Mayor Ed Koch and his article, "A Dangerous Silence"

I don't usually put up political articles that attack our President. But this article by the former Mayor of New York City I believe is something everyone should read. And really it is about more than President Obama. It is about Israel and her needs as well as some information about the past of Jerusalem that many Presbyterians and other mainline church members do not know. Perhaps the most important thing is that Mayor Ed Koch is speaking from his heart as a Jewish man who loves the United States. The article is on the Huffington Report and is entitled A Dangerous Silence.

It begins:

"I weep as I witness outrageous verbal attacks on Israel. What makes these verbal assaults and distortions all the more painful is that they are being orchestrated by President Obama.

For me, the situation today recalls what occurred in 70 AD when the Roman emperor Vespasian launched a military campaign against the Jewish nation and its ancient capital of Jerusalem. Ultimately, Masada, a rock plateau in the Judean desert became the last refuge of the Jewish people against the Roman onslaught. I have been to Jerusalem and Masada. From the top of Masada, you can still see the remains of the Roman fortifications and garrisons, and the stones and earth of the Roman siege ramp that was used to reach Masada. The Jews of Masada committed suicide rather than let themselves be taken captive by the Romans.

In Rome itself, I have seen the Arch of Titus with the sculpture showing enslaved Jews and the treasures of the Jewish Temple of Solomon with the Menorah, the symbol of the Jewish state, being carted away as booty during the sacking of Jerusalem.

Oh, you may say, that is a far fetched analogy. Please hear me out.

The most recent sacking of the old city of Jerusalem -- its Jewish quarter -- took place under the Jordanians in 1948 in the first war between the Jews and the Arabs, with at least five Muslim states -- Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq -- seeking to destroy the Jewish state. At that time, Jordan conquered East Jerusalem and the West Bank and expelled every Jew living in the Jewish quarter of the old city, destroying every building, including the synagogues in the old quarter and expelling from every part of Judea and Samaria every Jew living there so that for the first time in thousands of years, the old walled city of Jerusalem and the adjacent West Bank were "Judenrein" -- a term used by the Nazis to indicate the forced removal or murder of all Jews."

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