Raiders of the Temple Mount

JERUSALEM - Amid the old city of Jerusalem and rising above it is the ancient site of Solomon's Temple and the point from which the Prophet Mohammed journeyed to Heaven. Holy to Jews and Muslims, it is as dangerous these days as a ticking atom bomb. Any readjustment of its ancient stones can detonate outrage among millions of faithful around the world. On Friday, Muslims in Jerusalem protested against Israeli excavation work next to al-Aqsa, one of Islam's holiest shrines, which sits atop the site. Around the world, Muslims declared a universal "day of anger," Israeli police stormed into the Muslim compound and fired stun grenades and rubber bullets at youths trying to hurl stones at Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall. Israeli police claim that 17 protesters and 15 police officers were injured in the clashes, but Palestinians say many more were hurt in skirmishes around the mosque grounds.

The latest crisis began when Israeli authorities started rebuilding and extending a pedestrian ramp which rises to the Mugrabi Gate, an entrance that allows tourists to view the gardens of the sacred Muslim precinct, the silver al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, a shrine clad with turquoise mosaics and topped with a glowing, golden dome. The ramp is a simple piece of construction that will rest on seven concrete pillars. A 2004 earthquake and a snowstorm had damaged the old pedestrian bridge. But with tension running high between Israelis and Palestinians, the repair work has become a volatile religious issue, one that radical Muslim clerics are using to whip up more hatred against Israel. Says Dan Seidemann, a Jerusalem lawyer trying to broker a solution to the latest religious flare-up, "It's reaching critical mass and the situation could explode at any time."

Neither Muslims nor Jews are comfortable sharing this holy site, and religious extremists are trying through bombs, fire, stones and other provocations to drive the other out. Some Muslim clerics say that re-building the pedestrian walkway is tipping the balance of co-existence between the two faiths. As an editorialist wrote wearily in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz: "The excavation work and bridge construction...have turned into the Battle of Armageddon, as happens every time." In 1996, tunneling by Israeli archeologists underneath the compound led to riots between protesters and Israeli troops in which 69 Palestinians and 16 Israeli soldiers were killed.

The Mugrabi Gate has always been a thorn in the side of the al-Aqsa worshippers. It provides the only Israeli access to the Muslim mosque and shrine, and it was through this gate in 2000 that Ariel Sharon, then the Israeli opposition leader, strutted into the Muslim grounds and sparked a bloody Palestinian uprising. It is also via this pedestrian ramp that Israeli police swarm into the Muslim precinct whenever trouble erupts — as they did during Friday's riots — and Muslim leaders are worried that the new, reinforced ramp will allow more police and extremists to trespass on their holy shrine. Some Christians and Jews believe that the building of the Third Temple by the Jews will herald the Messiah's arrival, and that can only be accomplished by destroying the Muslim place of worship. But Israeli authorities insist they are making the ramp stronger only to make it safer for thousands of daily visitors.

Muslims also say that the excavations will also be destroying chunks of their religious heritage, but Israeli archeologists and Palestinian workers on the site are clearing away every stone and pottery fragment with the precision of surgeons. Not that it matters. Throughout the Muslim world, the Israeli excavations adjacent to al-Aqsa are being portrayed as sacrilege, as another blow by Israel and, indirectly, by its ally America, against Islam. For the last three days, the story has topped headlines and news broadcasts throughout the Muslim world.

In Mecca, Palestinian leaders from the rival Fatah and Hamas movements took a break from their efforts to avert a civil war and condemned Israel's supposed tampering with the holy place in Jerusalem. Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad said: "Israel has a clear scheme to demolish the al-Aqsa mosque through various games and tricks, and we hope to see a decisive Arab and Islamic position. The language of condemnation is not enough." Also in Mecca, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that further excavation could endanger a November cease-fire in Gaza between Palestinian militants and Israelis. The crisis will also complicate Abbas' task of persuading Hamas to moderate its hostility towards Israel, which it refuses to recognize. Meanwhile, in Iran, spiritual leader Ali Khamenei warned: "We must make the Zionists regret their action."

All this hostility could have been avoided, say Israeli experts, if the authorities had first sought clearance from the Waqf, the Islamic board which governs the al-Aqsa mosque. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is under pressure from his neighbor, Jordan's King Abdullah, and from his own defense minister Amir Peretz, to halt the controversial dig. So far, Olmert has refused their entreaties, saying that the changes would not " harm" anyone. Meir Ben-Dov, a leading Israeli archeologist who has worked on the site for 39 years, criticized the excavation work. He told the Israeli press that it was " short-sightedness by someone who wants riots, by people with no brain." Already, one Palestinian militant group says it intends to attack synagogues in revenge for the excavations. The standoff at Temple Mount/al-Aqsa, over a simple repair, threatens to blow into something far larger and more dangerous.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=19365

The Newest Assault on Jerusalem

by Dore Gold

Posted: 02/09/2007

Radical Palestinian Muslims today assaulted the Western Wall plaza in Jersualem with rocks and bottles, forcing Israeli security forces to to clear out and close down the holiest religious site in the Jewish faith and then storm the Temple Mount compound above from where the attack was launched. Why has this area suddenly become a tinderbox of inter-religious strife?

Ostensibly, the riots in Jerusalem are supposed to be in reaction to Israel's attempts to re-build a damaged access ramp to the western side of the Temple Mount. Before any construction project can be approved, it must be inspected by the Israel Antiquities Authority to make sure that no valuable archaeological artifacts are being destroyed or covered up. In reality, the latest eruption is part of a larger campaign by radical Muslim groups to place all of Jerusalem under Islamic control.

Since Israel re-united Jerusalem nearly 40 years ago in the 1967 Six Day War, its governments have agreed to allow the Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount -- the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock -- to remain under Islamic religious administration, even though the territory in now under Israeli national sovereignty. During the period that Yasser Arafat ruled the Palestinian Authority, he sought to infiltrate that Islamic adminstration with more radical figures, who clearly have left their mark.

A number of radical movements have infiltrated the compound in recent years as a result. In my new book, The Fight for Jerusalem, I have a photograph of one such movement, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which held a demonstration on the Temple Mount in 2006 with a huge banner calling for the establishment of a new global caliphate. Its members were involved in an attack on the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmad Maher, when he came to the al-Aqsa mosque for prayers several years ago. They also made threatening moves in the direction of First Lady Laura Bush, before security men pulled her away during her visit to the Temple Mount. Western analysts regard the group as an al-Qaeda precursor, which does not violate the law, but nonetheless prepares individuals ideologically and then passes them off to other organizations for military action.

An Israeli radical sheikh named Raad Salah, who has served a prison term, has been at the heart of much of the trouble on the Temple Mount. He was present during the latest riots last week until an Israeli Courts ordered him to stay away from the area of controversy. Salah calls for the establishment of a new worldwide caliphate based in Jerusalem and he has been behind projects to bring holy water from the Zamzam spring in Mecca to Jerusalem , in order to elevate the city's religious importance to Muslims (something which the Saudis, as protectors of Mecca, should oppose). His men have provided the manpower to destroy Temple Mount antiquities and build new subterranean mosques inside the Temple Mount area. Salah has been connected to leading figures in the Muslim Brotherhood abroad as well as with leaders of the Hamas movement.

All these radical movements are aware of a growing belief in certain Middle Eastern circles that Jerusalem plays a key role in radical Islamic "end of times" literature. The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been fueling some of this speculation with his talk about the imminent arrival of the Mahdi, an Islamic messianic figure in both Shiite and Sunni Islam. Radical movements in the Middle East are seeking to play on these sentiments and beliefs in choosing to stage a crisis in Jerusalem at this time.

The Iranians also have an interest in backing a crisis in Jerusalem. Iran hopes to divert attention away its their steady infiltration into Iraq with Revolutionary Guards and advanced weaponry for the insurgency by getting the world to focus on Israel at this time. Currently there are two interpretations about the root causes of instability in the Middle East. Those aware of what is going on in Iraq, as well as in Lebanon, and in the Persian Gulf understand that Iran's drive for regional hegemony is the main factor threatening the Middle East at this time. Alternatively there are voices that play down Iran and still harp on the Arab-Israeli conflict as one of the the main problems (eg, the Iraq Study Group). Iran is seeking to get the world to focus on Israel and the Palestinians, alone.

The attack on the Western Wall today illustrates once again the dangers of ever letting Jerusalem fall into the hands of radical Islamic groups, like Hamas. Since 1998, when the Buddhist statues in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan were first attacked, an "evil wind" has been blowing across the Middle East and South Asia , stripping holy sites of the immunity they have enjoyed in the past. Shiite Mosques in Iraq and Pakistan have been blown up, Joseph's Tomb in the West bank was set on fire by Palestianian mobs, the Church of the Nativity was invaded by a joint Hamas-Fatah unit.

By Friday sundown. Israel stabilized the situation on the Temple Mount. Since 1967, it has been determined to protect Jerusalem , while respecting autonomy of its various churches and Islamic religious bodies. Radical Islamic groups have exploited Israel's policies on the Temple Mount. Nonetheless, it is now clearer than ever that only a free and democratic Israel can ultimately protect the access of all faiths to the Holy City and prevent it from becoming the tinder box that others hope to create.

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Dr. Gold is President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affiars, former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, and author of the New York Times Bestseller "Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism" and "Tower of Babble"(Regnery).

Nowhere else in the world outside of embassies, does any religion or other nation have a claim on property that transcends the owning nation.

For this reason, Israel should "nationalize" all holy sites.

This does not mean running roughshod over religious rights, just recognizing that all parts of Israel are parts of Israel, and will remain so.

While from that moment on, the government of Israel may allow free and fair use of such holy sites, they are no longer the property of anyone but the nation of Israel.

This also means that any other nation or religion has to have Israeli permission to operate or maintain any holy site. Furthermore, such sites are unsuitable for residences, so holy persons can live in conventional housing and just work at the hold sites.

Israel should also insist on good behavior on the part of those it allows to use its holy sites. If, for example, the Wahabbis in charge of the Asqa mosque, or their pilgrims, misbehave, the Israeli government may be inclined to reward the management of the mosque to a Sufi Muslim organization.

Even the suggestion of this would profoundly terrify the Wahabbis, who would thereafter be on their best behavior, and insist on it from their pilgrims.

The same rules should apply to the petty squabbles of the various Christian sects at their holy sites.

The Israelis could be as kind as they wanted, and very liberal in their terms of use and maintenance; unlike the Saudis, and Muslim countries. But the Israelis must be firm: The al-Asqa, and all other mosques, churches and holy sites are the property of the nation of Israel.

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