New York Times Raises Doubts on Jewish Connection to Jerusalem

Last week (Aug. 5), the New York Times published an article about the archeological discovery of King David’s palace—a major find by a prominent archeologist. But Jerusalem bureau chief Steven Erlanger started right off the bat by suggesting the work may have been tainted by political motives and that Jerusalem’s historical role as capital of the Jewish kingdom is disputed:

[The archeologist’s] work has been sponsored by a conservative Israeli research institute and financed by an American Jewish investment banker who would like to prove that Jerusalem was indeed the capital of the Jewish kingdom described in the bible.

The International Herald Tribune version of the same article cast similar aspersions on the scholarly institute for which Eilat Mazar, the archeologist, worked, qualifying her finding as mere opinion by someone with a political motive. The opening paragraph began:

An Israeli archaelogist says she has uncovered in East Jerusalem what she believes may be the fabled palace of the biblical King David. Her work has been sponsored by the Shalem Center, a neoconservative think tank in Jerusalem, and funded by an American Jewish investment banker who would like to help provide scientific support for the Bible as a reflection of Jewish history.

Perhaps most disturbing was Erlanger’s presentation of Judaism’s bond to Jerusalem as a political claim equal in weight to Yasir Arafat’s pronouncement that there is no Jewish connection to the holy city.

Historian Barry Rubin challenges the New York Times article:

Yet now Erlanger gives equal credence to the “expertise” of Arafat who, let’s face it was no archaeologist but the most important terrorist of modern times and a proven serial liar. {Having written a biography of Arafat I am well aware that even the statement that Arafat was a terrorist is highly controversial among the West’s cultural ruling class.} After all, Arafat also claimed that Israel carried out most of the terrorist attacks on itself, poisoned Palestinians with gas, water, and chewing gum, and aimed to rule the entire Middle East. Why should he only be given credence on the Jerusalem issue?

In contrast, when Arafat tried that nonsense about Jerusalem at the Camp David summit, President Bill Clinton rightly called him on it, saying, “I’m not a Jew, I’m a Christian. It’s well known this is where the Temple is.”

On the basis of this latest article, though, one can imagine a parallel Times article from an equivalent controversy of the previous century: “The claim by a Jewish writer, financed by those trying to prove this case, that his people have accurately recounted their history will become part of the debate over whether, as many Germans have said, including cabinet minister Joseph Goebbels, this story is a myth used to justify conquest and occupation.”