11 | |
Many competing denominations had arisen. | 0:19:11 | 0:19:14 | |
And all of them wanted a piece of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. | 0:19:14 | 0:19:19 | |
The competition between the three faiths, for Jerusalem's holy places | 0:19:22 | 0:19:26 | |
was mirrored by an equally intense competition | 0:19:26 | 0:19:30 | |
between the Christian churches themselves. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:33 | |
Since most of the Christian sects were backed | 0:19:33 | 0:19:36 | |
by different Christian kings, | 0:19:36 | 0:19:39 | |
disputes fought in Jerusalem had reverberations around the world. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:42 | |
This is special leave. I've never been at a night service. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:49 | |
-This is yours, isn't it? -Yes, this is ours but ... | 0:19:49 | 0:19:52 | |
George Hintlian has studied how the Ottoman rulers manipulated | 0:19:52 | 0:19:57 | |
and exploited the Christians' interminable squabbles. | 0:19:57 | 0:20:01 | |
By the 16th century, when the Ottomans came, | 0:20:03 | 0:20:06 | |
there were about nine communities on the spot | 0:20:06 | 0:20:10 | |
and the Ottomans had the simple rule whoever pays stays, | 0:20:10 | 0:20:14 | |
so the minor ones like the Georgians, the Maronites, the Serbians | 0:20:14 | 0:20:19 | |
couldn't afford and they dropped out, while the stronger ones | 0:20:19 | 0:20:23 | |
could consolidate their hold on the church. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:27 | |
The Ottomans' simple system meant | 0:20:27 | 0:20:31 | |
only the wealthiest churches could remain. | 0:20:31 | 0:20:34 | |
The denominations who controlled the church by the end of the 16th century | 0:20:34 | 0:20:38 | |
were the Catholics, backed by Europe, | 0:20:38 | 0:20:42 | |
the orthodox, backed by Russia, | 0:20:42 | 0:20:44 | |
and Armenians who had strong representation of the court of the Sultan. | 0:20:44 | 0:20:49 | |
So by the end of the 16th century | 0:20:49 | 0:20:51 | |
this was three communities who could stay. | 0:20:51 | 0:20:54 | |
Even these three churches seldom agreed | 0:20:54 | 0:20:57 | |
on who should be allowed to pray at the tomb itself. | 0:20:57 | 0:21:02 | |
The communities were struggling for dominance. | 0:21:02 | 0:21:06 | |
Sometimes the tomb of Christ changed hands | 0:21:06 | 0:21:09 | |
sometimes the Latin's would get it | 0:21:09 | 0:21:11 | |
and sometimes the orthodox would get it. | 0:21:11 | 0:21:14 | |
The Catholics, or Latins, | 0:21:16 | 0:21:18 | |
were supported and encouraged by the French government, | 0:21:18 | 0:21:21 | |
while Russia promoted the Orthodox church. | 0:21:21 | 0:21:25 | |
Both attached great importance to the prestige of | 0:21:25 | 0:21:28 | |
controlling the holy places and they lobbied, bribed and threatened | 0:21:28 | 0:21:33 | |
the Ottoman Sultans to give more space in the church | 0:21:33 | 0:21:36 | |
to their own priests. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:39 | |
As a result, even the most mundane tasks in the church | 0:21:39 | 0:21:42 | |
were laden with international and sacred significance. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:47 | |
In this church, there are no fences and hedges, | 0:21:47 | 0:21:50 | |
it's open spaces. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:53 | |
The churches have their own private areas | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
but there are many shared and common areas. | 0:21:56 | 0:22:00 | |
Cleaning the holy sepulchre means possessing the area. | 0:22:00 | 0:22:04 | |
You would only be able to clean what you possess | 0:22:04 | 0:22:07 | |
and slowly some of these sacristans were trying to clean | 0:22:07 | 0:22:12 | |
several inches of the property and the territory of the other person. | 0:22:12 | 0:22:15 | |
So this is where the other sacrosanct would be very vigilant | 0:22:15 | 0:22:19 | |
that his broom doesn't progress into his own area. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:24 | |
Even an imagined conception, | 0:22:24 | 0:22:29 | |
that his broom moved a little further, could ignite a fight. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:33 | |
The Ottomans kept the church locked | 0:22:40 | 0:22:43 | |
so they could charge a fee to anyone going in or out. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
The key was held by an Arab Muslim family, the Nusseibehs. | 0:22:53 | 0:22:57 | |
To this day, each morning before dawn, | 0:22:57 | 0:23:00 | |
they still climb up to unlock the ancient church door. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:07 | |
The Ottomans let the Nusseibehs keep a share of the income | 0:23:07 | 0:23:11 | |
from the entry fees to the Church. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:15 | |
They were one of a select group of aristocratic Arab families | 0:23:15 | 0:23:19 | |
allowed by the Ottomans to run the city's affairs. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:24 | |
One family controlled the temple mount, | 0:23:34 | 0:23:36 | |
another family controlled access the church of the holy sepulchre. | 0:23:36 | 0:23:40 | |
I'm standing in the library of the Khalidi family | 0:23:40 | 0:23:45 | |
that controlled the Islamic law courts. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
They were great connoisseurs and collectors. | 0:23:48 | 0:23:51 | |
And, over many centuries, | 0:23:51 | 0:23:53 | |
they amassed this extraordinary collection | 0:23:53 | 0:23:55 | |
of early Islamic manuscripts and books. | 0:23:55 | 0:23:59 | |
As Muslims, these elite Arab families had | 0:24:00 | 0:24:03 | |
far more power in Ottoman Jerusalem than any Christian or Jew. | 0:24:03 | 0:24:08 | |
But even the Arabs were often harassed | 0:24:08 | 0:24:11 | |
by their Turkish Ottoman masters. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:14 | |
In 1702, the Ottoman governor demanded a massive rise | 0:24:18 | 0:24:22 | |
in taxes, throughout Palestine. | 0:24:22 | 0:24:26 | |
He had to raise money to help fund wars in distant Europe and Russia. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:31 | |
According to the historian Adel Manna, | 0:24:33 | 0:24:35 | |
these tax rises were the last straw for the ruling Arab families. | 0:24:35 | 0:24:40 | |
The notable families of Jerusalem | 0:24:40 | 0:24:43 | |
were angry on this new policy. | 0:24:43 | 0:24:46 | |
What they did after the Friday prayer | 0:24:46 | 0:24:51 | |
on the mosque at Al Aqsa | 0:24:51 | 0:24:54 | |
they had a gathering of all the elite | 0:24:54 | 0:24:57 | |
and they decided together that we would rebel against | 0:24:57 | 0:25:02 | |
the policy and the governor. | 0:25:02 | 0:25:04 | |
The local people of Jerusalem took control of the city | 0:25:04 | 0:25:08 | |
and then they closed the gates. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:10 | |
The rebels succeeded to have the control of the city | 0:25:10 | 0:25:14 | |
for about two years and a half. | 0:25:14 | 0:25:17 | |
The Ottomans came with a stronger army | 0:25:17 | 0:25:21 | |
and put siege again on the city, | 0:25:21 | 0:25:25 | |
they were besieging the city from all sides, | 0:25:25 | 0:25:27 | |
from the north, from the south, from east, from west. | 0:25:27 | 0:25:32 | |
Inside, life under the siege was harsh. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:37 | |
The rebels split. | 0:25:37 | 0:25:39 | |
Those who wanted to hold out for victory | 0:25:39 | 0:25:42 | |
and those in favour of a compromise. | 0:25:42 | 0:25:45 | |
Some of the people against the rebellion opened the gate | 0:25:47 | 0:25:51 | |
for the Ottoman soldiers, who were able to get into the city. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:56 | |
Thousands of Ottoman soldiers went in | 0:25:56 | 0:26:00 | |
it was a matter of time until | 0:26:00 | 0:26:03 | |
the Ottomans were able to crush the rebellion. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:06 | |
The Ottomans may have crushed the rebellion | 0:26:08 | 0:26:10 | |
but the great powers of Europe sensed | 0:26:10 | 0:26:13 | |
that their hold on Jerusalem was weakened. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:16 | |
The British, the French and the Russians all began to compete | 0:26:16 | 0:26:19 | |
for influence in the city's holy places. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:22 | |
Jerusalem's status as the holy city of Christianity | 0:26:37 | 0:26:41 | |
made it a great prize for the Christian rulers of Europe. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:45 | |
They promoted their interests through their clients in the city. | 0:26:45 | 0:26:49 | |
The French backed the Catholics, the Russians backed the orthodox. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:53 | |
The British, as Protestants, had a particular reverence for Jerusalem. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:58 | |
Ever since the time of Cromwell and the Puritans, | 0:27:01 | 0:27:04 | |
Protestants had prayed for the return of the Jews | 0:27:04 | 0:27:07 | |
to the Biblical Holy Land. | 0:27:07 | 0:27:09 | |
British foreign secretary Lord Palmerston | 0:27:12 | 0:27:14 | |
built a consulate in Jerusalem to promote British interests | 0:27:14 | 0:27:18 | |
and a church to convert Jews to Christianity. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:21 | |
Imperial ambition dovetailed perfectly with evangelical zeal. | 0:27:23 | 0:27:28 | |
Evangelical Christians, | 0:27:36 | 0:27:38 | |
who were hugely influential in Victorian Britain, | 0:27:38 | 0:27:41 | |
believed that the longed-for second coming of Christ | 0:27:41 | 0:27:45 | |
would only happen once the Jews had returned to Jerusalem | 0:27:45 | 0:27:49 | |
and been converted to Christianity. | 0:27:49 | 0:27:52 | |
This belief was based on Biblical prophecies | 0:27:54 | 0:27:56 | |
of the events that would bring about the final day of judgment. | 0:27:56 | 0:28:01 | |
All the kings of Europe, motivated by the same combination | 0:28:02 | 0:28:05 | |
of religious faith and imperial ambition, | 0:28:05 | 0:28:08 | |
began to build churches in Jerusalem. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:12 | |
But, of all the European governments vying for power in the city, | 0:28:17 | 0:28:20 | |
it was the Russians who were most aggressive. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:23 | |
And their aggression was about to spark a war. | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
On good Friday 1846, the never-ending competition for territory | 0:28:33 | 0:28:38 | |
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, erupted in a fight. | 0:28:38 | 0:28:42 | |
The French-backed Catholics and the Russian-backed Orthodox churches | 0:28:43 | 0:28:47 | |
both wanted to pray in the tomb at the same time. | 0:28:47 | 0:28:51 | |
It's a continuing dispute that sometimes erupts in violence | 0:28:51 | 0:28:55 | |
even now. | 0:28:55 | 0:28:56 | |
Back then, the priests came armed with guns and daggers, | 0:28:59 | 0:29:02 | |
hidden under their vestments. | 0:29:02 | 0:29:04 | |
Forty were killed. | 0:29:04 | 0:29:07 | |
The Ottoman Sultan divided the Church between the Christian sects | 0:29:12 | 0:29:15 | |
in a power sharing deal that still stands. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:19 | |
But it wasn't enough to prevent the Russians going to war with the French and the British. | 0:29:21 | 0:29:26 | |
All the great powers were vying for influence in Jerusalem, | 0:29:30 | 0:29:34 | |
but Tsar Nicholas The First of Russia had greater ambitions. | 0:29:34 | 0:29:37 | |
He saw himself, not just as the heir to the Ottoman Empire, | 0:29:37 | 0:29:41 | |
but as the actual ruler of Jerusalem. | 0:29:41 | 0:29:43 | |
When he invaded Ottoman territories to force the Sultan's hand | 0:29:43 | 0:29:48 | |
Britain and France went to war against him, to stop him. | 0:29:48 | 0:29:52 | |
They fought the war in the Crimea, | 0:29:52 | 0:29:54 | |
but even though the battles were far away, | 0:29:54 | 0:29:57 | |
it was also a war for Jerusalem. | 0:29:57 | 0:30:00 | |
The Russians lost the Crimean war | 0:30:10 | 0:30:14 | |
but then set about conquering Jerusalem culturally, | 0:30:14 | 0:30:18 | |
building their own Russian compound. | 0:30:18 | 0:30:21 | |
Over 10,000 Russian Christian pilgrims | 0:30:21 | 0:30:24 | |
visited the city every year. | 0:30:24 | 0:30:26 | |
Meanwhile, most of the Jews of Jerusalem | 0:30:28 | 0:30:31 | |
were living in abject poverty. | 0:30:31 | 0:30:34 | |
Appalled by their conditions, a British Jew named Moses Montefiore, | 0:30:34 | 0:30:39 | |
a financier, philanthropist and friend of Queen Victoria, | 0:30:39 | 0:30:43 | |
built the first suburb outside Jerusalem's city walls, | 0:30:43 | 0:30:48 | |
complete with a Kentish windmill, | 0:30:48 | 0:30:51 | |
to encourage the Jews to bake their own bread. | 0:30:51 | 0:30:55 | |
Montefiore was my great, great uncle and it was thanks to him | 0:30:55 | 0:30:59 | |
that I started coming here. | 0:30:59 | 0:31:01 | |
The old city was so filthy and poverty stricken | 0:31:01 | 0:31:04 | |
that Montefiore decided to build his new village | 0:31:04 | 0:31:07 | |
out here in the clean countryside, outside the city walls, | 0:31:07 | 0:31:11 | |
it became the first Jewish suburb of Jerusalem. | 0:31:11 | 0:31:16 | |
At the same time, the elite Arab families were building mansions | 0:31:18 | 0:31:22 | |
in their own new suburbs, east of the old city. | 0:31:22 | 0:31:25 | |
But as the century wore on, | 0:31:27 | 0:31:30 | |
Jerusalem was set to become increasingly Jewish. | 0:31:30 | 0:31:33 | |
The millions of Jews of the Russian Empire | 0:31:35 | 0:31:37 | |
had faced persecution throughout the 19th century, | 0:31:37 | 0:31:40 | |
but in the 1880s anti-Semitic violence became official Tsarist policy. | 0:31:40 | 0:31:45 | |
Now they faced waves of attacks and massacres, known as the pogroms. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:50 | |
Thousands of Russian Jews started to plan their escape to Jerusalem. | 0:31:50 | 0:31:56 | |
The idea of returning to Jerusalem had inspired Jews for centuries, | 0:31:57 | 0:32:03 | |
ever since they'd been expelled by the Romans in 70AD. | 0:32:03 | 0:32:08 | |
It wasn't just about finding refuge from persecution, | 0:32:08 | 0:32:12 | |
but also about a spiritual idea, returning to the Promised Land | 0:32:12 | 0:32:16 | |
and living closer to God. | 0:32:16 | 0:32:19 | |
In 1895 an Austrian journalist published a book | 0:32:19 | 0:32:23 | |
that would change the history, not only of Jerusalem, | 0:32:23 | 0:32:26 | |
but of the entire Middle East. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:28 | |
The journalist's name was Theodor Herzl. | 0:32:28 | 0:32:31 | |
The book was called The Jewish State. | 0:32:31 | 0:32:33 | |
Herzl observed the new racial anti-Semitism | 0:32:35 | 0:32:39 | |
spreading across Europe | 0:32:39 | 0:32:41 | |
and he predicted that persecution was about to get worse. | 0:32:41 | 0:32:45 | |
He argued, the only way Jews could be safe | 0:32:46 | 0:32:49 | |
was to have their own country. | 0:32:49 | 0:32:52 | |
His project became known as Zionism. | 0:32:54 | 0:32:57 | |
Many of Jerusalem's Jews had been here for centuries, | 0:33:09 | 0:33:12 | |
speaking Arabic and living alongside | 0:33:12 | 0:33:15 | |
their Christian and Muslim neighbours. | 0:33:15 | 0:33:18 | |
The diaries of a Palestinian musician, Wasif Jawariyeh, | 0:33:18 | 0:33:23 | |
give a surprising insight into the decadence of life | 0:33:23 | 0:33:27 | |
in this cosmopolitan city. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:29 | |
"It was the period of total anarchy in my life, sleeping all day | 0:33:29 | 0:33:33 | |
"and partying all night, I only went home to change my clothes. | 0:33:33 | 0:33:37 | |
"Sleeping in a different house every day. | 0:33:37 | 0:33:40 | |
"My body totally exhausted from drinking and merry-making. | 0:33:40 | 0:33:44 | |
"One moment I'm picnicking with members of Jerusalem's noble families. | 0:33:44 | 0:33:49 | |
"The next day I'm holding an orgy with thugs and gangsters | 0:33:49 | 0:33:53 | |
"in the back alleys of the old city." | 0:33:53 | 0:33:57 | |
The most fascinating thing about this | 0:33:57 | 0:33:59 | |
is how all these different worlds | 0:33:59 | 0:34:01 | |
Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Arab and Turk | 0:34:01 | 0:34:06 | |
continued to mix and coexist. | 0:34:06 | 0:34:08 | |
But this cultural coexistence was about to come to an end | 0:34:12 | 0:34:17 | |
with consequences no-one could have foreseen. | 0:34:17 | 0:34:22 | |
The growing number of European Jews arriving | 0:34:22 | 0:34:25 | |
to settle in Palestine had started to alarm the Arabs of Jerusalem | 0:34:25 | 0:34:29 | |
as well as the Ottoman authorities. | 0:34:29 | 0:34:32 | |
When the First World War broke out in 1914, | 0:34:37 | 0:34:40 | |
the Ottomans sided with Germany, against Britain and her allies. | 0:34:40 | 0:34:45 | |
By 1916-17 things were going badly for the British. | 0:34:46 | 0:34:51 | |
In order to secure their support, | 0:34:51 | 0:34:53 | |
they made promises to the Arabs and the Jews | 0:34:53 | 0:34:56 | |
that they never would have made in any other circumstances. | 0:34:56 | 0:35:00 | |
To get Arab support for the war, | 0:35:02 | 0:35:04 | |
the British promised to hand over | 0:35:04 | 0:35:07 | |
virtually the entire Middle East to Arab rule, | 0:35:07 | 0:35:10 | |
if the Arabs would rise up against the Ottomans. | 0:35:10 | 0:35:14 | |
But Prime minister David Lloyd George was also keen | 0:35:14 | 0:35:18 | |
to get Jewish support for the British campaign. | 0:35:18 | 0:35:22 | |
Lloyd George was steeped in the stories of the Bible. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:27 | |
He longed to see the Jews returned to the Holy Land | 0:35:27 | 0:35:30 | |
after centuries of exile and repression. | 0:35:30 | 0:35:34 | |
He also believed that backing the Jewish cause might win the support | 0:35:34 | 0:35:38 | |
of the millions of Jews in America and Russia, | 0:35:38 | 0:35:42 | |
Britain's most important allies. | 0:35:42 | 0:35:45 | |
So he declared his approval | 0:35:45 | 0:35:47 | |
for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. | 0:35:47 | 0:35:51 | |
When General Allenby, the British commander in Egypt, invaded Ottoman Palestine, | 0:35:54 | 0:35:59 | |
Lloyd George demanded that he capture Jerusalem | 0:35:59 | 0:36:03 | |
as a "Christmas present to the British nation". | 0:36:03 | 0:36:06 | |
When Allenby arrived to take possession of the city, | 0:36:13 | 0:36:16 | |
he received a telegram from the foreign office | 0:36:16 | 0:36:18 | |
"Strongly advise dismounting", it said. | 0:36:18 | 0:36:22 | |
The government was keen that he avoid any Christ-like pretension. | 0:36:22 | 0:36:26 | |
He duly got off his horse at the Jaffa Gate | 0:36:26 | 0:36:28 | |
in reverence of the city's holy status. | 0:36:28 | 0:36:31 | |
In a speech on the steps of the Citadel, | 0:36:31 | 0:36:35 | |
Allenby promised protection and tolerance to all religions. | 0:36:35 | 0:36:39 | |
Soon afterwards, the defeated Ottoman Empire collapsed. | 0:36:42 | 0:36:45 | |
The map of the Middle East was redrawn. | 0:36:47 | 0:36:50 | |
The territory lost by the Ottomans was divided between the victors. | 0:36:53 | 0:36:58 | |
Syria and Lebanon went to the French, | 0:36:58 | 0:37:01 | |
while the British took Jordan and Palestine. | 0:37:01 | 0:37:04 | |
They agreed to rule their new territories, not as colonies, | 0:37:06 | 0:37:10 | |
but under international mandates | 0:37:10 | 0:37:12 | |
from the newly formed League of Nations. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:16 | |
They built a palatial new governor's residence | 0:37:22 | 0:37:25 | |
on a hill above the city. Government House. | 0:37:25 | 0:37:28 | |
For the first time since the crusader kingdom, | 0:37:30 | 0:37:33 | |
Jerusalem under the British mandate, was a capital city. | 0:37:33 | 0:37:38 | |
The British set about creating a modern, | 0:37:38 | 0:37:41 | |
elegant and cosmopolitan Jerusalem. | 0:37:41 | 0:37:44 | |
The economy flourished and the standard of living rose. | 0:37:48 | 0:37:52 | |
Honouring their promise to the Zionists, | 0:37:54 | 0:37:57 | |
Britain welcomed tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants. | 0:37:57 | 0:38:00 | |
Many were idealistic Europeans who wanted to build a secular, | 0:38:00 | 0:38:05 | |
socialist country for Jews from around the world. | 0:38:05 | 0:38:09 | |
But as they bought more and more land from the Arabs, | 0:38:12 | 0:38:15 | |
tension with their new neighbours grew. | 0:38:15 | 0:38:18 | |
As so often in her history, it was Jerusalem's holiest site | 0:38:20 | 0:38:24 | |
that would become the focal point of conflict. | 0:38:24 | 0:38:28 | |
The Palestinian Muslim leader, the Mufti of Jerusalem, | 0:38:31 | 0:38:34 | |
was from one of the elite Arab families, the Husseinis. | 0:38:34 | 0:38:39 | |
He gave voice to a widespread Arab fear of Jewish immigration. | 0:38:39 | 0:38:43 | |
He feared the Jews were planning to destroy the Haram al Sharif | 0:38:43 | 0:38:48 | |
to build a Jewish temple in its place. | 0:38:48 | 0:38:52 | |
He launched a campaign against Jews praying at the Western Wall. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:55 | |
The Mufti ordered that the Jewish worshippers at the wall | 0:38:59 | 0:39:02 | |
would be harassed from above and below | 0:39:02 | 0:39:05 | |
he knocked through a doorway | 0:39:05 | 0:39:07 | |
that turned the narrow space in front of the wall into a thoroughfare, | 0:39:07 | 0:39:11 | |
through which donkeys were driven, to interrupt the Jewish prayers. | 0:39:11 | 0:39:16 | |
The Mufti was trying to make life, | 0:39:16 | 0:39:18 | |
for the Jewish worshippers here, impossible and unbearable. | 0:39:18 | 0:39:22 | |
In response, 300 Jewish nationalists | 0:39:24 | 0:39:28 | |
staged an angry protest. | 0:39:28 | 0:39:30 | |
The next day after Friday prayers, | 0:39:32 | 0:39:34 | |
2,000 Arabs descended from the Al Aqsa Mosque | 0:39:34 | 0:39:36 | |
and attacked the Jewish worshippers. | 0:39:36 | 0:39:39 | |
The tension between Arabs and Jews turned the city into a tinderbox. | 0:39:43 | 0:39:48 | |
In a totally unrelated and tragic incident, | 0:39:52 | 0:39:55 | |
some Jewish schoolboys were playing football in street, | 0:39:55 | 0:39:59 | |
when they kicked the ball into an Arab garden. | 0:39:59 | 0:40:01 | |
When one went to get it back, he was stabbed to death. | 0:40:01 | 0:40:05 | |
At his funeral, Jewish youths attacked Arab passers by | 0:40:05 | 0:40:09 | |
and at Friday prayers, thousands of armed Arabs, screaming for revenge, | 0:40:09 | 0:40:14 | |
descended on Jewish neighbourhoods with the cry, "Death to the Jews." | 0:40:14 | 0:40:19 | |
131 Jews were killed by Arabs. | 0:40:25 | 0:40:29 | |
116 Arabs were also killed, | 0:40:29 | 0:40:33 | |
mostly by the British security forces. | 0:40:33 | 0:40:38 | |
A decade of surprisingly calm British rule was brought to an end. | 0:40:38 | 0:40:44 | |
When Hitler came to power in 1933, | 0:40:48 | 0:40:52 | |
the flow of Jews fleeing Europe reached a new high. | 0:40:52 | 0:40:56 | |
Never, since the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans, | 0:40:56 | 0:40:59 | |
had so many Jews lived in the city. | 0:40:59 | 0:41:02 | |
But while it may have felt like a return to Zion for these refugees, | 0:41:02 | 0:41:07 | |
their presence convinced many Palestinians | 0:41:07 | 0:41:10 | |
they'd have to fight to keep hold of their land. | 0:41:10 | 0:41:13 | |
The British were caught completely unawares when the first shots were fired. | 0:41:15 | 0:41:19 | |
Here in Jerusalem the Mufti assumed leadership of the revolt, | 0:41:19 | 0:41:23 | |
and soon it was a full scale uprising, throughout Palestine. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:27 | |
The rebels attacked the British and the Jews. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:31 | |
And, at one point, they even managed to capture this, | 0:41:31 | 0:41:34 | |
the citadel of Jerusalem. | 0:41:34 | 0:41:36 | |
Jerusalem descended into chaos. | 0:41:41 | 0:41:44 | |
Palestinians attacked the British and Jews. | 0:41:44 | 0:41:47 | |
The Jews responded in kind. | 0:41:47 | 0:41:49 | |
Both committed atrocities against civilians. | 0:41:49 | 0:41:52 | |
The British suppressed the revolt brutally, | 0:41:55 | 0:41:58 | |
punishing whole Palestinian villages for the crimes of individual rebels. | 0:41:58 | 0:42:03 | |
One in ten Palestinians was killed, arrested or exiled. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:13 | |
Britain had defeated the Arabs, | 0:42:20 | 0:42:22 | |
but as they faced the prospect of a second world war, | 0:42:22 | 0:42:25 | |
they regretted their promises to the Jews. | 0:42:25 | 0:42:28 | |
Jerusalem's fate would once again be determined | 0:42:28 | 0:42:31 | |
by events beyond her borders. | 0:42:31 | 0:42:34 | |
As war with Nazi Germany became inevitable, | 0:42:34 | 0:42:38 | |
Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain | 0:42:38 | 0:42:40 | |
decided the British needed the backing of the Arabs. | 0:42:40 | 0:42:43 | |
"If we have to offend one side or the other," he said, | 0:42:43 | 0:42:47 | |
"let it be the Jews and not the Arabs." | 0:42:47 | 0:42:49 | |
He believed the Jews would want to fight Hitler regardless | 0:42:54 | 0:42:57 | |
but the Arabs would need encouragement. | 0:42:57 | 0:43:00 | |
He offered to put a cap on Jewish immigration | 0:43:00 | 0:43:04 | |
and give the Palestinians total independence within ten years, | 0:43:04 | 0:43:08 | |
with no Jewish state at all. | 0:43:08 | 0:43:11 | |
It was the best offer the Palestinians were to receive | 0:43:11 | 0:43:15 | |
throughout the 20th century. | 0:43:15 | 0:43:17 | |
But for the Mufti, it wasn't enough, he rejected it out of hand. | 0:43:17 | 0:43:23 | |
When war broke out, many Arab Jerusalemites supported the Germans, | 0:43:24 | 0:43:28 | |
not out of anti-Semitism but out of nationalism, | 0:43:28 | 0:43:32 | |
they hoped if Britain was defeated, they would get their own state. | 0:43:32 | 0:43:36 | |
The Mufti himself went further. | 0:43:38 | 0:43:42 | |
He moved to Berlin where he publicly supported Hitler and Nazi policies. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:47 | |
After the end of the Second World War, | 0:43:53 | 0:43:55 | |
the British forces found themselves | 0:43:55 | 0:43:57 | |
completely out of their depth in the Holy Land. | 0:43:57 | 0:44:01 | |
To appease the Arabs, | 0:44:06 | 0:44:08 | |
they continued to enforce a limit on Jewish immigration. | 0:44:08 | 0:44:12 | |
Even after the scale of Hitler's slaughter | 0:44:13 | 0:44:15 | |
of European Jews was known, | 0:44:15 | 0:44:17 | |
they intercepted ship-loads of survivors from the Nazi death camps. | 0:44:17 | 0:44:22 | |
The Jews turned firmly against them. | 0:44:23 | 0:44:26 | |
And it wasn't enough to secure Palestinian support anyway. | 0:44:26 | 0:44:30 | |
Now it was the Jews turn to rebel. | 0:44:32 | 0:44:35 | |
"Tight security measures are imposed by the British. | 0:44:39 | 0:44:42 | |
"Scores of Jewish leaders are jailed | 0:44:42 | 0:44:44 | |
"and rigid searches are conducted for terrorist weapons. | 0:44:44 | 0:44:48 | |
"Palestine becomes an armed camp." | 0:44:48 | 0:44:51 | |
In retaliation, fighters from the underground Jewish militia, | 0:44:54 | 0:44:58 | |
the Irgun, planted a massive car bomb at the unofficial headquarters | 0:44:58 | 0:45:04 | |
of the British Mandate, the King David Hotel. | 0:45:04 | 0:45:07 | |
The bomb destroyed an entire wing of the King David Hotel. | 0:45:12 | 0:45:16 | |
92 people were killed including British, Jews and Arabs. | 0:45:16 | 0:45:21 | |
The British called it "An act of terror aimed at civilians." | 0:45:21 | 0:45:25 | |
And certainly, it remains the bloodiest bombing of the entire war. | 0:45:25 | 0:45:29 | |
The British were now caught between the Jews of Palestine, | 0:45:32 | 0:45:36 | |
determined to found their own Jewish state, | 0:45:36 | 0:45:39 | |
and the larger Arab population, | 0:45:39 | 0:45:42 | |
equally determined to stop them and win their own independence. | 0:45:42 | 0:45:46 | |
Both wanted Jerusalem. | 0:45:46 | 0:45:49 | |
The British lost their will to rule Palestine | 0:45:51 | 0:45:54 | |
and turned to the newly formed United Nations for an exit strategy. | 0:45:54 | 0:45:58 | |
The United Nations voted to partition Palestine into two states, | 0:46:01 | 0:46:05 | |
one Jewish and one Palestinian. | 0:46:05 | 0:46:09 | |
Jerusalem was to have a unique status, under UN protection. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:17 | |
For Jews it was a cause for celebration. | 0:46:20 | 0:46:23 | |
After 2,000 years the Zionist dream of a Jewish state | 0:46:23 | 0:46:26 | |
in the Holy Land was finally possible. | 0:46:26 | 0:46:29 | |
But the Palestinians rejected the resolution and civil war broke out. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:40 | |
The partition was never enforced. | 0:46:40 | 0:46:43 | |
As the British made their ignominious exit, | 0:46:43 | 0:46:47 | |
the Zionists declared the existence of the State of Israel. | 0:46:47 | 0:46:51 | |
Immediately, the surrounding countries of the Arab League | 0:46:59 | 0:47:02 | |
invaded to destroy the fledgling Jewish state. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:06 | |
The Jordanians had the best trained | 0:47:06 | 0:47:09 | |
and most effective of the invading armies. | 0:47:09 | 0:47:11 | |
They made straight for Jerusalem. | 0:47:11 | 0:47:13 | |
Both sides committed appalling atrocities, | 0:47:13 | 0:47:17 | |
civilians were massacred, neighbourhoods were lost, captured and destroyed. | 0:47:17 | 0:47:21 | |
Both Israelis and Arabs feared desperately | 0:47:21 | 0:47:24 | |
they were losing Jerusalem. | 0:47:24 | 0:47:26 | |
The Israeli forces in the old city were soon surrounded and cut off. | 0:47:30 | 0:47:35 | |
The battle for the Jewish quarter | 0:47:35 | 0:47:36 | |
was especially intense and desperate. | 0:47:36 | 0:47:38 | |
The crack troops of the Jordanian Arab legion | 0:47:38 | 0:47:41 | |
fought their way in, house by house, alleyway by alleyway, | 0:47:41 | 0:47:46 | |
until, for the Jews of the Jewish quarter, there was no way out. | 0:47:46 | 0:47:50 | |
2,000 Jews were expelled from their homes. | 0:47:53 | 0:47:56 | |
The Jordanians looted the empty houses | 0:47:56 | 0:47:59 | |
and then blew up 22 of the 27 synagogues. | 0:47:59 | 0:48:03 | |
Jews were banned totally from the Western wall. | 0:48:03 | 0:48:07 | |
Once again, the Jews had lost access to their holiest shrine. | 0:48:10 | 0:48:15 | |
They, in turn, expelled thousands of Palestinians | 0:48:15 | 0:48:19 | |
from the Jewish suburbs they now held. | 0:48:19 | 0:48:21 | |
Jews, Christians and Muslims, | 0:48:24 | 0:48:26 | |
many of whom had lived side by side for centuries, were driven apart. | 0:48:26 | 0:48:30 | |
Jerusalem became a divided city, | 0:48:34 | 0:48:36 | |
according to historian Salim Tamari. | 0:48:36 | 0:48:40 | |
By the end of May, most of the Arabs had fled | 0:48:40 | 0:48:43 | |
and then the Jewish forces came | 0:48:43 | 0:48:46 | |
and cleared all the Arabs from West Jerusalem. | 0:48:46 | 0:48:49 | |
Jerusalem became ethnically pure, if you like. | 0:48:49 | 0:48:54 | |
The Jewish population in the old city | 0:48:54 | 0:48:56 | |
were also cleared from the Jewish Quarter. | 0:48:56 | 0:48:59 | |
But the people cleared in the Jewish side | 0:48:59 | 0:49:02 | |
were much more than the Arab side. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:05 | |
The city was sealed, you have barbed wire | 0:49:05 | 0:49:10 | |
and then a wall was built | 0:49:10 | 0:49:14 | |
to separate the Arab city, | 0:49:14 | 0:49:17 | |
the eastern part, | 0:49:17 | 0:49:19 | |
from the Jewish city, the western part. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:23 | |
It was absolutely hermitically sealed, | 0:49:23 | 0:49:26 | |
there was nobody allowed to move in and out. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:30 | |
Israel was engaged in a desperate, | 0:49:32 | 0:49:35 | |
but ultimately victorious, struggle for survival. | 0:49:35 | 0:49:39 | |
The real losers were the Palestinians. | 0:49:39 | 0:49:43 | |
Over three quarters of a million lost their homes. | 0:49:43 | 0:49:46 | |
Some were expelled by force, | 0:49:46 | 0:49:49 | |
some left to avoid the fighting hoping to return, | 0:49:49 | 0:49:52 | |
many of them ended up in camps of tents | 0:49:52 | 0:49:55 | |
around the west bank of the Jordan river. | 0:49:55 | 0:49:58 | |
About half became citizens of Israel. | 0:49:58 | 0:50:01 | |
The tragedy of the Palestinians became known as the Naqba, | 0:50:01 | 0:50:05 | |
the Catastrophe. | 0:50:05 | 0:50:06 | |
In 1949, Israel and Jordan signed an Armistice treaty | 0:50:10 | 0:50:14 | |
that divided the city along a mile and a half of frontier. | 0:50:14 | 0:50:20 | |
The Jordanians controlled East Jerusalem and all of the old city, | 0:50:20 | 0:50:24 | |
the Israelis kept the western suburbs. | 0:50:24 | 0:50:28 | |
The Armistice line was not meant to be a permanent border. | 0:50:28 | 0:50:32 | |
It just happened to be where the armies stood | 0:50:32 | 0:50:35 | |
when the fighting stopped. | 0:50:35 | 0:50:37 | |
But for 20 years it formed an impenetrable, impassable barrier | 0:50:37 | 0:50:41 | |
between the Israelis on one side and the Arabs on the other. | 0:50:41 | 0:50:45 | |
It's futile to divide any city, | 0:50:45 | 0:50:48 | |
but it's especially tragic to divide Jerusalem. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:53 | |
Jerusalem was to remain divided until June of 1967, | 0:50:53 | 0:50:58 | |
when another conflict broke out | 0:50:58 | 0:51:01 | |
between Israel and her Arab neighbours. | 0:51:01 | 0:51:04 | |
Threatened with war on three fronts, Israel struck first | 0:51:06 | 0:51:10 | |
and soon got the upper hand. | 0:51:10 | 0:51:12 | |
"And that victory is a swift, smashing and total one. | 0:51:13 | 0:51:17 | |
"As crack air force, infantry, artillery and tank corps combine, | 0:51:17 | 0:51:21 | |
"thousands of prisoners are taken while Jordan announces | 0:51:21 | 0:51:25 | |
"she lost 15,000 troops in the sudden and devastating campaign." | 0:51:25 | 0:51:29 | |
In just six days of fighting, Israel conquered the Gaza strip, | 0:51:32 | 0:51:36 | |
the Golan heights, the Sinai peninsular | 0:51:36 | 0:51:38 | |
and the West Bank of the Jordan river. | 0:51:38 | 0:51:41 | |
But the conquest of the old city of Jerusalem was the climax of the war. | 0:51:43 | 0:51:48 | |
"Without doubt, the most personally moving moment for Israeli troops | 0:51:52 | 0:51:56 | |
"was the capture of the old city of Jerusalem. | 0:51:56 | 0:51:59 | |
"The location of an ancient Jewish holy place, revered by the Israelis." | 0:51:59 | 0:52:03 | |
When Israeli soldiers captured the wall, | 0:52:03 | 0:52:05 | |
it was an event of absolute exultation. | 0:52:05 | 0:52:09 | |
They danced, they sang, they prayed, they kissed the stones. | 0:52:09 | 0:52:14 | |
Even for secular Jews it was a moment of religious joy. | 0:52:14 | 0:52:19 | |
For the Jews, Israel was at last in Zion | 0:52:27 | 0:52:31 | |
and the cosmic order had been restored, | 0:52:31 | 0:52:34 | |
it was the end of exile, the fulfilment of Biblical prophecy. | 0:52:34 | 0:52:38 | |
But for thousands of Palestinians it was the beginning of a long | 0:52:42 | 0:52:45 | |
and bitter military occupation. | 0:52:45 | 0:52:48 | |
Winning the war presented the Israelis with the challenge faced | 0:52:48 | 0:52:51 | |
by all who have conquered Jerusalem, how to share its holy sites | 0:52:51 | 0:52:57 | |
They wanted to rule a Jerusalem of the three great Abrahamic faiths, | 0:52:57 | 0:53:02 | |
and that meant left leaving the Haram al Sharif to the Muslims. | 0:53:02 | 0:53:06 | |
The eyes of the world were upon them and they wanted to show that Israel | 0:53:07 | 0:53:12 | |
was a fit and suitable custodian for the Holy City. | 0:53:12 | 0:53:16 | |
Israel prided itself on being a young and open democracy, | 0:53:16 | 0:53:21 | |
and for that reason they wanted to show that they would have tolerance | 0:53:21 | 0:53:25 | |
for all the other faiths in Jerusalem. | 0:53:25 | 0:53:28 | |
But the challenge of giving all religions equal access | 0:53:32 | 0:53:36 | |
to their holy sites was not so easily achieved. | 0:53:36 | 0:53:40 | |
So many Jews were coming to pray at the newly captured western wall, | 0:53:40 | 0:53:44 | |
there was a demand for more space. | 0:53:44 | 0:53:47 | |
The Israeli authorities needed to clear a plaza. | 0:53:47 | 0:53:50 | |
But this meant destroying a historic Palestinian neighbourhood. | 0:53:50 | 0:53:54 | |
Deputy mayor Meron Benvenisti has mixed feelings about this. | 0:53:55 | 0:54:00 | |
We destroyed the whole area and removed the people | 0:54:00 | 0:54:04 | |
which caused us great distress, on the one hand, | 0:54:04 | 0:54:09 | |
and criticism of the world, | 0:54:09 | 0:54:11 | |
people said that it was similar to ethnic cleansing, | 0:54:11 | 0:54:14 | |
but I think it was inevitable. | 0:54:14 | 0:54:17 | |
This is the area of the plaza of the wall today. | 0:54:17 | 0:54:20 | |
Suddenly the reality of Jerusalem, | 0:54:20 | 0:54:22 | |
the earthly Jerusalem, | 0:54:22 | 0:54:24 | |
suddenly tarnished that heavenly Jerusalem, | 0:54:24 | 0:54:29 | |
Israelis began to understand | 0:54:29 | 0:54:32 | |
that still there is a problem, | 0:54:32 | 0:54:36 | |
because there cannot be peace | 0:54:36 | 0:54:42 | |
with exclusive possession. | 0:54:42 | 0:54:44 | |
This fundamental contradiction, that has plagued the city for centuries, | 0:54:51 | 0:54:56 | |
made the Haram al Sharif, yet again, | 0:54:56 | 0:54:58 | |
the focus of intense religious rivalry. | 0:54:58 | 0:55:01 | |
When Al Aqsa mosque was set on fire in 1969, | 0:55:06 | 0:55:11 | |
many of Jerusalem's Muslims rioted, | 0:55:11 | 0:55:13 | |
believing the fire bomb was a Jewish attempt to destroy the mosque. | 0:55:13 | 0:55:18 | |
Actually, the attack turned out to be the work | 0:55:20 | 0:55:23 | |
of an Australian Christian fundamentalist, | 0:55:23 | 0:55:26 | |
Dennis Rohan. | 0:55:26 | 0:55:28 | |
"The trial of Dennis Michael Rohan was a top security affair. | 0:55:30 | 0:55:34 | |
"Rohan later admitted starting the blaze, but pleaded insanity." | 0:55:34 | 0:55:39 | |
When Rohan was brought to court, it became clear he was suffering | 0:55:39 | 0:55:42 | |
from a special form of religious madness, peculiar to Jerusalem. | 0:55:42 | 0:55:48 | |
The psychotic condition is known as Jerusalem Syndrome. | 0:55:50 | 0:55:53 | |
An affliction that affects visitors to the Holy City | 0:55:57 | 0:56:00 | |
when their hopes of heavenly transcendence | 0:56:00 | 0:56:03 | |
collide with the reality of earthly life. | 0:56:03 | 0:56:06 | |
The intensity of Jerusalem's holiness has infected | 0:56:07 | 0:56:11 | |
not only believers, but visitors and conquerors alike, | 0:56:11 | 0:56:15 | |
with obsession, if not madness. | 0:56:15 | 0:56:17 | |
How to reconcile the dream of sanctity | 0:56:17 | 0:56:21 | |
with the chaos, complexity and violence of the real city. | 0:56:21 | 0:56:25 | |
The contradiction has never been more acute. | 0:56:25 | 0:56:29 | |
The long struggle for possession of the city continues, | 0:56:30 | 0:56:33 | |
aggravated on both sides by intolerant nationalism | 0:56:33 | 0:56:37 | |
and religious fundamentalism. | 0:56:37 | 0:56:40 | |
It has placed Jerusalem, once again | 0:56:40 | 0:56:43 | |
at the very centre of global politics. | 0:56:43 | 0:56:46 | |
The conflict has given rise to a vast concrete wall | 0:57:01 | 0:57:05 | |
between the Israelis and Palestinians, | 0:57:05 | 0:57:08 | |
the most visible symbol of the curse of Jerusalem | 0:57:08 | 0:57:12 | |
its division by nation and by religion. | 0:57:12 | 0:57:15 | |
4,000 years since it was founded, | 0:57:19 | 0:57:22 | |
Jerusalem today has never been larger, or more prosperous. | 0:57:22 | 0:57:27 | |
But it's also anxious, angry, and divided, | 0:57:27 | 0:57:30 | |
facing an uncertain future. | 0:57:30 | 0:57:33 | |
I can imagine a future where the insane acts | 0:57:34 | 0:57:39 | |
of a few outrageous fanatics would destroy Jerusalem altogether, | 0:57:39 | 0:57:44 | |
a catastrophe that would break the heart of the world. | 0:57:44 | 0:57:49 | |
But I can also foresee a future | 0:57:49 | 0:57:51 | |
when the Holy City would be shared | 0:57:51 | 0:57:54 | |
by its two peoples and its three faiths. | 0:57:54 | 0:57:57 | |
Jerusalem's holiness has been passed down | 0:58:01 | 0:58:05 | |
through generations of believers, Jew, Christian and Muslim. | 0:58:05 | 0:58:10 | |
Each generation has distilled and intensified | 0:58:10 | 0:58:13 | |
the city's sanctity and claimed it as their own. | 0:58:13 | 0:58:17 | |
Who will find it in their faith to share this hallowed place | 0:58:22 | 0:58:26 | |
where God meets man? | 0:58:26 | 0:58:31 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:44 | 0:58:47 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:58:47 | 0:58:50 |