Posted on 01/03/2006 6:18:45 AM PST by anotherview
Jan. 3, 2006 14:28 | Updated Jan. 3, 2006 14:42
Israel denies Temple Mount excavation
By JPOST.COM STAFF
Aerial view of Temple Mount
Photo: Areil Jerozolimski [file]
The Israel Antiquities Authority denied on Tuesday accusations that archeological excavations were currently underway below the Temple Mount and that a synagogue had opened at the site.
Israel Antiquities Authority Jerusalem District Archaeologist Yuval Baruch said that all of the gates to the Temple Mount compound had been blocked by massive construction in historical times.
"The only gates open today are the official ones - they are open to Muslim worshippers and visitors - and they are under the control of security officials and Waqf representatives," Baruch stated.
Sheikh Ra'ad Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement's northern faction, had said at a press conference earlier Tuesday that al-Aksa Mosque was in danger, and declared that if archeological excavations in the vicinity of the Western Wall tunnels were to continue, Israel "would find itself at war with the entire Muslim world."
He said that Israel was building a synagogue and a large model of the Second Temple at the excavation site, which is 97 meters away from the Dome of the Rock.
At the press conference, Salah screened a video that supposedly showed Jews praying at the illicit synagogue.
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'Amein ve'amein!
Then what are they doing living in 'Eretz HaQodesh (the Holy Land)?
That was the wrong place to put a secular Jewish state!
I am a Masorti (Conservative) Jew and by Israeli law I am defined as chiloni even though I am observant.
Now if you are trying to claim that perhaps 14% of Jews in Israel don't care about the Temple Mount then I will wholeheartedly argee with you. If you are trying to claim that 70% don't care then you are just plain wrong. Any Israeli Prime Minister who tries to cede the Old City in Jerusalem will suffer the same fate as Ehud Barak: their coalition will collapse, their government will fall, and they will be cast out into the political wilderness forever.
We are not a secular state. Unlike the United States, there is no separation between religion and state in Israel. We do have secularists in government, of course. We also have ulta-Orthodox Jews in government. Israel is a nation of Jews, not any subset of the Jewish people.
Thanks.
Standard fare for the sermons coming out of Mosques in the Holy Land.
Ain't that the truth!
I wonder what that would feel like. I'm guessing like every other day.
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Whether its the Temple of Solomon or Hagia Sophia, the Muslims are adpet at co-opting other people's sacred sites and figures as their own.
The site of the Temple of Solomon belongs to the Jewish people. It should be rebuilt and the Al Aqsa obscenity removed.
Israel is "secular" in the sense that the USA was secular yet with a lot of public chr*stian ceremonial up until about 1962. Halakhah is not the law of the land, and the state government and mechanism is different from that ordained in the Torah (Sages, Battei-Din, a King, the Kohanim, etc.). Judaism simply plays the public role that chr*stianity did in the USA until fairly recently.
I still maintain that advocates of a secular Jewish state should never have advocated locating it in the Holy Land. There is no way a Jewish state in 'Eretz Yisra'el can ever be shorn of its religious implications.
The site of the Temple of Solomon belongs to the Jewish people. It should be rebuilt and the Al Aqsa obscenity removed.A few historical observations.
The Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. The mosques were built 600 years later, when there was only debris on the site. They were started when the Muslims captured Jerusalem from the Byzantines. The Jewish community supported the Muslims.
-Eric
According to the CIA World Factbook, Israel (not including the West Bank) is slighly smaller than New Jersey. Of course a lot of that area is taken up by the Negev desert.
The sheetheads have been negligent. They should have worn their tinfoil hats..
Thanks for the history lesson.
The mosques were built AFTER the Muslims had invaded what had become a predominantly Christian area under the Byzantine Empire, and AFTER they had violently conquered Christian territory.
This of course, happened on their drive to conquer and forcibly convert the predominantly Christian populations of North Africa, Iberia, Sicily and southern and central Italy, and before their total conquest of all of Anatolia and invasion and conquest of the Christian Balkans and capture of Christian Constantinople.
It was also before their push towards the central Mediterranean at Lepanto and their invasion of Central Europe and attack on Vienna. Not to mention before their acts of piracy in the Mediteranean Sea and North Atlantic under Barbary corsairs which held western Europe and the young U.S. to ransome.
And of course, it was before their continued aggression and forced conversions in the Sudan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, etc, as well as their invasion and conquest of Zoroastrian Persia, not to mention their continued acts of violence against Hindus, Christians and Buddhists in Southeast Asia.
Charming bunch the Muslims - of course we must keep in mind that not all Muslims were involved in the rape and plunder of half the civilized world, and, of course, not all Muslims are involved in forcibly converting non-Muslims. After all, Islam is a religion of peace.
True the Jews supported the Muslims at times - so did some Christian sects - particularly under the menace of Byzantine threats against "unorthodox" sects.
But my guess is both Christians and Jews, having been relegated to Dhimmitude under the benevolent rule of Islam, had more than one occasion to regret their choice.
In its early years, Christianity, in contrast to Islam, relied upon example and arguement to convert people. It was only AFTER exposure to the fanatic attacks of Islamic fundamentalists in the Mediterranean area that Christianity acquired a violent streak in its religious fervour, and even that was limited to a degree.
Strange... when Muslims blow-up a synagogue or machine-gun Jewish kids on the way to temple, the world doesn't seem to care, but let one Muslim scream some lie and Israel is roundly condemned...
-The mosques were built very soon after the Muslims took Jerusalem from the Byzantines. History reports that they replaced only rubble and debris.
-Even well after the conquest of Constantinople, which took place 700 years after the Haram-al-sharif mosques were built, Jews sought and were granted refuge in the Ottoman Empire.
-Yes, there were wars between Muslims and Christians during these times. There were also wars between Protestants and Catholics. The Thirty Years War happened during the same century as the last siege of Vienna. There are few if any wars between Protestants and Catholics today (Ireland is more of a political than a religious matter).
-Eric
"There are few if any wars between Protestants and Catholics today "
Yes. Christians have learned to behave more like Christ in their dealings with one another and other faiths.
Unfortunately, Muslims still behave like Mohammad.
"-It was not the Muslims that taught Christianity how to use the power of compulsion to promote its creed. It was the Romans"
What you are saying is true to a degree. But for the most part, the "Crusading" wars of the Middle Ages were a direct outgrowth of Islamic attacks on Christandom.
"-Even well after the conquest of Constantinople, which took place 700 years after the Haram-al-sharif mosques were built, Jews sought and were granted refuge in the Ottoman Empire."
So were Christian sects - as Dhimmis. They couldn't bear weapons, testify against a Muslim, had to pay a poll tax, couldn't practise their religion openly, couldn't build new houses of worship, and faced constant threat of assault by various fanatical Islamic sects. Of course, just as today, any effort by a Dhimmi to convert a Muslim to another faith is punishable by death. Nor is the wearing of staras of David or crosses in public permitted.
"-The mosques were built very soon after the Muslims took Jerusalem from the Byzantines. History reports that they replaced only rubble and debris."
The rubble probably resulted from Muslim attacks, although Christian neglect is probably not out of the question. As for the Jews, they probably couldn't rebuild there as it was controlled by the Byzantines.
As opposed to the friendly state of affairs that exist today?
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