CAN THIS MOTHER AND DAUGHTER LIVE IN THE SAME KITCHEN?

There is an old expression that says “Two women cannot get along in the same kitchen.” The meaning is similar to the business axiom that “There can only be one boss.”

The problem becomes even more critical when the two women are of different generations. Say when a “cook from scratch” lady kitchens up with a “frozen entree” lover. Or when the frozen entree server shares kitchen space with a “take-out” lady.

The generational gap becomes even more incendiary when the two women from different generations are related. Like mother and daughter. Especially like mother and daughter. And the incendiary situation reaches the level of high danger when the kitchen is a city – like Jerusalem.

While the conflicts between the Palestinians and Israelis are being played out over Gaza, the Left Bank and the Golan Heights, these are merely the small potatoes in the pantry conflict. The real war is over who will control the great kitchen itself – Jerusalem.

Although the war is portrayed as Israel versus the Palestinians, the real conflict is Islam against Judaism and Muslim against Jew. It is a conflict of faiths between two great religions who each look at Jerusalem as their sacred capital. It is two highly religious women warring over control of their rightful kitchen.

Making matters even worse is the fact that the two religious warring women are related. They are mother and daughter. Judaism is the mother who gave birth to two daughters, first Christianity, later Islam. Without the Jewish mother, there could not have been either a Christian daughter or an Islamic daughter. No one really knows what the world would look like now if the Jewish mother had died under the onslaught of the Assyrians in 701 B.C.

By the time he lay siege to Jerusalem, King Sennacherib of Assyria had crushed the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Philistines and the Kingdom of Judah. The Assyrian Imperial Army had smashed Judah and taken over 45 walled forts and cities. The Jews of Judah had been dispersed, forming the Bible's ten lost tribes of Israel who, within a few generations, had lost their faith in Yahweh, the omnipresent and all-powerful God of Abraham. In 701 B.C., only the walled city of Jerusalem stood between the King of Assyria and the destruction of the Jewish faith.

Just before the assault on Jerusalem could begin, the entire Assyrian Army fell ill of some kind of “plague” – probably dysentery. Deciding that the health of his army was more important than defeating one more walled city, the Assyrian king moved on and let Jerusalem stand. Historians believe the city was saved by King Hezekiah who, with great forethought, had sent soldiers out to dry up the springs and stop the fresh water fountains outside the walls – thus forcing the arriving Assyrians to drink polluted waters and fall ill. But the fearful residents of Jerusalem did not credit King Hezekiah with the saving of the city. Instead, the populace believed that the all-powerful God of Abraham reached down and smote the Assyrian Army, to protect Jerusalem.

This belief solidified the people's belief in their God as the one and only true God – a belief which would stand forever, long after Jerusalem ultimately fell to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Despite the destruction of the Temple of Solomon, the dispersed Jews flourished in Babylon, perfecting and strengthening their religion until it spread throughout the seven continents and ultimately found great strength in the formation of Israel. As the Jewish faith flourished and expanded, it gave birth to Christianity and Islam, the two daughters of the faith that worshiped the God of Abraham. (If you find this hard to swallow, remember that Jesus was born a Jew in Bethlehem, which was located in the state of Palestine, then governed by Rome. Thus, Jesus was both a Jew and a Palestinian.)

Without Jerusalem there would be neither Jew nor Muslim, neither mother nor daughter.

If the mother and daughter cannot defy the odds and learn to share the kitchen called Jerusalem, the wars of genocide in the Middle East may go on forever.