In a special joint session of Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, and the United States congress, both Jerusalem and Washington marked the 50th year to the 1967 Middle East war, in which the Jewish state decisively overpowered its neighboring enemies in just six days. In an address to the joint session, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the fact that Israel provided all religions ‘freedom of worship’ at Jerusalem holy sites, after the Jewish state conquered the old city from Jordan, “horrible sectarian violence” – similar to what is seen today in war-stricken neighboring countries – was averted.
“We made sure that the holy sites of Judaism, of Christianity and Islam were available to all. Unfettered and untouched. This is something that can be appreciated and retrospect because look around us. Understand what would happen to this, it is not even a square kilometer, what would happen to this less than a square mile, if we were not here. It would descend into a horrible sectarian violence. It would descended into the worst barbarism that the world is seeing since the outrages of world war II,” said Haley.