Modern Jerusalem News Today

You can share it. >> and this, of course, instantly produces the real mother because the real mother says, no, no, no, no. she can keep the baby. she can keep the baby. >> and that story was held up as great wisdom because solomon knew the mind of a mother. but thats a pretty sadistic thing to do. i think its evidence that he was a ruthless man that just didnt want to deal with petty things. he wanted grandiose things. >> that is solomons image in history, but his importance is because he does s...

That would constitute the west bank and israel. >> so when you study the history of jerusalem and you appreciate the religious symbolism, then you begin to think about, okay, so then what went wrong? what created this big fissure between these communities? >> the clash today over the narrative of jerusalem is largely tied to the way history gets exploited. politicians who would like to go back to the story of king david claim that what happened in jewish history is a kind of deed that gives juda...

Himself in some way. >> solomons greatest accomplishment was the construction of the temple in jerusalem, and this was a house for the ark of the covenant. >> solomons father, david, had brought the ark of the covenant to jerusalem and planted it apparently on a rocky high point overlooking the city. so what solomon does, on top of that rocky outcrop, solomon builds a permanent house for the god of israel. >> temple mount, haram al sharif for the arabs, is the place where the first temple built ...

But we see over and over again in the history of jerusalem, we see the rise of kings who may pay lip service to the ideal under which the country was founded, but succumb to the temptation to preserve their own power. >> power corrupts. and absolute power corrupts absolutely. weve heard this expression. and nowhere does it apply more than to jerusalem. jerusalem was made into the city that it is today because of stories like david, like solomon. not the natural resources, not the gold, not the o...

After he moved it there, god lived at jerusalem, and that just sets up centuries of coming conflict over this physical place. >> but for now, the united kingdom is thriving. 12 rival tribes have finally found peace under king davids rule. >> david has worked all of his life, has trusted god. hes worked hard. he started off as a simple shepherd. hes fought all of these battles, and now hes the king of israel. what a time to let your guard down. >> at the height of his power, david will make a dec...

>> jerusalem would always be the holy city, the house of one god. the capital of two peoples and the temple of three faiths. jerusalem is the universal city, the chosen city, the holy city. thats its blessing, but it also gives it its danger and its ugliness too, because it means that people believe that they must possess it absolutely. >> the palestinian/israeli

When youre walking in modern jerusalem, it does not escape you that you are walking in a place where great history has happened. and you see it. you see it whether youre at the dome of the rock, the al aqsa mosque, the wailing wall. there is such remarkable history that weve only, you know, read about. >> youve got people living on top of people, stones built on top of stones, religion based on top of religion. >> the first time i went to jerusalem, i thought it was probably one of the most beau...

>> the ark of the covenant is the splendid golden container that holds the scrolls which contain the laws of moses and which are carried by the israelites throughout their wanderings in the desert. >> it had two cherubim, who were thought to stand in the presence of god, mounted on it. and between those cherubim was this empty space. and the empty space was the presence of god. >> david has this giant ceremony, and he marches the ark of the covenant up the hill and into jerusalem. david wants th...

Jerusalem had remained in the hands of the native population, which the bible describes as jebusites. >> and the jebusites were holdouts. they were still hanging on to that last little bit of canaan. >> the jebusites today are invoked essentially, again, in a political discourse whereby some modern palestinians argue that they are their ancestors. >> its so important to understand jerusalems history because many of the modern conflicts are rooted in the past. so if you can prove that you are des...

>> jerusalem is a particularly unpromising spot to have become as important as it became. it doesnt have a strategic location. its not even on a waterway, on a river or anything like that. >> jerusalem was chosen as a capital city because of where it lay. it was right in the middle, kind of like washington, d.c. in the united states. >> the great thing about jerusalem was it was impregnable. it was a fortified strong point, which made it very attractive. >> walled cities were not all that common...