Tonight and tomorrow, Jews worldwide will commemorate Tisha B'Av, the anniversary of the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem as well as other calamities throughout Jewish history.
Jews in Jerusalem have commemorated Tisha B'Av for centuries by visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem and crying over the Temple's destruction and the daily desecration of this holiest of Jewish sites by the Muslims who built their mosques on its site as a symbol of Muslim supremacy.
But in 1948, for the first time in recorded history, Jews could not visit the Wall. While for the previous two years the British disallowed visits to the Wall during the fast day, there were always at least a few who managed to get through.
In 1948, for the first time in the history of the city, no Jews were allowed to live in the Old City of Jerusalem and no Jews were allowed to visit.
Old Jerusalem was Judenrein. Dozens of synagogues had been destroyed by the Jordanians within days of their occupying Jerusalem, including the famous Hurva synagogue.
The Jordanian commander reported to his headquarters, "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible."
Even after the synagogues were destroyed, the BBC on June 5 "reported" that the Jewish holy places were safe:
This was how Tisha B'Av was for Israel's Jews in 1948.
These actions of the pro-Western, pro-British Transjordanians in 1948 are irrefutable proof that Arab animosity towards Jews had little to do with Zionism and everything to do with Jew-hatred. This is besides the facts that other synagogues in Arab countries were being destroyed at the same time, that Transjordan defiled hundreds of Jewish graves, that Jews were being killed and expelled in Arab countries and all the other anti-semitic crimes by Arabs that occurred in the years surrounding Israel's independence.
Is there any doubt in even the most clueless leftist's mind that, given the opportunity, the Palestinian Arabs would do exactly the same to the synagogues of Jerusalem that their Jordanian forefathers did in 1948?
Today, the Hurva synagogue is being rebuilt yet again:
May it be for the last time.