Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Aksa Martyrs vow to attack synagogues over Mughrabi [Western Wall repairs]
Jerusalem Post ^ | Feb. 7, 2007 | Etgar Lefkowits

Posted on 02/07/2007 10:21:34 AM PST by Alouette

The Fatah-affiliated Aksa Martyrs Brigades threatened on Wednesday to attack synagogues if Israel continued its excavation near the Temple Mount ahead of the planned construction of a new bridge to the Mughrabi Gate.

In a press release sent to newspapers, the group announced that all synagogues would become legitimate targets and that "the sanctity of the Al Aksa Mosque should not be less than that of the synagogues."

The terror organization joined scores of other Islamic organizations in calling on the Palestinian people to hold processions and angry protests until the construction is stopped.

Islamic heads urge new intifada over Mount work A Jerusalem court on Wednesday ordered the fiery leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel to stay out of the Old City of Jerusalem for the next ten days, after he tried to force his way to the site of a contested archeological excavation near the Temple Mount, police said.

Sheikh Raed Salah was one of seven Israeli Arabs detained by police near the Dung Gate on Wednesday morning.

Salah and his supporters had scuffled with police guarding the workers carrying out the salvage excavation near the Temple Mount.

The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court ordered Salah to stay 150 meters outside the walled Old City for the next ten days, Jerusalem police spokeswoman Sigal Toledo said.

In court, Salah accused Israel of "the crime of demolishing a part of the blessed Al Aksa compound" and of "pushing the whole region to religious war."

The archeological excavation underway ahead of the planned construction of a new bridge to the Mughrabi Gate is taking place dozens of meters outside the Temple Mount compound.

Salah, who heads the extremist northern branch of the Islamic Movement of Israeli Arabs which denies Israel's legitimacy, had previously called for an intifada over the archeological dig by the Jerusalem holy site on Tuesday.

In the past, Salah has served a two year sentence for a series of security offenses, including financing Hamas activities.

For the second straight day, police had barred non-Muslims from entering the Temple Mount on Wednesday and limited Muslim entry to the holy site to men over the age of 45 with Israeli id's, in a largely successful effort to ward off violence at the compound.

In sporadic stone-throwing clashes in east Jerusalem, seven Arab teens were arrested by police.

Police, who are bracing for renewed violence following Friday Muslim prayers, are expected to extend restrictions at the holy site in the coming days.

Meanwhile, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday urged Islamic nations to retaliate against Israel.

Khamenei did not say what sort of response he intended, but he said the Islamic world should make Israel "regret" what it is doing, The Associated Press reported.

The eight-month construction project is meant to replace a decades-old stone ramp that partially collapsed in a snowstorm three years ago.

The Temple Mount, which is Judaism's holiest and Islam's third holiest site, has been the scene of violence in the past, which later spilled out across the country.

Israel's opening of the Western Wall tunnels in 1996 sparked a wave of Palestinian violence that killed 80 people, while Ariel Sharon's 2000 visit to the Temple Mount as opposition leader was followed by the latest round of Palestinian violence that has continued for over six years.

Israeli efforts to downplay the dig near the bitterly contested holy site -- known as the tinderbox of the Middle East -- fell on deaf ears in the Arab public, with Arab media playing up the heated rhetoric of Islamic officials blasting the work.

In a sign of continued tension, the Islamic Movement announced that it planned to hold a demonstration Friday against the dig.

There has never been any archeological excavations on the Temple Mount due to religious sensitivities.

According to decades-old regulation in place at the Temple Mount, Israel maintains overall security control at the site, while the Wakf, or Islamic Trust, is charged with day- to-day administration of the ancient compound.

The latest controversy comes as an ancient wooden pulpit destroyed four decades ago by a deranged Australian tourist hoping to hasten the coming of the Messiah was restored in the El Aksa Mosque, and as Jordan presses ahead with plans to build a fifth minaret at the site.

Last decade, Wakf officials built the largest mosque in Israel in an underground architectural support of the Temple Mount known as the Solomon's Stables, throwing dozens of truckloads of antiquities mixed with rubble in a garbage dump outside the Old City.

The construction of the mosque, which was carried out without any archeological supervision, was later called an "unprecedented archeological crime" by Israel's top archeological body for its massive destruction of antiquities at the site.


TOPICS: Extended News; Israel; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: islam; jerusalem; templemount

1 posted on 02/07/2007 10:21:36 AM PST by Alouette
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: 1st-P-In-The-Pod; A_Conservative_in_Cambridge; af_vet_rr; agrace; albyjimc2; Alexander Rubin; ...
FRmail me to be added or removed from this Judaic/pro-Israel/Russian Jewry ping list.

Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.

2 posted on 02/07/2007 10:22:10 AM PST by Alouette (Learned Mother of Zion)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Alouette

(sigh) Could you guys go be crazy somewhere else, please?


3 posted on 02/07/2007 10:22:25 AM PST by william clark (DH4WH)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Comment #4 Removed by Moderator

To: Alouette
Sheikh Raed Salah was one of seven Israeli Arabs detained by police near the Dung Gate on Wednesday morning.

No comment.

5 posted on 02/07/2007 10:24:41 AM PST by Fitzcarraldo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Alouette
As I said on another thread, there is absolutely no justification for these protests. The Israeli government has a long and unbroken record of respecting the mosques.

-Eric

6 posted on 02/07/2007 10:25:47 AM PST by E Rocc (Myspace "Freepers" group moderator)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: E Rocc

What do facts have to do with anything?!?!


7 posted on 02/07/2007 10:30:34 AM PST by jdsteel ('nuff said (old Marvel Comics reference....))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Alouette
Each and every day there is yet another reason to loathe these people.

They are simply put: CRAZY. They don't want repairs or excavations because they know that archeological findings will prove (again) that the site is the Temple Mount written about in the Holy Bible and will prove (again) that their "religion" is nothing but a fantasy created by a lunatic criminal to gain control of the Ka'abba in Mecca and they are the idiots who have fallen for it.

8 posted on 02/07/2007 10:30:47 AM PST by blinachka (Vechnaya Pamyat Daddy... xoxo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: E Rocc

They are just doing what they do best -- threats and acts of violence.


9 posted on 02/07/2007 10:31:09 AM PST by Londo Molari
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Alouette

These bastards are trying to provoke Israel and to start a war so that the media will blame it all on Israel.


10 posted on 02/07/2007 10:32:55 AM PST by Leftism is Mentally Deranged (mediabots are 100% in the tank for the left and for jihadists.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Leftism is Mentally Deranged

Excavation "near" the Temple Mount. How "near"?


11 posted on 02/07/2007 10:37:31 AM PST by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Alouette

Just smite the vermin.


12 posted on 02/07/2007 10:39:28 AM PST by sheik yerbouty ( Make America and the world a jihad free zone!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Leftism is Mentally Deranged

That's what's potentially hilarious about this (in a "big picture" sort of way). Everybody's wringing their hands over whether or not Israel will attack Iran for its nuclear program, and these goofballs may roll out the red carpet for a strike by attacking Israel over nothing.


13 posted on 02/07/2007 10:41:59 AM PST by william clark (DH4WH)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: E Rocc

It only shows the primitive mentality that reasonble men must deal with . It prooves how wrong the Palestinians are, how fanatical they are, how incredibly ignorant their religous leaders are. They are filled with hatred. Islam is not a religion it is a form of insanity.


14 posted on 02/07/2007 10:43:29 AM PST by Courdeleon02
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Courdeleon02

"Islam is not a religion it is a form of insanity."

We have finally stubbled upon the connection between liberals & islam.


15 posted on 02/07/2007 10:48:11 AM PST by Londo Molari
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Alouette

This is just another cheap ploy to try to stop the paleolithic palestinians from killing each other and to refocus on killing the Jews.


16 posted on 02/07/2007 10:52:52 AM PST by blasater1960 ( Ishmaelites...Still a wild-ass of a people....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Alouette

Its time this guy went to the top of the Mossad hit list.


17 posted on 02/07/2007 11:15:07 AM PST by sgtbono2002 (I will forgive Jane Fonda, when the Jews forgive Hitler.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: massgopguy
Excavation "near" the Temple Mount. How "near"?

The archeological excavation underway ahead of the planned construction of a new bridge to the Mughrabi Gate is taking place dozens of meters outside the Temple Mount compound.
- - - -
There has never been any archeological excavations on the Temple Mount due to religious sensitivities.

Any excuse to raise hell, no matter how flimsy the foundation. These fanatics won't stop until they're dead.

18 posted on 02/07/2007 11:16:51 AM PST by Max in Utah (WWBFD? "What Would Ben Franklin Do?")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

High volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel, WOT

..................

We're training them in convoy security and airport security, wonder if we're training them in Synagogue security.

19 posted on 02/07/2007 11:24:39 AM PST by SJackson (Let a thousand flowers bloom and let all our rifles be aimed at the occupation, Abu Mazen 1/11/07)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: massgopguy
I believe the area they are talking about is shown in the mid to upper left of the picture below:

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The path to the Temple mount goes through the vegetation at the top. The whole structure in the mid-left is apparently deteriorating due to weather, foot traffic, etc. If you go to the top and look down the other side, you see this:

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

So the excavations are right on the Western wall, the remains of Herod's Temple. The Israelis have done a marvellous job of excavation around the southwest corner of the Temple mount. There's a tremendous museum just west of the excavations. Strangely enough, when we were travelling there last spring some lunatic Palestinian was running around the city wall near the excavation site and the poor Israeli police and the IDF had to restrict access to certain parts of the site. Those people are indeed exasperating.

20 posted on 02/07/2007 12:29:18 PM PST by ishmac
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson