The Al-Aqsa factor: Rats, snakes and chickens - by Arnold Roth

...You might imagine that at least some of those deeply-concerned public personages who in the past decried Israel’s “indiscriminate,” “heavy-handed” and “intentional” measures, might have had something equally helpful to offer Abbas and his raging cronies. Evidently not. Perhaps they have learned not to mix in when the subject is, you know, about religion and sensitive matters. Or maybe they just lack the courage and the backbone.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
19 July '17..

The police helicopter flying over our home as we type this is a reminder of where the attention of the security services here in Jerusalem is focused tonight.

We're in the middle of another official Palestinian Arab temper tantrum. They call it something else, of course. And while foreign news media are paying scant attention, the reality on the ground here as well as throughout Israeli and Jews news media is heavy enough to cause a rising sense of anxiety about where the Palestinian Arabs want to take this.

Here's what we knew last night:

(Continue to Full Post)

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. 

.

The story of a lie that is told over and over

...The facts don’t support the hate industry, so the folks who want us dead have also developed a lie industry to provide fuel for the haters. Today I want to look at one lie of the many excreted by that industry, a lie that is told over and over and has certainly been the cause of the deaths of numerous Jews and Arabs.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
28 September '15..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2015/09/the-story-of-a-lie/

The Jewish people and their state are the target of an unending, worldwide hate offensive. Our reactions differ. Some of us get angry (that’s healthy). Others ignore it. And some become convinced that where there’s smoke, there must be fire. Maybe they hate us because we’re hate-worthy?

Nope. They hate us for a lot of reasons, including religion (that’s a big one for Muslims), envy, guilt, and greed – and sometimes it’s just a family tradition. But in fact we are pretty decent, as homo sapiens goes, and so is our country.

The facts don’t support the hate industry, so the folks who want us dead have also developed a lie industry to provide fuel for the haters. Today I want to look at one lie of the many excreted by that industry, a lie that is told over and over and has certainly been the cause of the deaths of numerous Jews and Arabs.

The woman who posted this, Ariel Gold of Ithaca, NY (h/t: Petra Marquardt Bigman), is a piece of work herself, a Jew who describes her occupation on her Facebook page as “delegitimizing Zionism at [sic] Community Activist.” If she does anything else for a living, it’s not evident from her posts, which display her as a one-person demonization machine.

At al-Aqsa, a sentinel moment for Islam by Dr. Qanta Ahmed

...Only then can we honor the spirit of our Creation — as a reflection of our joint Maker and as blood-siblings in faith, recognizing the holiest site of Judaism predated the birth of Islam by centuries. Anything other is mere objectification of a site which has been held holy for centuries before, and since, Islam, and to make justification of such objectification is not the work of Islam, but the mark of Islamism, an Islamism which seeks not only to eject the believing Jew from his holy worship but the believing Muslim too. Make no mistake, this is not Islam, This is Islamism. And of Islamism and its insatiable quest for cultural domination, there can be no more Sentinel sign than this.

Dr.Qanta Ahmed..
Times of Israel..
21 September '15..

For some years the gentle rhythm of the Jewish calendar has whispered in my Muslim ear. As my many Jewish friends around the world make their various observations — whether in degrees of devout orthodoxy or — in their own words – ‘culturally Jewish’ but ‘avowedly secular’, it has over the years become impossible for me to ignore the arrival of this, the holiest time of the Jewish year.

It was in South Carolina that I first attended Shabbat services. It was in New York that I first learned of Selichot. It was in Ra’anana, Israel that I first fasted on Yom Kippur. It was in Long Island that I first recited the Kaddish, as we buried my rabbi. It was in Boston that I first celebrated a Jewish marriage. In the intervening years I have grown to anticipate and enjoy the arrival of Rosh Hashanah — the Head of the Year — and the Days of Atonement which immediately follow. As I watch my friends retreat into private observations and reflections, I too reflect, and account, hoping my name might also be recorded in the Book of Life anew.

My Jewish year began with a Jewish wedding in Tel Aviv, Shabbat in Melbourne and Sydney, memorial services in Warsaw, Krakow and Auschwitz as I marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, springtime in Jerusalem joining others in combating anti-Semitism, my witnessed commitment to defend the vulnerable as I accepted an Honorary Fellowship at The Technion-Israel Institute of Science and Technology, and an East Coast summer considering my contribution to honoring Jewish memory with colleagues at the Shoah Foundation.

In between, I have practiced medicine and Islam. I have observed Ramadan, performed my salaat and, as every Muslim with means is required, spent freely in the name of my Maker. Though not a Jew, increasingly I find my Muslim life enriched by the Jewry surrounding it, my Islam informed by the mysteries of the Jewish year experienced through the Judaism vividly embodied by the diverse Jewish people who accompany me in this life.

How different my comfort with the proximity of Judaism to my Islam, a proximity which constantly deepens my attachment to my own faith as well as the faith revealed to us by Moses’. Judaism increases my understanding of Our God and expands my dimensions of Islam. How stark a difference this comfort in Jewish solidarity shown to me from the televised discomfort, the rage of Muslims rejecting Judaism at its epicenter, the self appointed Sentinels purportedly ‘guarding’ Al-Aqsa from the Jewish people, from the Keepers of God’s Covenant. How their aversion recoils, where my attraction draws me nearer. How their rejection colors hatreds violently, as my belief is calmed and soothed by Jewish love. How their repulsion of our sibling and ancestor faith, in one of mankind’s holiest places, an aversion so deep their sibling brethren are utterly unknown to them and through their unseeing eyes, they remain unknown to themselves. How detached these Muslims from the knowledge that Judaism is Islam’s predecessor, the Torah among our Divine Books, Judaism’s tablets, then texts, our Informer, its laws our commandments, its covenants, templates of our foundation, its laws our precedents, its followers, like us ViceRegents of our Maker, no less than our sacred flesh. While I have been circumnavigating the globe deep in the Jewish Diaspora, at the epicenter of Jewish spirit, at the center of Abrahamic faith, the forces between Muslims and Jews repel both peoples magnetically asunder.

As I watch the reports of upheaval at al-Aqsa, the new Jewish year has commenced with turbulence. The discovery of explosives inside the third holiest site of Islam, the IDF’s confiscation of these items to ensure the peace, the incendiary retaliation these measures triggered, sufficient to trigger an EU call for calm and firebrand Iran to demand an OIC Summit, bring me both despair and desolation, my memories of my own visits to these places newly vivid.

Nothing springs forth from a vacuum

...The enlightened vanguard of the global good-guy brigade – where Sky snugly fits in – still seethes with bias against this land’s Jews. Self-appointed foreign adjudicators – like Sky news editors – don’t hold Abbas accountable for impeding peace, for glorifying the murderers of Jewish children and for inciting to jihad Husseini-style. All that transpires now was kick-started by Husseini, while Abbas convinces willingly gullible saps of what they’re anyway predisposed to imbibe. Contrary to postmodern predilections – like Sky’s – the past mustn’t be consigned to irrelevance. Unbroken historical continuities contextualize current events. Nothing springs forth from a vacuum.

Hebron 1929: exhorting the
mobs to save al-Aksa from the Jews

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
13 November '14..

For hours after last week’s vehicular terror in Jerusalem (capped by an attack on passersby with a metal rod), Sky News persisted in not telling it like it is.

Its running news ticker at the bottom of the screen single-mindedly informed viewers that “Israeli police say a driver has rammed his car into pedestrians in East Jerusalem in an ‘intentional’ attack causing several injuries.”

The very inclusion of the verb say sufficed to cast doubt on Israeli communiqués. Then, to chip further away at residual Israeli credibility the word intentionally was tendentiously placed in quotation marks. This surely was overkill, considering that the reliability of the Israeli report was already challenged by the caveat of the opening phrase.

If during the first few minutes of the incident Sky could somehow make excuses for what looked like thinly-veiled antagonism, it certainly couldn’t long after the event. Nevertheless, that hardly objective news bar was still featured when any duty editor of even grudging goodwill or nominal neutrality should have known better.

In contrast, another report was cited with unadulterated acceptance. Sky’s above mentioned “breaking news” flash was accompanied throughout – for as many hours – by a bulletin that stated matter-of-factly (without any caveats this time) that “Israeli police have clashed with Palestinians inside Jerusalem’s al-Aksa Mosque compound after Jewish nationalists announced plans to visit the site.”

The subliminal nuances were unmissable and there was no qualifying vocabulary. The al-Aksa Mosque compound designation suggested exclusive Muslim connections and no Jewish ones.

Then came the unequivocal attribution of causality. The clashes occurred “after Jewish nationalists announced plans to visit,” i.e. Jews instigated the clashes. Not a word appeared about rocks and Molotov cocktails stored in the sacred spot and tossed at Jews praying below in front of the Western Wall.

Such facts may interfere with Sky’s insinuation that Jews are interlopers, trespassing in what has only ever been a Muslim shrine. The implication is that it’s Jews who disturb the peace along with their police “inside” the compound.

The injection of the term nationalists sealed the negative connotation. Nationalists are villains in the lexicon of political correctness.

The sentinels on Sky’s moral high ground know whom to distrust a priori and whom to trust inherently. Uninitiated audiences perceive the world through the broadcasters’ distorting glass. Their opinions are thereby at least partly shaped and their preexisting prejudices are subtly reinforced.

To be sure, Sky isn’t the only overseas news outlet with an attitude. Almost all its purportedly pluralist and tolerant counterparts are equally disingenuous and almost all classify Temple Mount terminology as politically incorrect.

More often than not, anchors and reporters allude to Haram al-Sharif and lest the masses out there not be fully clued in, they add by way of elucidation that “the Haram” is where al-Aksa Mosque is located.

At most, Temple Mount comes in as an aside meant to clarify what the commotion is about. “This is also where Jews claim that their ancient temples once stood,” some correspondents throw in with a pinch of skepticism. Alternative edification is that “this is also what Jews refer to as Temple Mount.”

The undertones here are paramount. Jews invariably “claim.” Their version is hardly one that can be reasonably accorded credence. The Arab insistence that no Jewish temples or Jewish historical/religious ties to Jerusalem ever existed is thus amplified by media quibbling. Out of nowhere Jews seemingly invaded Jerusalem and out-of-the-blue they brazenly seek to overrun Muslim sanctuaries.

When and Why was the Myth of al-Aqsa Created? by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

...Should the world reshape the Middle East map just because Muslims decided to recycle the political problems of the Umayyads 1250 years after the curtain came down on their role in history?

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
Israel National News..
10 November '14..

The importance of Jerusalem for Jews and Christians is beyond dispute, since the connection of this city to Judaism and Christianity is part of universal concepts about history and theology. However, when it comes to modern politics, we hear over and over that Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims demand that Jerusalem become the capital of the future Palestinian state, owing to its holiness to Islam. The question is how and when this city became holy to Muslims.

When the Prophet Muhammad established Islam, he introduced a minimum of innovations. He employed the hallowed personages, historic legends and sacred sites of Judaism, Christianity, and even paganism, by Islamizing them. Thus, according to Islam, Abraham was the first Muslim and Jesus and St. John (the sons of Miriam, sister of Moses and Aaron) were prophets and guardians of the second heaven. Many Biblical legends ("asatir al-awwalin"), which were familiar to the pagan Arabs before the dawn of Islam, underwent an Islamic conversion, and the Koran as well as the Hadith (the Islamic oral tradition), are replete with them.

Islamization was practiced on places as well as persons: Mecca and the holy stone - al-Ka'bah - were holy sites of the pre-Islamic pagan Arabs. The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and the Great Mosque of Istanbul were erected on the sites of Christian-Byzantine churches - two of the better known examples of how Islam treats sanctuaries of other faiths.

Jerusalem, too, underwent the process of Islamization: at first Muhammad attempted to convince the Jews near Medina to join his young community, and, by way of persuasion, established the direction of prayer (kiblah) to be to the north, towards Jerusalem, in keeping with Jewish practice; but after he failed in this attempt he turned against the Jews, killed many of them, and directed the kiblah southward, towards Mecca.

Muhammad's abandonment of Jerusalem explains the fact that this city is not mentioned even once in the Koran. After Palestine was occupied by the Muslims, its capital was Ramle, 30 miles to the west of Jerusalem, signifying that Jerusalem meant nothing to them.

Islam rediscovered Jerusalem 50 years after Muhammad's death. In 682 CE, 'Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr rebelled against the Islamic rulers in Damascus, conquered Mecca and prevented pilgrims from reaching Mecca for the Hajj. 'Abd al-Malik, the Umayyad Calif, needed an alternative site for the pilgrimage and settled on Jerusalem which was then under his control. In order to justify this choice, a verse from the Koran was chosen (17,1 = sura 17, verse 1) which states (trans. by Majid Fakhri):

"Glory to Him who caused His servant to travel by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, whose precincts We have blessed, in order to show him some of Our Signs, He is indeed the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing."

The meaning ascribed to this verse (see the commentary in al-Jallalayn) is that "the furthest mosque" (al-masgid al-aqsa) is in Jerusalem and that Muhammad was conveyed there one night (although at that time the journey took three days by camel), on the back of al-Buraq, a magical horse with the head of a woman, wings of an eagle, the tail of a peacock, and hoofs reaching to the horizon. He tethered the horse to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount and from there ascended to the seventh heaven together with the angel Gabriel. On his way he met the prophets of other religions who are the guardians of the Seven Heavens: Adam, Jesus, St. John, Joseph, Idris (=Seth?), Aaron, Moses and Abraham who accompanied him on his way to Allah and who accepted him as their master.

Thus Islam tries to gain legitimacy over other, older religions, by creating a scene in which the former prophets agree to Muhammad's mastery, thus making him Khatam al-Anbiya' ("the Seal of the Prophets"). According to this legend, Islam came to the world in order to replace Judaism and Christianity rather than to live side by side with them.

Delusional Abbas says.....

Elder of Ziyon..
03 June '13..

Yesterday, everyone's favorite "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas pushed some more crazed conspiracy theories which are perfectly acceptable in mainstream Arabic discourse and that are rarely reported in the West.

In an interview with Saudi Arabia's Al Watan, Abbas spoke of the "imminent danger faced by the Al-Aqsa Mosque," claiming that excavations carried out by Israel on the courtyard and under the foundations threatens the mosque with collapse. Abbas bitterly complained about the "fanatic Jewish extremists" being allowed to enter the Temple Mount "to practice their religion," explaining that it is all part of "an evil and dangerous scheme to destroy [Al Aqsa] and establish the alleged Temple."

(Continue)

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.

.

Jerusalem - Whose Holy Sites are Under Attack?

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
01 April '13..

To hear Mahmoud Abbas tell it, Al-Aqsa Mosque -- Islam's third holiest shrine -- is under systematic attack by Israel. And not only Al-Aqsa, which sits atop Temple Mount, but all other Christian and Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem. Such was the alarm sounded by the Palestinian leader at last week's Arab League summit. In return, Arab leaders pledged a $1 billion fund to protect "Arab East Jerusalem."

Abbas followed up this Sunday during a trip to Amman, where he and King Abdullah signed an agreement to protect holy sites in Jerusalem. Again, Al-Aqsa was depicted as a prime target of Israeli attacks. But for good measure, the two leaders also professed to become protectors of all Muslim and Christian shrines in Jerusalem.

Not only was all this a bogus concoction since Al-Aqsa and all other religious shrines in Jerusalem remain open and under full Israeli protection. But conspicuously missing from all these supposedly threatened targets were Jewish holy sites in Israel's capital, where Temple Mount and the Western Wall are Judaism's most sacred places.

Somehow it escaped the attention of Abbas and King Abdullah that, if they really were sincere about protecting all sacred sites in Jerusalem, the only actually vulnerable shrines in Jerusalem and adjoining West Bank are Jewish ones.

(Video) They say Israelis provoke the Palestinians, so surely it's so.

LOTL..
27 December '12..





The latest from firstonethrough:

Israelis provoke the Palestinians (The Clash)

The Palestinians accuse Israel of provoking their ire and attacks for such activities as rebuilding a destroyed synagogue and archaeological digs. Those claims continue to this day.



However at the 1:48 mark one of the most famous "provocations" that was not, is highlighted. It was to become known as the "Al Aqsa Intifada" killing more than 1,137 Israelis from September 2000-2005. While mistakenly or more often deliberately being attributed to Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount as the contributing cause, the truth was known to lie elsewhere.

For those still unaware, Suha Arafat's, widow of Yasser Arafat, recent interview on Dubai TV, 16 December '12, could not be clearer.


MEMRITVVideos

Note: The Camp David negotiations he returned from and his meeting with Suha in Paris was actually July 2000, thus the (sic) next to her July 2001 reference.

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.
.

Kushner - From Israel: A Matter of Great Import

Arlene Kushner..
09 July '12..






The findings of the Levy Committee, with regard to Israel's right to build in Judea and Samaria, made news here in Israel today. See my post on this at:

http://arlenefromisrael.squarespace.com/current-postings/2012/7/5/july-5-2012-what-really-counts.html

The focus was on the fact that this report was turned over to the Ministerial Committee on Settlements yesterday and has been made public in its entirety.

In due course, the significance of the finding of the Levy Committee -- which was composed of former High Court Justice Edmund Levy; former Foreign Ministry legal advisor Alan Baker; and former deputy president of the Tel Aviv District Court Tchia Shapira -- may be considerable.

This was a report done with utmost seriousness and with regard for multiple legal precedents. As Baker said, "Our work was based in international, Jordanian, Israeli and even Ottoman laws and touched upon all issues relevant to land and territories."

While there is precious little building done today, there is the possibility of considerable construction to be done past the Green Line if these legal recommendations are taken seriously. Perhaps even more significantly at the moment, there should be the legalization of several communities currently in limbo, and at risk of being taken down.

But until the Ministerial Committee on Settlement or the government has reviewed the 89 page report and/or made recommendations based upon it, we are still in a holding pattern. Prime Minister Netanyahu has promised not to sit on the results.
~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to "Just-the-Opposite Facts" Theater, Temple Mount Chapter

Yisrael Medad
My Right Word
01 March '10

IMRA's Aaron Lerner pointed me to this news item which informs us that Jordan has condemned what they call a "raid on holy Jerusalem site" and they further term it, but of course, a "provocation".

According the the official press agency version "Israeli forces...stormed Al Aqsa Mosque" [stormtroopers, got that?]. And what 'started' it all? Well, "Israeli police opened the Bab Al Maghareba Gate early today for the entry of zionist extremists" [but they do that every day, to everyone. it's called freedom of access and it is a fundamental legal tenet].

Don't these Arabs understand pluralistic democratic society existence?

Further, we learn that

"Jordan rejects any attempt by Israeli occupation forces to harm holy sites in the Palestinian territories," State Minister for Media Affairs and Communication Nabil Sharif told Petra. "Storming Al Aqsa is an affront to the will of the international community and such action will impede efforts to kickstart the peace process to achieve stability in the region and set up an independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian state," Sharif added.

(Read full post)
.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar on "Arab Terrorism, the Myth of al Aqsa and Jerusalem"

H/T to JStreetJive
Blip.tv
09 February '10

Dr. Mordechai Kedar speaks on Arab Terrorism, the Myth of al Aqsa and Jerusalem at Temple Ahavath Torah in Stoughton, MA - (Part 1)



Dr. Mordechai Kedar on "Arab Terrorism and the Myth of al Aqsa Part 2



Related Article by Dr. Mordechai Kedar: A Jewish and Non-Legitimate State
.

Helping the Palestinians Falsify History

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
18 November 09

For sheer gall, Barack Obama’s labeling half of Israel’s capital a “settlement,” as Jonathan has pointed out, may be hard to beat. But a New York Times report of a new book about the Temple Mount is definitely in the running. Seeking to give readers some background, the report offered the following gem: “The lack of archaeological evidence of the ancient temples has led many Palestinians to deny any real Jewish attachment or claim to the plateau.”

We’ll ignore the fact that the Second Temple is actually well-documented in extant writings from the period, and that several sections of the Temple compound’s outer walls, as described in these writings, have been uncovered (the Western Wall being one of them).

Instead, let’s discuss why there is a dearth of findings from the Temples themselves. (1) There happens to be a mosque on the exact site where, according to tradition, the Temples once stood. (2) Israel, contrary to Palestinian propaganda, is not out to “destroy al-Aqsa”; indeed, it scrupulously avoids any action that might endanger the mosque. (3) Israel is so deferential to Muslim sensibilities that, after capturing the Mount in 1967, it handed control of the site back to the Muslim waqf. Which brings us to (4): for all these reasons, Israel has never excavated the only place in the world where remnants of the Temple could possibly be found. Nor were any digs conducted there before 1967: al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock have stood undisturbed for hundreds of years. And yes, it is hard to produce archaeological evidence if you never even conduct a dig.

What is outrageous about this report is not just the way it abets Palestinian falsifications of history, though it certainly does that: since the reader isn’t told that this “lack of evidence” stems from the fact that nobody ever looked, he naturally assumes that archaeologists did, in fact, look and found nothing.

Even more outrageous, however, is the way Israel’s generosity is being used against it: its very restraint in eschewing excavations on the Mount — its concern, again, for Muslim sensibilities, its desire to avoid even the appearance of harm to the mosques — has been twisted into “evidence” that no Jewish connection to the Mount ever existed.

This is a standard Palestinian tactic: Israel’s refusal to let Jews pray on the Mount, also in deference to Muslim sensibilities, is similarly used as “proof” that Jews have no connection to the site. After all, Muslims pray there; Jews don’t; QED. And this tactic has been wildly successful: most of the world is completely convinced that Israel lacks any rights on the Mount.

But if Israel’s generosity is being exploited in this fashion, perhaps Jerusalem needs to rethink its tactics — and start demonstrating the Jewish connection to the Mount in actions rather than words. Excavating under al-Aqsa would be too drastic a first step. But letting Jews pray on a designated section of the Mount devoid of mosques would be an excellent place to begin.

.