By DOVID BEN-MEIRUpdated: NOVEMBER 6, 2015 15:35
Ezekiel connected dem dry bones,Ezekiel in the Valley of Dry Bones…Now hear the word of the Lord…Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around…Now hear the word of the Lord.Remember that song about the bones connected one to another?Well what if someone sang: toe bone connected to the back bone, back bone connected to the ankle bone, the ankle bone connected to the head bone, head bone connected to the shin bone, shin bone connected to the neck bone, and so on.That doesn't sound right because indeed it isn't right! If someone was "connected" in such a manner they'd be rather disconcertingly disconnected!But in regards to the Middle East that's how some are taught from an early age to sing the song, again and again and again, until they're convinced that's the right way. If you try to correct them – they think that for sure you're not only wrong, but evil too, intentionally distorting the musical history of "dem bones" and their factual anatomy.How so?Everyone should have a hobby. Mine is to guide in the Western Wall Tunnels, where I meet people of all religions, nations and creed from all over the world. It's like travelling around the world without having to go far from home. Recently in answer to a question I found myself connecting the "dry bones" of historical fact: who ruled in the land of Israel, the Holy Land:"We're sovereign here in Jerusalem today. Before us the Jordanians – who had illegally invaded our land when they crossed the Jordan River in 1948 – illegally occupying the Old City of Jerusalem and expelling all the Jews, destroying all the synagogues and closing the Western Wall to Jews. Before that was the international mandate entrusted to and administered by Great Britain. Before that the Ottoman Empire, the Mamelukes, the Ayyubis, the Crusaders, the Seljuks, Fatimids, Abbasids, Omayyads. Before them the Byzantines, whom beforehand were Romans who had conquered us – the Jewish nation, the Nation of Israel – and ended our independence that the Maccabees had regained from the Syrian-Greek Empire, except for short periods during rebellions. Before that the Greeks had conquered our land from the Persians who had vanquished the Babylonians who had destroyed our kingdom and the Temple in Jerusalem" and then I couldn't resist adding: "that my father bought for two zuzim (coins), one kid-goat."Someone asked me: "When was there a Palestine? Didn't you forget it?""Do you mean an Arab-speaking predominantly Muslim Palestine? Never happened" I replied.I know the "through the looking glass" alternative 'bizarro' "narrative": thousands of years ago Ibrahim, the Muslim, built a mosque on the Holy Mountain (or maybe it was Adam abu-Shet, the first Muslim, who built the temple three thousand or thirty thousand years ago…). and established the Kingdom of Palestine, which was originally purely Islamic, but later tolerantly accepted Jews and Christians who became an integral part of the Palestinian people, who lived here – an independent kingdom – with tranquility, until the evil Balfour Declaration and the invasion of Palestine by Zionists masquerading as Jews, who came here forcing out the peaceful Palestinians who had innocently accepted with hospitality these refugees – fleeing from a Holocaust that never happened – to a land that was never theirs.How can you argue with someone who insists the earth is flat, the sun revolves around the earth, the moon is made of cheese and the shin bone is connected to the neck bone?And "dem bones"? Those dry bones that Ezekiel saw in his prophecy represent (chapter 37) the Nation of Israel, who were likened to dry bones scattered in the exile. The word of the Lord: those dry bones, the Nation of Israel, will reconnect and be brought back to life in their homeland. And in our times – starting about two hundred years ago – the Lord has connected "dem bones", jus' like He told Ezekiel!