Jerusalem and Amman March 1-6

At the beginning of March I started a new round of international travel. The first hurdle to be overcome was getting an extension of residency from the Israeli Ministry of the Interior that would enable me to leave the country without a hassle at the border, since my three-month tourist visa had expired on February 10. Their approval came though in the nick of time and I got the necessary stamp in my new US passport on the morning of March 2. Within about an hour I was on my way to Jordan.

I arrived in Amman to attend the annual two-day conference on March 3-4 of the Arab Thought Forum, this year about “al-Quds fi Damir”, which translates clumsily as “Jerusalem in Conscience”. The Arab Thought Forum (Muntada al-Fikr al-‘Arabi) attracts an international Arab audience, and I was the only non-Arab in attendance. The two days were heavily focused on the contemporary political situation in Jerusalem, with Prince Hasan doing a lot of the talking. Again I was the odd-ball with my non-political ten-minute presentation in Arabic on research topics about the Islamic heritage of Jerusalem that warrant future attention, such as architectural documentation of Muslim buildings in the Old City and study of archival documents.

One impression I received from my conversations with the other participants was how strong the idea has taken hold that denies any historical reality to the existence of an ancient Israelite state. It seems that David and Solomon, if not Abraham as well, were somewhere vaguely in the Arabian peninsula, but certainly not in the land of Canaan, which as everyone knows was inhabited by Arabs from the beginning. The failure of Israeli archaeologists to find any trace of Solomon’s temple in their excavations beneath the al-Aqsa Mosque is a source of ridicule, confirming that Jewish claims are bogus. The evidence for Jews in Second Temple times or the later Roman and Byzantine periods is of no interest. I have come across such ideas before, which I considered as representing a lunatic fringe, but it seems that these ideas are becoming more main stream, reflecting an embittered response to such Israeli actions as their recent decision to demolish numerous Arab houses in the Silwan neighborhood to expand the City of David archaeological park.

While in Amman I got my visa for Saudi Arabia, which was waiting for me in the Saudi consulate (stamped into my second US passport with no Israeli stamps), and got my ten-year visa for India transferred from my old passport to my new one. So the last bureaucratic arrangements for the rest of my trip fell into place. After spending a day at ACOR, the American research center in Amman, I left on a flight to Riyadh on March 6 to attend the Riyadh Book Fair.