En este primer capítulo de "Jerusalén: Historia de Conflicto y Esperanza", exploramos el fascinante periodo en que los judíos se establecieron en Canaán, una tierra rica en historia y cultura. Este territorio, habitado por los cananitas, se convirtió en el escenario de importantes acontecimientos que marcaron el destino de la región. La narrativa comienza con la emblemática batalla de David contra Goliat, donde el joven David, con su valentía y astucia, se enfrenta al gigante filisteo. Esta victoria no solo simboliza el poder divino y la fuerza del pueblo israelita, sino que también allana el camino para que David sea nombrado rey.
Una vez en el trono, David realiza un cambio trascendental al declarar Jerusalén como la nueva capital de su reino. Esta decisión es crucial, ya que Jerusalén se convierte en el centro político y espiritual del pueblo judío. Sin embargo, la historia no se detiene aquí. Tras la muerte de David, su hijo Salomón asciende al trono, trayendo consigo un estilo de gobernanza distinto que impact en la continuidad del legado de su padre.
A lo largo de este capítulo, no solo se destaca la lucha por la tierra, sino también la profunda conexión espiritual que los judíos sienten hacia Jerusalén, una ciudad sagrada que ha sido testigo de conflictos, pero también de esperanza. La historia de Jerusalén es un recordatorio de cómo los eventos pasados moldean nuestro presente y futuro.
#JerusalénHistoria, #ConflictoYEsperanza, #CulturaJudía
Palabras clave: Jerusalén, historia de conflicto, esperanza, David y Goliat, pueblo israelita, Canaán, cananitas, capital de Jerusalén, legado de David, Salomón.
Una vez en el trono, David realiza un cambio trascendental al declarar Jerusalén como la nueva capital de su reino. Esta decisión es crucial, ya que Jerusalén se convierte en el centro político y espiritual del pueblo judío. Sin embargo, la historia no se detiene aquí. Tras la muerte de David, su hijo Salomón asciende al trono, trayendo consigo un estilo de gobernanza distinto que impact en la continuidad del legado de su padre.
A lo largo de este capítulo, no solo se destaca la lucha por la tierra, sino también la profunda conexión espiritual que los judíos sienten hacia Jerusalén, una ciudad sagrada que ha sido testigo de conflictos, pero también de esperanza. La historia de Jerusalén es un recordatorio de cómo los eventos pasados moldean nuestro presente y futuro.
#JerusalénHistoria, #ConflictoYEsperanza, #CulturaJudía
Palabras clave: Jerusalén, historia de conflicto, esperanza, David y Goliat, pueblo israelita, Canaán, cananitas, capital de Jerusalén, legado de David, Salomón.
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TVTranscripción
00:00Jerusalem is the universal city, the chosen city, the holy city.
00:19That's its blessing, but it also is its danger.
00:27Because it means that people believe that they must possess it, conquer it.
00:37The Palestinian-Israeli conflict that we live in today has been living in Jerusalem for thousands of years.
00:46For the Jews, Jerusalem is the place where Solomon built the Holy Temple.
00:51For the Christians, it is the place where Jesus was crucified.
00:55For the Muslims, Jerusalem is where the prophet Muhammad made his night journey.
01:01People we call conquerors have passed through this city.
01:06No one has changed the city's physiognomy as much as Herod the Great.
01:12Saladin was determined to confront the Christians and throw them out of Jerusalem.
01:18In a time of Ottoman-Islamic domination, the British desperately wanted to control the Holy Land.
01:25This case of the Arabs is against the British government's policy in Palestine.
01:32We are the only people in the world homeless and lifeless.
01:38For the Israelis, the creation of the State of Israel is almost a miracle.
01:42But for the Palestinians, it is an absolute disaster.
01:47The history of Jerusalem is very complicated.
01:50And if you don't know it in depth, it is difficult to understand what is happening there today.
01:58The past never dies.
02:00And if there is a city in the world where we can apply this, that is Jerusalem.
02:09Three thousand years.
02:16Six conflicts.
02:20One city.
02:24Jerusalem, city of fury and hope.
02:39When you walk in Jerusalem today, it does not seem that you are in a place where history has happened.
02:47And you see it.
02:49You see it in the dome of the rock, in the mosque of Al-Aqsa, in the Wall of Sorrows.
02:55There is such remarkable history that we have only just read about.
03:00You've got people living on top of each other,
03:02buildings built on top of each other, and religions that have come from other religions.
03:08The first time I went to Jerusalem, I thought it was one of the most beautiful places I had ever been to.
03:14But when I went around, I started to see the tension that was between everyone.
03:18And I thought it was a city of contradictions.
03:22A city that had a lot of history, but that also had a lot of problems and a lot of pain.
03:34But Jerusalem, apart from its religious value,
03:36is the national interest that two communities aspire to,
03:39the Israeli community and the Palestinian community.
03:43That adds a little bit of complexity.
03:47It's impossible to solve the current situation and build a better future for Jerusalem
03:53without understanding the great conflicts of its past.
04:01For the earliest times, our greatest source of knowledge is the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament.
04:09Some of the stories that appear in the Bible have been proven archaeologically,
04:14but there are other stories in which the narrative changes
04:17depending on what you believe and what your religion is.
04:25I think we have to remember that religious beliefs are what has made Jerusalem what it is.
04:33For centuries, people who lived in Jerusalem and around it
04:36have accepted religion as their truth.
04:39So when we read biblical stories, we actually read the story of Jerusalem.
04:44And the story of the Holy City begins approximately in 1000 B.C.
04:51In the land of Canaan.
04:54In 1000 B.C., the major empires were Egypt in the south and the Hittites in the north.
05:02This land of Canaan was nothing more than the middle ground,
05:05a battlefield where the great came to fight.
05:09Canaan is the territory that the Israelites believe God gave to them
05:14as the land they were to inherit.
05:18The problem is that there was already a civilization in Canaan, the Canaanites.
05:23According to the Bible, God commanded the Israelites
05:27to kill all the men, women, and children there.
05:31And so, you can see how, in a modern setting,
05:35that might cause discord between people,
05:39and there were people who would say,
05:42this was not their territory to begin with.
05:47After conquering the land of Canaan,
05:49the Israelites were established into twelve different tribes,
05:53united by their faith in a religion prior to Judaism.
05:57The twelve tribes were at war.
06:00There was a great rivalry and enmity between them.
06:03And it was in this period that the Israelites began to have conflicts
06:07with the Philistines, who were their neighbors.
06:12The Philistines were the arch enemies of Israel,
06:15and we must value that all the history we know of the Philistines
06:19was written by those against whom they fought.
06:23So, the reason why they have become a synonym of ill-mannered and uncivilized
06:28is that their history was written by their enemies.
06:32But in fact, they were very sophisticated people.
06:35They were experts in weapons and shields, in technology and war.
06:41And these individuals began to conquer every city they passed through.
06:45They were marching to the northeast, towards the highlands of Judea,
06:49and the Israelites were advancing to the coast.
07:06After several wars with the Philistines, and among them a catastrophic defeat,
07:11the Israelites decided that they wanted to have a king to govern them.
07:16People are stronger when we are united than when we are divided.
07:20And the ancient Israelites realized that if all cities were still tribes,
07:25they would never prosper.
07:31And that is why they decided to elect a king.
07:36And the king they elected was Saul.
07:41Saul had the advantage of being a military man.
07:44He also had a lot of charisma,
07:47but he became insanely crazy for the throne.
07:51They had never had a king before.
07:53There was no line of succession with which to reason his legitimacy.
07:57And so, from the moment he became king,
07:59he was always afraid of being overthrown.
08:04Shortly after they named Saul king,
08:07the Israeli and Philistine armies met in the valley of Elah.
08:12The Philistines proposed,
08:14elect a paladin, we elect another paladin,
08:16and the two paladins will face each other.
08:20The idea was that the winner of the one-on-one battle
08:24would be made with the army of the one who had lost.
08:28And that way they would avoid massive losses on both sides.
08:36What the Israelites did not know beforehand
08:40is that the Philistines had Goliath.
08:46And they said that Goliath was almost three meters tall.
08:51He was almost a mythological hero.
08:53He had supernatural strength.
09:09If we were the Israelites, and we went out into battle,
09:12and we saw Goliath,
09:14I don't think we would trust our chances.
09:21What they thought was that Saul, the king,
09:24was the one who was going to fight.
09:26But Saul had no intention of doing it.
09:28He was not going to fight.
09:33But there was an Israelite who had the courage.
09:37A simple shepherd, who was about to fight
09:40one of the most legendary battles in history.
10:00The twelve Israelite tribes had united under the reign of Saul.
10:04And they faced the Philistines.
10:09The Philistines had sent a man to the battlefield, Goliath,
10:13who would invite any of the Israelites into battle.
10:17And because of his size,
10:19none of the Israelites wanted to accept his invitation.
10:23So at this point, David enters the story.
10:28David was the youngest of eight sons.
10:31And the funny thing is that David was basically a shepherd
10:34who took care of his father's herds.
10:38Even so, he was one of the most fascinating characters in history.
10:42He was a poet. He was a singer.
10:45He was a boy. He was not a great politician.
10:48He was not a conspirator or a strategist.
10:50He was the opposite of that.
10:52He acted on impulse.
10:57David faced Goliath, according to the story,
10:59because Goliath was defying God.
11:04He was defying the Jewish God of Israel.
11:06He was making fun of his army.
11:11So for David, it was more than just a battle.
11:13It was also symbolizing the power of the God of Israel.
11:20David was not even in the army.
11:22His father would take lunch to his brothers
11:25who were fighting in Saul's army.
11:30And this is the image we have of the boy David.
11:33He was a boy, a determined boy,
11:36who thought, nobody's going to talk like that to my God.
11:40And everybody would say, calm down, you don't know where you're going.
11:44But he didn't care to die if it was to protect the honor of God.
11:48Goliath did not believe what he saw.
11:50He would think, are you laughing at me?
11:52What is this? Why not a battle?
12:19Goliath
12:21Goliath
12:23Goliath
12:25Goliath
12:27Goliath
12:29Goliath
12:31Goliath
12:33Goliath
12:35Goliath
12:37Goliath
12:39Goliath
12:41Goliath
12:43Goliath
12:45Goliath
12:47Goliath
12:49Goliath
12:51Throughout the history of Israel,
12:53the theme of minorities is recurrent.
12:56God chooses the minorities,
12:58the disadvantaged, to do His great deeds.
13:02And David's defeat against Goliath was proof of that.
13:05It was a desperate boy who believed in God
13:08and was rewarded for it.
13:11That allowed them to grow as a nation,
13:14to be proud of who they were as a people.
13:21This young David was rewarded when he killed Goliath.
13:25King Saul appointed him general of the army.
13:28King Saul also offered David his daughter to marry.
13:34So he kept him close to the throne.
13:37But then King Saul realized that David was too popular
13:41and he was making him competitive.
13:45He's the equivalent of an icon of today's social media.
13:48David was the guy that everybody tweeted about
13:51and sang songs about.
13:57People were going around singing,
13:59Saul has killed a thousand,
14:01but David has killed ten thousand.
14:03So even though David's victory against Goliath was incredible
14:06and people were celebrating it,
14:08on the other hand, it made Saul feel insecure.
14:12Saul began to think that David was a nightmare
14:15that had infiltrated the family to take control.
14:18And we have to remember that Saul was just appointed king.
14:22And when you have a free choice,
14:24the people can always choose someone else.
14:26And that was his fear.
14:28So what Saul did was act out of his paranoia,
14:31out of his jealousy, and out of his fear.
14:38Saul became so jealous of David that he wanted him dead.
14:42He tried to kill him.
14:45David managed to escape Saul's attacks,
14:48but he was forced to spend the next two years in exile.
14:55With David's absence,
14:57the war between Israel and the Philistines broke out again.
15:02Saul was only accumulating defeats
15:04and in the end he organized one last desperate battle
15:07against the Philistines.
15:09It was so bad that Saul's men began to retreat.
15:12They killed three of his sons in front of him
15:15and the Philistines kept advancing.
15:17That's when he knew it was over.
15:19It was the end.
15:20And so he turned to his squire
15:22and begged him to let one of his own kill him.
15:26And so the squire himself was in charge of doing it.
15:29And then one of his slavers came running
15:32and told David that Saul had died.
15:42Instead of celebrating that Saul had died,
15:45that Saul had been trying to kill him for so long,
15:50David publicly mourns Saul's death.
16:00He even had the squire killed
16:03for killing the king.
16:09David knew that mourning the death of the king of Israel
16:13was politically correct.
16:17Now the whole kingdom agreed
16:19that there was only one man capable of governing them.
16:46They named David king of the Israelites.
16:49And although the twelve tribes had been united
16:52to fight in the war,
16:54they were still confronted in practice.
16:57David realized that with his charisma
17:00he could really unite them
17:02because united they were a force in power.
17:05At a time in the Middle Ages
17:07when all the great powers like Egypt were in decline,
17:10David realized that he could unite them
17:13because united they were a force in power.
17:16And that's why a relatively small power
17:19could achieve great conquests.
17:24So how did he maintain the peace?
17:27What could David do to prove to the twelve tribes
17:30that he wasn't just going to favor the tribe he belonged to?
17:36He's elected a capital that will be very controversial.
17:44He settled in an enclave on a small mountain
17:47built by the Canaanites 2,000 years ago,
17:50Jerusalem.
17:55Jerusalem was a promising place
17:58to become what it is now.
18:01It doesn't have a strategic location,
18:04it doesn't have canals or rivers nearby,
18:07none of that.
18:09Jerusalem was chosen as a capital
18:12because it was right in the middle,
18:15like Washington D.C. in the United States.
18:21The great thing about Jerusalem
18:24was that it was a fortified place,
18:27which made it very attractive.
18:30Walled cities weren't so common in the Old Near East,
18:33so conquering a city that was already walled
18:36made a lot more sense than walling another city.
18:40When the Israelites settled in the area,
18:43a couple of centuries ago,
18:46they hadn't taken Jerusalem.
18:49Jerusalem remained in the hands of the native population,
18:53which the Bible calls the Jebusites.
18:56And the Jebusites were the resistance,
18:59they were still settled in the last part of Canaan.
19:03The Jebusites today evoke us
19:06essentially political discourses,
19:09since some modern Palestinians
19:12defend that they were their ancestors.
19:17It's so important to understand the history of Jerusalem
19:20because many of the modern conflicts
19:23started in the past.
19:26So if you can prove that you are descended from the Jebusites,
19:30then you can say,
19:32we have more right to claim the city than the Israelites.
19:40So if David wanted the city of Jebusites,
19:43he would have to take it by force.
19:48David said to his troops,
19:50if anyone of you is capable of infiltrating and penetrating the defenses,
19:54then I will name you captain of the army.
20:03They knew about this water well
20:05that came up to the city of Jerusalem.
20:10And his general, Joab,
20:12sneaked up to the water shaft
20:14and then opened the gates
20:16for them to come in and conquer the city.
20:22Now, at that moment,
20:24David wanted to make sure
20:26that everyone who entered the city
20:29understood that Jerusalem
20:31was not only the political capital of Israel,
20:34but it was also the religious capital of his kingdom.
20:42And so what David does is,
20:44he brings the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.
20:49The Ark of the Covenant
20:51is a splendid gold receptacle
20:53that contains parchment,
20:55which in turn contains the laws of Moses.
20:59And it was carried by the Israelites
21:01throughout their wanderings in the desert.
21:07It had two cherubim,
21:09which were thought to protect the presence of God.
21:12But between the two cherubim,
21:14there was an empty space,
21:16and that empty space symbolized the presence of God.
21:20David has this great ceremony
21:22and he took the Ark of the Covenant
21:24through the mountains to Jerusalem.
21:28David wants this big show
21:30to show the people
21:32that they were no longer a nomadic people.
21:37The problem with that
21:39was that before he would take the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem,
21:43they would say that God lived in his town.
21:46After he took it there,
21:48they would say that he lived in Jerusalem.
21:51And that just unleashed centuries of wars
21:54for this physical place.
21:57But for now, the Unified Kingdom was thriving.
22:00The 12 rival tribes had found peace
22:02under the command of King David.
22:08David has worked all his life.
22:11He has always believed in God.
22:13He has worked hard.
22:15He started off as a simple pastor.
22:17He's fought all these battles
22:19and now he's the king of Israel.
22:23What a time to put the guard down.
22:27In the dawn of his power,
22:29David made a decision
22:31that put in danger everything he had built.
22:46King David achieved peace
22:48between the 12 tribes of Israel
22:50and established a new capital
22:52known as Jerusalem.
22:55The Bible says that when the kings were going to war,
22:58David stayed behind.
23:02It's almost like now,
23:04when David finally achieves the position of king,
23:07he decides that he can't put the guard down anymore
23:10and he lets the guard down.
23:13And that's how Beth-Shavah comes into his life.
23:17David was on the terrace of the palace
23:19looking at the scenery
23:21and he saw a beautiful woman taking a bath.
23:24And his great beauty caught him.
23:26Of course, he was looking at her in secret.
23:29And she was beautiful.
23:31She was beautiful.
23:33She was beautiful.
23:35She was beautiful.
23:37She was beautiful.
23:39She was beautiful.
23:41She was beautiful.
23:43She was beautiful.
23:45And he was looking at her in secret.
23:48He knew she was the wife of one of his commanders,
23:52but he loves her so much
23:54that he decides he has to possess her.
23:58I wonder if David could have changed
24:01at some point in his life,
24:03maybe it would have been that day
24:05when he saw Beth-Shavah
24:07taking a bath from the terrace.
24:11We talk a lot about Helen of Troy,
24:13but we don't talk about Beth-Shavah
24:15in the same way that we should,
24:17because her beauty triggers a series of events
24:20that will cause great problems for David's reign
24:23and all of this is his fault.
24:27He showed no knowledge of her as a person.
24:31He showed what was typical at the time,
24:34a way of looking at women as objects.
24:37If you want it, you want it.
24:40Today we see empowered and strong women,
24:43but it didn't work like that in the ancient world.
24:46Before, they were dependent.
24:50Beth-Shavah had no right to say no to the king
24:53if he asked her to.
24:58She had to go because she was the king of Israel
25:01and so we don't know what she was feeling
25:03or what she was thinking.
25:09In the course of what happened to Beth-Shavah,
25:12the rape that she was subjected to,
25:15she became pregnant.
25:19David realized that this was a problem
25:24because his husband, Urias, was at war
25:27and so he would have been clear
25:29that he was going to be pregnant
25:31and he was going to have a child
25:33and he was going to have a child
25:35and he was going to have a child
25:37and so it was going to be clear
25:39that Beth-Shavah had had an affair with someone
25:42and that someone was David.
25:47So what does he do?
25:49He calls Joab, the captain of his army,
25:51and he orders him to send Urias
25:53to the front line of the battlefield
25:55so that the army would be further away from him
25:58and he would be more vulnerable.
26:02And then all the enemy fire goes to Urias
26:05and he gets killed in battle.
26:09And then David gets to show himself
26:14as consoling the mourning widow, Beth-Shavah.
26:18So David was in charge
26:20of having his husband killed in battle.
26:26It's this immense lack of morale
26:29that is the heart of the story of David.
26:36And it will be the beginning
26:38of his decline as king of Israel.
26:48Although he tried to avoid it,
26:50the rumors about what he had done
26:52did not take long to spread throughout the kingdom.
26:56The prophet of Israel went to David and said to him,
26:59If I tell you a story about a rich man
27:01who went to steal sheep from a poor shepherd,
27:04and David said, I will kill that man.
27:07And the prophet said, Your Majesty,
27:09I am talking about you.
27:14You had all the power
27:16and you went to steal something from someone
27:19who had no power.
27:21And you treated both the woman and her husband
27:24with disdain and disrespect.
27:27And David was terrified
27:29because he knew everything.
27:31God had not only been adulterous
27:33but had also committed murder.
27:42He ignored the public opinion
27:44and forced her to marry him.
27:47It was not something that affected many people,
27:50especially in David's court,
27:52because by marrying,
27:54he created an enmity
27:56among the other wives of David.
28:00If we go back and read all the biblical stories,
28:03we will see that all these kings
28:05had many wives and many children.
28:08But ultimately, what changes in David's story
28:11is his family, his house,
28:13because from now on there will be no peace in it.
28:18David will be engulfed in a war of family relations
28:21for which there was never peace.
28:29Chapter 2 The Battle of Bethsabeth
28:35When he married Bethsabeth,
28:37King David caused confusion in the royal family.
28:43Several decades passed
28:45and the last years of his reign
28:47became a chaos.
28:54As David was about to die,
28:56the citizens of Israel began to ask themselves,
29:01What's next?
29:03What's going to happen to our kingdom, to Israel?
29:06What's going to come after this golden age?
29:11David had to choose a new heir
29:13and it's important to remember
29:15that at this time,
29:17the succession tradition of the father to the eldest son
29:20was not yet the norm.
29:22We're talking about a world
29:24where the strongest man was the one who got the crown.
29:29This caused confusion
29:31as to who was going to ascend the throne.
29:34All the mothers argued
29:36that their children should be named kings.
29:40Just as the kings,
29:42the women made their alliances
29:44to make sure that they were taken care of.
29:49But Bethsabeth was David's favorite wife
29:52and she used her power
29:54to make sure that David would name his son Solomon
29:57as the next king of Israel.
30:04For David, this was the way
30:06to atone for what he had done.
30:08He took his husband out of the way
30:10but now he was going to make her the mother queen
30:13and his son was going to rule Israel.
30:16After 40 years of government in Israel,
30:19King David died around 970 B.C.
30:24and Solomon took the throne.
30:28If you want to talk about a person who is a calculator,
30:31with a cold heart, manipulative and stubborn,
30:34Solomon is your man.
30:37Solomon didn't have David's charisma.
30:39That was something that was clear from the beginning.
30:42He didn't have his father's ability
30:44to make everyone follow him
30:46for the purity of his personality.
30:48Solomon did have some political wits
30:50but he lacked moral integrity.
30:54King Solomon was a very pampered boy
30:57who grew up in a powerful and wealthy court
31:00where he consumed the aura of his position as king
31:03because he only took advantage of it for his own benefit.
31:09He had to make sure that he kept his power on to power.
31:14Instead of doing what David would have done
31:16and getting people to worship him,
31:18he did what any other dictator in the Middle East would have done
31:22and he carried out a purge in the palace.
31:29He killed all the princes,
31:31the brothers, the generals,
31:33and the faithful to other kings.
31:35He created his own court,
31:37a bit like an American president
31:39but with the extra murder.
31:42Solomon's coldness is captured in the Bible
31:45with the story of the two women
31:47who claimed to have the same baby.
31:52Solomon smiles and says,
31:54okay, we'll cut the baby in two,
31:56and you'll share it.
31:59And this is the way he clearly discovers
32:01his true mother,
32:03who says, no, no, keep the baby.
32:06And that story is the reason why
32:09he was recognized as a wise man
32:12because Solomon knew how his mother would think.
32:15But that's a very sadistic way to do it.
32:20I think it's the proof that he was a ruthless man
32:23that just didn't want to deal with anything,
32:25he just wanted to deal with those things.
32:29That is the portrait of Solomon in history,
32:32but his importance is due to the fact
32:34that he accomplished something incredible in Jerusalem.
32:39As a king, Solomon was always left in the shadow
32:43of his great father.
32:45He didn't have the opportunity to stand out as a warrior,
32:48he didn't have those inclinations,
32:50but he had to be able to stand out in something.
32:54Solomon's greatest achievement
32:56was the construction of the first temple in Jerusalem,
33:00which was the home of the Ark of the Covenant.
33:04The father of Solomon, David,
33:06had brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem
33:09and had placed it on a rocky ledge
33:11from where the city could be seen.
33:13So, on that rocky ledge,
33:15Solomon decided to build a lasting temple
33:18for the God of Israel.
33:24The Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sharif in Arabic,
33:27is the place where the Ark of the Covenant was placed.
33:31Almost exactly on the rock
33:33on which today stands the foundation stone
33:35of the Rock of the Covenant,
33:37the marvellous Islamic construction that is there,
33:40probably the most sacred place in Western civilization
33:43and in the Middle East.
33:47When he finished his construction,
33:49he represented the progress of Israel
33:51in the construction of the Temple Mount,
33:53which was the place where the Ark of the Covenant was placed.
33:57When he finished his construction,
33:59he represented the progress of Israel
34:01in the establishment of a stable and prosperous nation
34:04with a king whose power everyone knew.
34:07But it's also a distance from the original idea
34:10that God always remained with his people
34:13and that he didn't have to have a physical place as a home.
34:18Solomon did not spend money
34:20to build the Temple of Jerusalem.
34:23He brought cedars from Lebanon
34:25and he brought the best stonecutters.
34:28He wanted it to be the most beautiful temple
34:31in the whole region.
34:34He was determined to surpass his father
34:37and one of the great flaws of Solomon's personality
34:41was that he really thought that the bigger, the better.
34:48To build this great temple,
34:50Solomon forced his faithful to work and did not pay them.
34:55Solomon was a ruthless leader.
34:58He ruled behind his own citizens
35:01and anyone who did not agree with him had a problem.
35:07It was what people normally call a despot.
35:12And so all of this begins to add tensions to the kingdom.
35:17When the situation reaches these limits,
35:20it is not uncommon for there to be riots.
35:24You can see people rising up
35:26and trying to overthrow the king.
35:41King Solomon had built the first Jewish temple in Jerusalem
35:45but at the cost of mistreating the citizens
35:48he swore he would protect.
35:50By the end of Solomon's reign,
35:52the people were very discontent.
35:55You have to do forced labor
35:57and you have to enter the military.
36:00You're also raising taxes.
36:02So this was not a kingdom in peace.
36:08The commanders of Solomon
36:10gathered to plan a revolt.
36:14But the king was one step ahead.
36:21The King of Jerusalem
36:32Solomon suffocated the revolt
36:34but the seeds of the rebellion were already planted.
36:39So his reign essentially ended up being a disaster
36:42with more and more revolts as a response to his policies.
36:47Finally, King Solomon died in the year 931 B.C.
36:58One of the ways to look at it
37:00is that King David was the one who was worth it.
37:03Even with all his mistakes,
37:05he was the king that Israel fell in love with.
37:09And then his son Solomon was an impostor
37:14but he was strong,
37:16at least strong enough
37:18to force the tribes to remain united.
37:22And by the time Solomon died,
37:24everything fell apart.
37:27And from then on,
37:29the unified kingdom was divided into two parts.
37:32A northern kingdom,
37:34which was the kingdom of Israel in the north,
37:37and a southern kingdom, which was called Judah.
37:40Each kingdom had its own succession lines
37:43and its own kings.
37:46Israel and Judah would remain in war for the next centuries.
37:51When this unified kingdom is divided,
37:54it becomes Israel and Judah.
37:57And that would later become Samaria and Judea.
38:01And these are the territories
38:03that would become the West Bank and Israel.
38:10So when you study the history of Jerusalem
38:13and appreciate its religious symbolism,
38:16then you start to think,
38:18when did everything go wrong?
38:20What created this great confrontation
38:23between the two communities?
38:25The clash today
38:27around the narrative of Jerusalem
38:30is largely linked
38:32to the way in which its history was exploited.
38:35There are politicians
38:37who want to go back to the history of King David
38:40and say that what happened in Jewish history
38:43is a kind of writing
38:45that gives Judaism and Jews, in reality,
38:48the perpetual ownership of Jerusalem.
38:51So what we really know is what the Bible says,
38:54not the history, but political propaganda.
38:58Jerusalem was not supposed to be all politics.
39:02But in its history,
39:04we see over and over again
39:06the rise of kings
39:08who, even though supposedly
39:10they defend the ideal
39:12under which the country was founded,
39:15end up succumbing to the temptation
39:18to preserve their own power.
39:21Power corrupts,
39:23and absolute power corrupts in an absolute way.
39:27We've heard this expression,
39:29and nowhere in the world
39:31does it fit better than in Jerusalem.
39:34Jerusalem has been transformed
39:37into the city that it is today
39:40because of stories like David's
39:43and Solomon's.
39:45They have not been natural resources,
39:48nor gold, nor oil,
39:50but the history of Jerusalem
39:53has made it the center of the world.
39:56But what about the rest of the world?
40:02After Solomon's mandate,
40:04Jerusalem remained in permanent chaos for centuries.
40:08But all that will change
40:10when a dominant republic
40:12reaches the coasts of Palestine
40:14with a clear goal.
40:16To conquer the whole world.