Rocks, rockets, riots, religion, risks

...No mainstream Western journalist, as far as we know, has raised the question this week that Israelis ponder all the time: if these mosques and other religion-rich sites have such holy status to Islamic believers, why do they treat them with what seems to us like naked contempt? Not just piling up rocks inside their mosques and ripping out fixtures to create stockpiles for hurling at Israeli soldiers, but even such prosaic matters as playing football inside and around the place they want us to call the Noble Sanctuary.

When we pray, Jews face in the direction of Jerusalem, and 
within Jerusalem towards the site of the no-longer-standing 
Temple. This is true no matter where in the world we are at that 
moment. Moslems, as this image shows, when in Jerusalem, 
turn their backs to the Temple Mount. This photo appeared 
in a blog post we published a year ago here 

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
17 September '15..

Here's one small peek into what it means, in practical day-to-day-living terms, to have neighbors for whom terrorism and violence directed both at us and at their own populations, have zero downside.

The decision to open the valve a little or a lot - encouraging or allowing street violence, rocket fire, petrol bombs, stabbings - comes at close to zero cost. Worse, the outbursts of Palestinian Arab violence almost always pay dividends.

Why this works is something few people outside the region understand. But work it most assuredly does, in the satanic terms of the political and social culture embraced by those in charge of those places.

As we have been writing here ["16-Sep-15: Jerusalem Watch | Not-so-new New Year violence"], there is currently a state of serious high tension in Jerusalem. Thuggish young men, and not so young women, have clearly been given the signal to make maximum trouble. Their media, and especially cartoons, are in full incitement mode. Some of their Islamic holy sites are chief among the places where trouble and violence are designed - by them - to erupt.

No mainstream Western journalist, as far as we know, has raised the question this week that Israelis ponder all the time: if these mosques and other religion-rich sites have such holy status to Islamic believers, why do they treat them with what seems to us like naked contempt? Not just piling up rocks inside their mosques and ripping out fixtures to create stockpiles for hurling at Israeli soldiers, but even such prosaic matters as playing football inside and around the place they want us to call the Noble Sanctuary. (When did anyone ever see soccer played by observant Catholics, or anyone else, on the smooth flat surface of St Peter's Square in Vatican City?) There are some startling examples and pictures in a post of ours from a year ago: "06-Oct-14: Oh Jerusalem"

So when Hamas and the Fatah leadership of the Palestinian Authority again threaten to deliver more trouble, more violence, more "anger", it's worrying because we know they pay no price at all for this hold-me-back irresponsibility. And no Western media and very few Western political figures have ever shown an appetite to reign them in.

(Read Full Post/Please Share)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 

.