Free Republic

Jews who ascended to the Temple Mount in the last few days discovered that the Muslim Waqf has been planting trash cans throughout the plaza atop the Mount. Two weeks ago, as LIBA project coordinator Yehuda Glick visited the Mount, he saw drilling being carried out into the paved floor of the Mount plaza. Muslims refused to say what they were doing and were assisted by police in pushing Glick away. The mystery of the drilling has now been solved: the holes were used for planting dozens of trash cans, and dozens more await their turn. Temple activists said Monday...

...The decision of the High Administrative Court opens the way for Hagia Sophia to become a mosque again, that will fill many Turkish Muslims with joy; after all, they have been waiting for so long to “break the chains” of Hagia Sophia and enter the place for free as they do with any other place of their faith. ...That, however, is not the view from outside Turkey. As the issue started gathering momentum this year, especially following the special celebrations organized in front of the monument for the 567th anniversary of its conquest. Christians around the world, Byzantine scholars or...

JERUSALEM - Concerns of a widening threat from coronavirus spiked just as millions of Israelis are preparing to gather at polling places for national elections next week, following reports that a group of South Koreans who had visited some of the country’s most popular religious and tourist spots tested positive for the infection. Dozens of school students who may have been in proximity to the South Korean tourists were directed to stay in home-based quarantine for two weeks, as were hotel housekeepers and employees of Masada, Tel Ber Sheeva and other national parks. Officials, who had previously expressed cautious optimism...

"Qatar's demands to internationalize the holy sites is aggressive and a declaration of war against the kingdom," Adel al-Jubeir was quoted saying on Al Arabiya's website. "We reserve the right to respond to anyone who is working on the internationalization of the holy sites," he said. Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said no official from his country had made such a call. "We are tired of responding to false information and stories invented from nothing," Sheikh Mohammed told Al Jazeera TV. Qatar did accuse the Saudis of politicizing hajj and addressed the United Nations Special Rapporteur on...

Gov. Christie: Israeli control is best for proper worship at holy sites Apr 4, 2012 - TIBERIAS, Israel — After Gov. Chris Christie, his family and top staffers made a day-long sojourn through the New Testament today, the ...

The recent murder of one Jewish worshiper and injuring of four other worshipers, one critically, in a hail of sustained gunfire initiated by the Palestinian Authority Police assigned to guard Joseph’s Tomb sends an ominous message of what sort of treatment to expect should Jewish holy sites in Judea and Samaria be turned over to Palestinian control. Taking this latest overt belligerence towards Jewish worshipers visiting a Jewish holy site, some of which include Joseph’s Tomb, the Cave of the Patriarchs, Rachel’s Tomb, the Peace on Israel Synagogue in Jericho, the Temple Mount, and the Kotel, reveals the unsuitability of...

Bethlehem – Ma’an News-Rachel’s Tomb lies behind Israel’s eight-meter concrete separation wall in a fortified enclave close to the center of Bethlehem. The wall criss-crosses Bethlehem, blocking the main road to Jerusalem, encircling a refugee camp and looming over the upscale Intercontinental hotel. Right-wing religious groups petitioned Israel’s highest court in 2004 to re-route the wall to include the tomb on the western side. To this day the site, formerly known as the location of the Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque, is accessible only from the Israeli side. A major strategy of the Palestinians in their goal of ultimately taking over...

Just because Muhammad envied & revered the Jews & their sites doesn't make a place "islamic"   I really resent the MSM language, terms & references to the surroundings of the wailing wall, Jews' only surviving piece of it's rich historic temple.   The Islamo Arabs (that basically have a fascist-genocide agenda, there is no secret that they simply want all non Arabs, all non Muslims out or dead), has recently come up with another "religious" theme (in an attempt to galvanize more Muslims around it "religiously"), the excavation by Israeli scientists to repair the Jewish holy site.   "Islamic...

Rep. Tom Tancredo received a deluge of criticism after suggesting that the US might target Mecca in the event of a nuclear attack on America. According to the British newspaper, the Independent, radical Islam may have made that strategy moot. The cities of Mecca and Medina have suffered the fate of the Buddhist monuments of Afghanistan under the Taliban, and for much the same reasons: Historic Mecca, the cradle of Islam, is being buried in an unprecedented onslaught by religious zealots. Almost all of the rich and multi-layered history of the holy city is gone. The Washington-based Gulf Institute estimates...

Exclusive: US Representative Tom Tancredo in Response to U.S. Nuke Threat: We Could Nuke Mecca15 July 2005: He is a no-nonsense House Representative from Colorado, a staunch critic of the federal government's lax immigration and border enforcement policies, and one who recognizes the clear and present threat posed by Islamic terrorists inside the United States. In an exclusive interview today with Pat Campbell, host of AM 540 WFLA said yesterday he would request a briefing from the Justice Department on information it has on plans revealed by WND this week for a nuclear attack on the U.S. by al-Qaeda....

Letter Of Apology Author unknown - sentiment shared. For good and ill, the Iraqi prisoner abuse mess will remain an issue. On the one hand, right thinking Americans will abhor the stupidity of the actions while on the other hand, political glee will take control and fashion this minor event into some modern day My Lai massacre. I heard some Arabs are asking for an apology. I humbly offer mine here: I am sorry that the last seven times we Americans took up arms and sacrificed the blood of our youth, it was in the defense of Muslims (Bosnia, Kosovo,...

For a country recently purged of its chief tormentor, it is perhaps a grimly appropriate theme for its first new tourist attraction. American troops in Iraq have launched what has been dubbed "The Exorcist Experience", after discovering that the ancient ruins they were guarding provided the location for the 1973 horror classic's opening sequence. They now plan to help locals put the 2,000-year-old city of Hatra back on the international tourist map by marketing it as a future holiday destination to fans of the cult film. Using a modest $5,000 (£2,800) grant, the soldiers have recruited local guides and guards...

Ancient Samarra Stands Largely Untouched By BORZOU DARAGAHI .c The Associated Press SAMARRA, Iraq (AP) - Amid the destruction of this war - the bombing, the fighting, the looting - this elegant city was left largely untouched. One of the world's architectural wonders, its golden domed mosques and its graceful minaret stand unscathed. Though its residents were mostly pro-Saddam Hussein, the city's elders capitulated to American forces before any real fighting took place. ``Maybe they didn't want their beautiful city destroyed,'' said Tahseen Taha, a Kurdish Iraqi visitor to Samarra, 70 miles north of Baghdad on the east bank of...

<p>BABYLON, Iraq -- The roots of Western law and writing sprang from the Mesopotamian cradle of civilization here, the site of the resplendent Hanging Gardens of Babylon -- one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The palace of Hammurabi and King Nebuchadnezzar -- like antiquities throughout this country -- has met a fate that has devastated Iraqis and archeologists throughout the world.</p>

American soldiers retreated warily from the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf yesterday after a furious crowd gathered around them to stop foreign soldiers from approaching one of the holiest shrines of Shia Islam. "Everybody smile!" shouted the platoon commander as he told his baffled men to kneel down and point their weapons at the ground, in a surreal act of submission.The mightiest army in the world is learning the hard way the awkward art of trying to "win the hearts and minds" of suspicious civilians.In other cities civilians have largely been bystanders in the military drama, neither rising up to...

06 Apr 2003 10:11:36 GMT U.S. troops in Kerbala centre after fierce fight By Kieran Murray KERBALA, Iraq, April 6 (Reuters) - Moving block by block, U.S. troops pushed into the centre of the holy Shi'ite Muslim city of Kerbala on Sunday after vicious battles with Iraqi paramilitaries threatening U.S supply lines north to Baghdad. In blistering heat, U.S. Army tanks rumbled through the dusty streets and armed reconnaissance helicopters passed low over rooftops, identifying sniper positions for artillery units to target. On the ground, army troops took cover in doorways and against walls as they moved past Iraqi corpses,...

Iraqi Forces Take Cover in Ancient Mosque By KIMBERLY HEFLING .c The Associated Press NEAR NAJAF, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi forces are firing on coalition troops from inside a mosque that is one of the world's most important Shiite Muslim shrines, U.S. Central Command said Wednesday. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks called the Iraqi fire from inside the gold-domed Ali Mosque in Najaf ``a detestable example of putting historical sites in danger'' and said U.S.-led forces refused to return fire. Allied troops operating south of Baghdad are trying to root out Iraqi fighters in the holy Shiite cities of Najaf and...

Allied commanders said Iraqi forces fired at US troops from the golden-domed Ali mosque in Najaf, one of the most important shrines of Shia Islam. The accusation, which could not be independently verified, came as US troops fought fierce battles in and around the cities of Karbala and Najaf. To Muslims the names of these cities carry the same emotional, mystical charge as Jerusalem and Mecca. Allied commanders said their troops had strict instructions not to fire on the shrines and the US troops did not return the fire, said Brig-Gen Vincent Brooks in Qatar. "The Iraqi regime's use of...

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR AGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 15 — The most combative group of Shiite Muslims announced during their main prayer sermon today that they would proceed with a proposal to form their own militia to safeguard holy sites from any transgressions by American troops. More than 3,000 of the faithful flooded one of the dusty main thoroughfares in Sadr City, a predominately Shiite slum in Baghdad, to hear the prayer leader, Sheik Abdel Hadi al-Daraji, denounce the American forces, accusing them of defiling sacred places after an incident on Wednesday in which an American Black Hawk helicopter forced down a...

<p>The U.S. military expedition into Iraq has skirted ancient sites named in Jewish and Christian scriptures and apparently avoided sacred turf where Shi'ite Muslims had their historic and bloody showdown with rival Sunnis.</p> <p>Troops that invaded from the south crossed territory called the cradle of civilization and traditionally considered the site of the Garden of Eden. The troops passed by Abraham's birthplace of Ur and the heart of ancient Sumer, whose poetry told of a creation and flood like that in the book of Genesis.</p>