Arkeologiska utgrävningar som visar på judarnas långa närvaro i Jerusalem får kritik

Enligt palestinska myndigheten är det fråga om judaisering när man genom arkeologiska utgrävningar påvisar judarnas långa närvaro i Jerusalem.

NEW DISCOVERY IN JERUSALEM'S CITY OF DAVID: 2,000-YEAR-OLD PILGRIMAGE ROAD
The ancient street is referred to as “Pilgrimage Road,” since archeologists are convinced that this is the path millions of Jews took three times a year when performing the commandment of aliyah l’regel – going up to the holy city of Jerusalem to bring sacrifices to God during Judaism’s three key holidays, Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot.

The Pilgrimage Road goes all the way from the Shiloah Pool to the area adjacent to the Western Wall known as Robinson’s Arch, where today you can still see remnants of the ancient stairway that led into the Jewish Temple.


Almost all of the Jewish pilgrims, according to Doron Spielman, vice president of the Ir David Foundation (Elad), would have entered the city on this road. It is a road that Jesus almost certainly used during the Second Temple period, alongside many of the famous Jewish scholars and leaders of that period.

US envoys to attend opening of controversial archaeological site in E. Jerusalem

It will inaugurate the Pilgrims’ Road, a now-subterranean stairway that is said to have served as a main artery for Jews to the Temple Mount thousands of years ago, which archaeologists have been excavating for the past eight years at the City of David National Park in Jerusalem, beginning at the intersection of the Kidron and Ben Hinnom Valleys.

But the dovish Peace Now group slammed the initiative on Saturday, branding the Pilgrim’s Road “the controversy tunnel” and saying it had been “dug under the homes of Silwan residents, caused the evacuation of Palestinians’ homes in the neighborhood and increased tensions between Palestinian residents and the Jewish settlers acting more intensively than ever in recent years to Judaize the neighborhood, as part of an effort to sabotage the two-state solution.”

The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry released a statement condemning the “imperialistic Judaization plans” it charged were aimed at changing the status quo in the city.

But on Sunday, Greenblatt dismissed the criticism as “ludicrous,” adding on Twitter that “we can’t ‘Judaize’ what history/archaeology show. We can acknowledge it & you can stop pretending it isn’t true! Peace can only be built on truth.”