Having finally watched the Ridley Scott movie Kingdom of Heaven recently, I have to say that I was not impressed. While it had some nice visuals, the fast-and-loose game it played with history was quite contemptible – and obviously slanted. Crusaders bad. Muslims good. Except, basing your movie on real people and events and then twisting both to suit an agenda is pretty low.
In reality, the politics of Outremer were far more complex than depicted, involving a web of rivalries and alliances within and between both sides. Nor was Balian of Ibelin a humble blacksmith: he was born a noble. Saladin was not the unflinchingly noble and chivalrous character portrayed: he could be as ruthless and bloodthirsty as any crusader – especially when he was losing. As for the film’s finale: far from the hyper-progressive ‘coexist’ speech of the movie, Balian outright threatened to massacre every Muslim in Jerusalem and destroy the al Aqsa mosque if Saladin refused terms. Saladin, for his part, did not let every Christian leave freely: only those who could pay a substantial ransom. The rest he sold into slavery.
But the most egregious part of movie-Balian’s speechifyin’ is the bumper-sticker sentiment that all sides, Jews, Christians and Muslims, have equally valid claims to Jerusalem. Do they, though? It was the capital of the Jewish kingdom 1700 years before Muhammad even existed. It was the site of Jesus’ crucifixion as well as some of the most important events of his ministry. Regardless of religious claims, these were historical events.
By contrast, Muhammad never visited Jerusalem in his life. Unless you actually believe he flew there on a magic horse and ascended to heaven.
Yet, on that sole basis, Muslims have rigorously excluded Jews from parts of Judaism’s most holy site for centuries. Even today, Jews praying at the site of what were the temples of David and Herod the Great, before Muslims built a mosque on it and claimed holy dibs, is somehow supposed to be a grave offence.
Israeli authorities have formally allowed Jewish prayer for the first time inside Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, in an unprecedented violation of the site’s decades-old status quo.
Israeli police allowed settlers raiding the site on Sunday to bring in siddurim, or Jewish prayer books, and perform group prayers, according to a Palestinian source from the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf.
Golly. How dare they pray at the site of their own temple.
Cue the predictable shrieking about ‘unprecedented violation’ of the ‘status quo’. That status quo, for the uninitiated, is the arrangement under which the entire complex is treated as an exclusively Islamic holy site, administered by the Waqf, while Jews are expected to content themselves with silent visits and the knowledge that their holiest ground is off-limits for actual worship.
“When I come to your place as a visitor, you impose your rules on me. But today, they come with their own rules.”
Yes: a Muslim spokesman actually said that without a blush of acknowledgement of the staggering hypocrisy.
Apparently Jewish visitors must accept the house rules imposed by Muslims at the point of a scimitar. The moment Jews start treating the place as their own sacred space, the rules are being rewritten.
Of course they are. The so-called status quo has always been a polite fiction that prioritises Muslim sensitivities over Jewish historical and religious rights. Since 1967, Israel has controlled access while largely deferring to Waqf management to keep the peace. That deference has meant turning a blind eye to individual Jewish prayers for years while still treating organised worship as a provocation. Now the political leadership is simply refusing to maintain the pretence that Jewish prayer is inherently illegitimate on the site of the First and Second Temples.
The same voices that treat any Jewish presence as ‘desecration’ have no trouble with the fact that Jews were barred entirely under Jordanian rule or that Muslim authorities have long controlled excavations and access in ways that erase Jewish history.
“Jewish prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque is becoming an organised practice, rather than merely an isolated individual act.”
Good. It should be. The accelerating pace of change since October 2023 is not some sudden Israeli plot: it is the inevitable result of decades of one-sided ‘coexistence’ that demanded Jews accept second-class status on their own holiest ground.
That is not provocation. It is historical reality asserting itself against a narrative that has spent centuries insisting the opposite. Muhammad’s night journey remains a matter of faith, not archaeology. The temples are a matter of record. When the descendants of the people who built the place are finally allowed to pray there without apology, the only real breach is of a double standard that should have been abandoned long ago.
