(Timely) Anticipating Islam’s conquest of Europe and America at Al-Aqsa

...“Europe has become old and decrepit, and needs human reinforcement. […] they have lost their fertility, so they look for fertility in their midst. We will give them fertility! We will breed children with them, because we shall conquer their countries – whether you like it or not, oh Germans, oh Americans, oh French, oh Italians, and all those like you. Take the refugees! We shall soon collect them in the name of the coming Caliphate. We will say to you: These are our sons. Send them, or we will send our armies to you.”...After all, one can find fanatics who come up with deranged rants in every creed. But since Muslims claim the Al-Aqsa mosque as Islam’s “third holiest” site, one should assume that the Islamic Waqf – which was left in charge of the whole Temple Mount after Israel’s victory in the Six Day War 1967 – would ensure that crackpots don’t get a platform in this supposedly so important mosque. Unfortunately, however, the hate-filled rant envisioning a Muslim conquest of Europe was by no means a unique incident.

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
First Posted 28 September '15..

Any European who would oppose Muslim immigration by arguing that the current waves of desperate people hoping to find safety and prosperity north of the Alps will pave the way for a hostile attempt to conquer Europe for Islam would certainly be denounced as an “Islamophobe.” But what do you call it when a preacher at the Al-Aqsa mosque – which is usually described as Islam’s “third-holiest” place – passionately announces that “soon, we will trample them [Europe’s Christians and Jews] underfoot, Allah willing”?



In an address delivered some two weeks ago at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Muhammad Ayed argued according to a translation provided by MEMRI that in Europe, “all the hearts are infused with hatred toward Muslims.” According to the Sheikh,

“Europe has become old and decrepit, and needs human reinforcement. […] they have lost their fertility, so they look for fertility in their midst. We will give them fertility! We will breed children with them, because we shall conquer their countries – whether you like it or not, oh Germans, oh Americans, oh French, oh Italians, and all those like you. Take the refugees! We shall soon collect them in the name of the coming Caliphate. We will say to you: These are our sons. Send them, or we will send our armies to you.”

If this sounds “Islamophobic,” the politically correct thing is of course to simply ignore this story – and this is just what most of the mainstream media seem to have done. It almost goes without saying that this is not the first time that politically inconvenient stories from the Muslim world have been ignored. Frequently these are stories that would show deeply ingrained Muslim Jew-hatred; however, the arguably very belated revelations in a recent New York Times report about the shocking “tolerance” adopted by the US military regarding the widespread sexual abuse of children by its Afghan allies also provide a more general indication of how eagerly western institutions apply double standards that downplay or ignore profound evils in Muslim societies.

Personally, I would agree that the above cited remarks by the Al-Aqsa preacher are not necessarily newsworthy. After all, one can find fanatics who come up with deranged rants in every creed. But since Muslims claim the Al-Aqsa mosque as Islam’s “third holiest” site, one should assume that the Islamic Waqf – which was left in charge of the whole Temple Mount after Israel’s victory in the Six Day War 1967 – would ensure that crackpots don’t get a platform in this supposedly so important mosque.

Unfortunately, however, the hate-filled rant envisioning a Muslim conquest of Europe was by no means a unique incident. Over the past year, MEMRI has documented several similar “sermons,” and one can only speculate how many go undocumented and what is preached in local mosques all over the Muslim world.

On July 24, Sheik Ahmad Al-Dweik declared in an address at the Al-Aqsa mosque that the “Caliphate” promised by Allah “will be the number one country in the world.”

Islam's Connection to Jerusalem? Tenuous or Less

...Still, for 1,300 years, various Islamic dynasties (Syrian, Egyptian and Turkish) continued to govern Jerusalem as part of their overall control of the Land of Israel, disrupted only by the Crusaders. What is amazing is that over that period, not one Islamic dynasty ever made Jerusalem its capital. By the 19th century, Jerusalem had been so neglected by Islamic rulers that several prominent Western writers who visited Jerusalem were moved to write about it. French writer Gustav Flaubert, for example, found “ruins everywhere” during his visit in 1850 when it was part of the Turkish Empire (1516-1917). Seventeen years later Mark Twain wrote that Jerusalem had “become a pauper village.”

Eli E. Hertz..
mythsandfacts.org..
21 April '14..

Despite 1,300 years of Muslim Arab rule, Jerusalem was never the capital of an Arab entity, nor was it ever mentioned in the Palestine Liberation Organization’s covenant until Israel regained control of East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967. Overall, the role of Jerusalem in Islam is best understood as the outcome of political exigencies impacting religious belief.

Mohammed, who founded Islam in 622 CE, was born and raised in present-day Saudi Arabia and never set foot in Jerusalem. His connection to the city came years after his death when the Dome of the Rock shrine and the al-Aqsa mosque were built in 688 and 691, respectively, their construction spurred by political and religious rivalries. In 638 CE, the Caliph (or successor to Mohammed) Omar and his invading armies captured Jerusalem from the Byzantine Empire. One reason they wanted to erect a holy structure in Jerusalem was to proclaim Islam’s supremacy over Christianity and its most important shrine, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

More important was the power struggle within Islam itself. The Damascus-based Umayyad Caliphs who controlled Jerusalem wanted to establish an alternative holy site if their rivals blocked access to Mecca. That was important because the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, was (and remains today) one of the Five Pillars of Islam. As a result, they built what became known as the Dome of the Rock shrine and the adjacent mosque.

To enhance the prestige of the ‘substitute Mecca,’ the Jerusalem mosque was named al-Aqsa. It means ‘the furthest mosque’ in Arabic, but has far broader implications, since it is the same phrase used in a key passage of the Quran called “The Night Journey.” In that passage, Mohammed arrives at ‘al-Aqsa’ on a winged steed accompanied by the Archangel Gabriel; from there they ascend into heaven for a divine meeting with Allah, after which Mohammed returns to Mecca. Naming the Jerusalem mosque al-Aqsa was an attempt to say the Dome of the Rock was the very spot from which Mohammed ascended to heaven, thus tying Jerusalem to divine revelation in Islamic belief. The problem however, is that Mohammed died in the year 632, nearly 50 years before the first construction of the al-Aqsa Mosque was completed.

Here we are and we have ascended, we ascend amid the storm

...The Palestinians understand very well that whoever controls the Temple Mount controls the spirit of the Jewish people as well as its great hope for renewal and independence. In every excavation that is undertaken in Jerusalem, in every bit of earth that is discarded from the Temple Mount by Muslim wickedness, one can hear the cries of ancient generations, proving without a doubt Jews' primacy in the place.

Dr. Haim Shine..
Israel Hayom..
11 November '13..

During a tempestuous debate in the Knesset last Monday, MK Jamal Zahalka (National Democratic Assembly) shouted out, "There is no Temple Mount. It is merely virtual. There is only the Al-Aqsa mosque."

If that is the case, it is unclear why Muslims are making such concerted efforts to erase any Jewish trace from the Temple Mount, just as the Roman emperor Hadrian did in the first century.

Hadrian destroyed Jerusalem and ploughed the earth of the Temple Mount, believing that as long as the Temple stood, the Jews would not stop longing for it. At the end of the day they would return home and re-establish their independence.

Hadrian was in error then, as the Arabs are today. You can plough the earth of the Temple Mount, but the Temple will stand in the heart of every Jew forever. Whoever fails to understand that the Temple Mount is the rock of our existence fails to understand the Jews and their unique history. Enormous empires have arisen and vanished, but the Jews march forward with vitality and play a leading role on the stage of global events.

It is a good thing that there is an Arab Knesset member who admits without hesitation or fear that the true struggle is over control of the Temple Mount. A struggle that is fundamentally religious and uncompromising, between Judaism and Islam. Many of us, especially on the Left, try to give the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a territorial-diplomatic character as if it can be solved through creative compromises.

The fertile minds of the Israeli Left managed to persuade many good people around the world that if Israel gives up a little more, peace will break out and Islamic terrorism will return its holy sword to its sheath. Time after time, without learning their lesson, Israeli leaders are misled by vain visions of phony peace. Some of them even managed to win a Nobel Peace Prize along with arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat. Only Israeli citizens learned the hard way that there is nothing new under the sun.

Distinguishing Temple Mount from Al Aqsa Mosque - Something that clueless reporters, "experts" can't.

...But lets look at the caption. It claims that the reason for these clashes are because more Jews are visiting the Al Aqsa Mosque. Only one problem: No Jews visit the Al Aqsa Mosque. Period.

Elder of Ziyon..
01 October '13..





Here is a Reuters photo and caption:

A Palestinian uses a sling to throw a stone at Israeli security forces during clashes in the West Bank city of Hebron September 27, 2013. Israeli police clashed with Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem's Old City, the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank on Friday, reflecting growing tensions over an increase in Jewish visits to the al-Aqsa mosque. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside

A Palestinian uses a sling to throw a stone at Israeli security forces during clashes in the West Bank city of Hebron September 27, 2013. Israeli police clashed with Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem's Old City, the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank on Friday, reflecting growing tensions over an increase in Jewish visits to the al-Aqsa mosque. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside

Notice how heroic the young man looks! Notice the angle of the photo, with the photographer in front of the slinger - normally a dangerous place to be. How likely is it that this photo was staged just for Reuters?

Oh, about 99%.

But lets look at the caption. It claims that the reason for these clashes are because more Jews are visiting the Al Aqsa Mosque.

Only one problem: No Jews visit the Al Aqsa Mosque. Period.

(Continue)

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What is the link between Boston and al-Aqsa?

The conceptual link between global terror and al-Aqsa, experts say, is a problem that mainly threatens Europe and the U.S., but the escalation of violence on the Temple Mount itself is a problem that is all ours -- and it must be addressed urgently.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
26 April '13..

What is the link between Chechen jihadists, with whom the Tsarnaev brothers -- the alleged terrorists who set off bombs at the Boston Marathon last week -- were thought to have been affiliated, and the inspiration for an east Jerusalem terror cell that reportedly planned to murder Jewish worshippers and police officers on the Temple Mount several weeks ago? How is the ideology that motivated the Boston bombing as well as the foiled Temple Mount terror attempt connected to the Islamic "party of liberation" Hizb ut-Tahrir, which operates within the Palestinian Authority, in east Jerusalem and in secret terror cells in Europe? And what is the relationship between some of the terror cells that have come out of the Israeli Arab population in recent years and these sources of inspiration?

The answer to these questions lies in religious publications, in sermons, in various websites and in Muslim books of religious law. Various surveillance and assessment bodies that deal with this type of material have held the following belief for quite some time: Islamic terror, in terms of its general worldview, boils down to the vision of establishing a global Islamic caliphate, in the spirit of the Prophet Muhammad, with Jerusalem as its capital.

* * *

A particularly vocal supporter of this vision is Sheikh Raad Salah, the head of the northern chapter of the Islamic Movement in Israel, who calls himself "Sheikh al-Aqsa." This vision is shared by at least some of the spiritual authorities that preside over international jihadist terror, which has many offshoots. Jerusalem and al-Aqsa, which have always been regarded as central symbols, have recently begun to play a more central role in the incitement and calls for battle: "Al-Aqsa is in danger." Today, the Muslim world openly blames Israel for planning and trying to destroy their holy mosque. The prevalent description of the al-Aqsa compound as being "held captive, under threat, desecrated and defiled" by Jews and Israelis, fans the flames and injects adrenaline directly into the arteries of jihadist terrorists around the globe.

This process -- interpreting the "al-Aqsa is in danger" call as a green light to perpetrate terror and as a rubber stamp that legitimizes jihadist terror -- has been ongoing for years. There are countless examples. Intelligence agencies in Israel and around the world have plenty of examples on record, but the general public is seldom exposed to them. They suggest a conceptual connection between global terror and al-Aqsa. They also suggest a similar conceptual connection between global jihad and the story in Chechnya, where the al-Aqsa mosque also serves as the connecting link.

From the Creators of "The One Thousand and One Nights

LOTL..

27 June '12..




The ever-watchful Yisrael Medad with the latest from the creators of "The One Thousand and One Nights"

Going Under by Yisrael Medad

"Zionist".

"Talmudic".

They're not racist. Not anti-Semitic. They just fabricate.

A Zionist plan to establish a Jewish museum under al-Aqsa mosque

Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage (AFEH) issued a statement on Tuesday revealing that the occupation authorities had recently ratified a budget of four million shekels (more than one million dollars) to establish a Jewish center.

The center will be built under the name “audio-visual Museum”, at the entrance of Wadi Hilweh neighborhood, a few meters from the south of Al Aqsa Mosque. [a. it's much more than a "few meters". b. it is outside the walled enclosure. - YM] The foundation added that the site on which the center will be set up is a historic water well and a cavity of seven meters under the ground. The museum will be connected to the tunnels’ network dug by the occupation underground in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Shragai - Is the Temple Mount in their hands?

Nadav Shragai
Israel Hayom
23 September '11

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=1236

Capture of would-be suicide bomber at Al-Aqsa Mosque no surprise to Israel Security Agency • Still lots of attacks from Hamas in Jerusalem and all over the South • Syrian Hamas headquarters perceived as natural source and no one is talking about the one in Turkey.

The capture of would-be suicide bomber Said Qawasmeh in the Al-Aqsa Mosque came as no surprise to officials of the Israel Security Agency, otherwise known as the Shin Bet. They had captured terrorists inside the Temple Mount compound before. However, the fragile political situation gives rise to suspicions that terror attacks by Hamas in the Jerusalem region and in Judea and Samaria, which had subsided a little over the past several years, will resume at full strength with support from Hamas in Gaza and the organization’s headquarters in Turkey, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

“Hamas’ interest in perpetrating attacks stems not only from its conflict with the Palestinian Authority, but also from its rivalry with extremist organizations,” a high-ranking security official warned. September is about to reach the boiling point.

Sunday, Aug. 21, was a tough day for the communities on the Gaza periphery. Sirens sounded in Ashkelon and Beersheba as well. Grad and Qassam rockets left destruction and traumatized people in their wake, and residents were told to remain in protected areas. While most of the media attention was directed southward, at the same time, police and soldiers in Jerusalem were in a race against time, trying to capture Qawasmeh, 20, a would-be suicide terrorist from Hebron who, according to intelligence, was on his way to Pisgat Zeev.

The bomb that Qawasmeh was supposed to use had been captured 24 hours earlier. It comprised a sprinkler filled with 6 kilograms of explosives, with ball bearings glued around it. Azhak Arrafa, a resident of east Jerusalem who was supposed to transport Qawasme to his destination, was the one who led the police officers and the security services to the bomb, which had been hidden near his home in the Ras al-Amud neighborhood.

Security officials did not know whether Qawasme was carrying additional explosives on his person. A nerve-wracking 24 hours passed. It seemed that the earth had swallowed Qawasmeh. In the end, one long-time detective guessed that Qawasme was hiding inside a mosque, perhaps even the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. He based his guess on past experience: Over the years, there had been several incidents in which mosques in general, and the mosques on the Temple Mount in particular, have served as hideouts in which terrorists who had perpetrated attacks, or were about to carry them out, met, organized or hid.

Islamic movement tried to remove evidence of Jewish Jerusalem

Anshel Pfeffer
The Jewish Chronicle
12 August '10

An investigation into the failure of law enforcement agencies to prevent what is alleged to have been an attempt to wipe out Jewish history on Temple Mount 11 years ago looks set to cause widespread controversy.

The publication of the report into the removal, by night, of 6,000 cubic metres of mud from beneath the Al Aqsa Mosque by the Muslim Wakf authority that oversees the management of the mosque compound, has been suppressed for months by the government.

The dirt was dug out to make way for a new underground mosque, but Israeli archaeologists and politicians claim that another motive of the Wakf and the Islamic Movement - which financed the work - was to remove evidence of Jewish history from the site where the two temples of Jerusalem stood.

24 September '07: Archaeologist - The Government Is

Allowing the Destruction Of The Temple Mount


The excavation and building was carried out without any official permit from the planning authorities. Belated intervention by the Justice Ministry, spurred on by a rare petition signed by politicians, writers and archaeologists from the right and the left, brought the digging to an end, but it was too late.

Thousands of volunteers have been sifting ever since through the hundreds of tons of dirt, dumped in a valley east of Jerusalem, unearthing rare remnants of the Temple Mounts from all ancient periods of Jerusalem, going back to the Bronze Age. Among them were fragments and coins from the First and Second Temples, and relics of the Persian, Babylonia, Maccabean, Herodean, Roman, early Christian and Byzantine eras. The work is of questionable historic value as the rules of archaeology mandate that findings should be recorded in their original location, but is still ongoing.

(Read full story)

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With Elevator Proposal, New Temple Mount Lie On the Rise

Tamar Sternthal
CAMERA/Snapshots
17 August '10

Every visitor to the Western Wall is familiar with the long staircase, situated next to the Aish HaTorah Yeshiva, down to the Kotel plaza from the Jewish Quarter. It's certainly memorable for those pushing a stroller or nursing an injury, and impassable for the wheelchair bound.

There's good news then for the very young, the very old, and the mobility-impaired. The Jerusalem Post reports that a proposal for an elevator is being considered:

The elevator, proposed by the Company for the Reconstruction and Development of the Jewish Quarter, would start at Misgav Ledach Street and descend 21 meters to a new pedestrian tunnel. It would greatly improve access for visitors in wheelchairs or those with other disabilities, who now have to contend with several flights of stairs. The pedestrian tunnel would be 60-70 meters in length and pass underneath the stairs near the Aish HaTorah Yeshiva.

At present, the only way for visitors in wheelchairs to reach the Kotel is through the road leading to Dung Gate, which is very steep and has no sidewalks.

(Read full post)

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So much for Holy Basin fantasies

Palestinians oppose elevator in Jewish Quarter for handicapped access to Western Wall


IMRA
16 August '10

Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

Years ago Yossie Beilin proudly proclaimed that he solved all the issues with his Palestinian pal Mahmoud Abbas with a proposal to "solve" the conflict. His "solution" for Jerusalem was to appoint a committee to resolve the issues.

Yes. Sounds funny in retrospect, but given that 99.99% of Israelis and 99.9999999% of Israeli politicians don't look beyond the headlines, he got a lot of mileage with the claim that he had a "solution".

Nowadays there are all kinds of politicians with a "solution" for Jerusalem in which the issue of sovereignty over the heart of Jerusalem is solved by running it with - that's right - a committee.

Another joke.

So here is a simple example of how this would be a joke.

An elevator to provide handicapped access to the Western Wall from the Jewish Quarter of the Old City is opposed by the Palestinians because it somehow threatens the Al-Aqsa Mosque to build an elevator in the Jewish Quarter next to the Aish Hatorah Yeshiva. That's not adjacent to the Al-Aqsa Mosque - its way on the other side of the plaza.

So if the Arabs have a problem with building an elevator for handicapped access in the Jewish Quarter, just imagine what would happen running the Old City via committee.

Report: Israel to build elevator to Western Wall
Published yesterday (updated) 16/08/2010 21:54
www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=308471

JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israel is planning to construct an elevator leading to the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City, Israeli media reported Monday.

The project will be proposed to planning committees that will make a final decision on the 56-meter structure, the Israeli daily Ma'ariv reported Tuesday.

The elevator is to be named after US businessman Baruch Klein, who will fund the $10 million project, Ma'ariv reported.

The Al-Aqsa Foundation says the plans are a threat to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is adjacent to the Western Wall.

The area is considered the third holiest in Islam and holiest in Judaism.

In a statement, the foundation said the project intended to divide the mosque and prevent worshipers from reaching it, citing the plan as an attempt by Israeli forces to increase the presence of Jews in the area.

The statement warned that the square in front of the wall could be used as a base to attack the compound......

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Talking to the Wall

Emmanuel Navon
For the Sake of Zion
06 July '10

Chief PA Negotiator Saeb Erekat denied on Saturday a report in the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat claiming that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas had submitted a written proposal “agreeing” to Israel maintaining its control over the Western Wall.

Do the French need anyone’s approval to maintain their control over the Eiffel Tower, or does America need approval to maintain its control over the Statue of Liberty? The fact that Erekat is claiming Palestinian sovereignty over the ultimate witness and symbol of Jewish history is as offensive as it is absurd –though anyone familiar with the Palestinian “re-reading” of history wouldn’t be surprised.

A few days before Erekat’s denial, the PA-appointed Mufti claimed that Israel was threatening the Al-Aqsa Mosque (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 26, 2010). This past Sunday, the PA television broadcast an image of a demonic-looking Jew eating the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Accusing the Jews of destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque is not a new blood-libel. Hadj Amin al-Husseini inaugurated this practice in 1929, hereby causing the massive killings of Jews, and Arafat repeated it in September 1996 and in September 2000. On December 6, 1931, al-Husseini convened a pan-Islamic Conference in Jerusalem with the declared purpose of galvanizing the Muslim world around his political struggle against the Jews. He disseminated photomontages showing Jews with machine guns attacking the Dome of the Rock.

In September 2000, Arafat launched a terror war against Israeli civilians (cleverly named al-Aqsa Intifada), calling upon the Palestinian Arabs and the entire Muslim world to "defend" the al-Aqsa Mosque from the Jews. He sent out to foreign news agencies a photomontage portraying an Israeli policeman seemingly beating-up a defenseless and blood-covered faced Arab. This picture was published on the front page of the New York Times with the title: "An Israeli policeman and a Palestinian on the Temple Mount." In the pictures' background was a gas station, which is obviously nowhere to be found on the Temple Mount. Moreover, the alleged "Palestinian" was in fact a Jewish American yeshiva student who had been beaten up by an Arab mob.

(Read full article)

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The Islamization of Jerusalem

Mordechai Kedar
Hudson New York
09 April '10
Posted before Shabbat

Although the importance of Jerusalem for Christians and Jews is part of universal concepts of history and theology and beyond dispute, when it comes to modern politics, we hear over and over again Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims demanding that Jerusalem become the capital of the future Palestinian state, owing to its holiness in Islam.

The question is: When and how did 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.

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; the Koran as well as the Hadith (the Islamic oral tradition), are replete with them.

Islamization was enforced 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 Islamization: At first Muhammad tried to convince the Jews near Medina to join his young community. By way of persuasion, he established the direction of prayer (kiblah) to be to the north, towards Jerusalem, in keeping with Jewish practice; but after he failed in this effort, he turned against the Jews, killed many of them, and directed the kiblah southward, towards Mecca.

(Read full article)
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Akiva Eldar Clueless in Jerusalem

Tamar Sternthal
CAMERA Media Analysis
23 March '10

"It's clear these leaders have no clue what's happening in Israel's largest city," veteran Ha'aretz writer Akiva Eldar charges in his March 22 Op-Ed, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. But one wonders whether it's not Eldar himself who hasn't got a clue when he writes in the very same paragraph:

For 17 years, since the days of the Peres-Yitzhak Rabin administration, holy places in the Old City have been closed to Muslim and Christian believers from the occupied territories. The only East Jerusalem residents allowed to enter the Temple Mount compound are women and the elderly.

In general, the thousands of West Bank Palestinians with permits to enter Israel (for work, study and other purposes) and all east Jerusalem Arabs, including men, have had free access to the Temple Mount over the last 17 years. There have been periods of heightened violence which prove to be the exception; at those times, access is usually limited to men over the age of 45 or 50 and women of all ages. An example of this restricted period fell earlier this month, as Hamas called a "day of rage," inciting violence on the Temple Mount and beyond. The fact that intermittent closures and restrictions are the exception, as opposed to the rule, is apparent from the media reports which note the beginning or the end of a more restrictive period. Thus, Akiva Eldar's own newspaper reported March 17, 2010:

Earlier Wednesday, Israel lifted its closure on the West Bank and granted open access to the Al-Aqsa mosque, with police saying that thousands of troops will remain on high alert but reported no disturbances. Israel originally sealed off the territory last week.

There are also periods of complete closure on the West Bank, such as during Jewish holidays, in which West Bank Arabs may not enter Israel aside from humanitarian cases. Yet even during a period of closure during the Jewish new year (Rosh Hashanah) which fell on September 2009, nearly 60 percent of the West Bank Palestinian population still had access to Jerusalem, according to the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The Sept. 16-29 "Protection of Civilians Report" by OCHA details:

(Read full report)
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AP's Caption Challenged Photographer

Tamar Sternthal
CAMERA/Snapshots
15 November 09

Remember Bernat Armangue, the AP photographer whose erroneous photo caption wrongly stated that a Palestinian protestor passed out, even though he was holding his hand up in the air? (CAMERA staff prompted a correction.)

Once again, Bernat Armangue is caption challenged. Consider the following photo and caption:

An ultra Orthodox Jewish man pauses in front [sic] the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third-holiest site and known by Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009

Here are the problems with this caption, starting with the fundamental falsehood followed by two secondary points:

1) This caption gives the misimpression that the man is actually standing in front of the mosque, on the Temple Mount. Given the tensions surrounding the Temple Mount in recent weeks, the presence of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man standing in front of the mosque could be enough to set off additional Arab rioting, both on the mount and in nearby eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods.

In reality, he is apparently standing at the top of the steps that lead down to the Western Wall. He is resting his left arm on something, most likely the wall at the overlook at the top of those steps. From where he stands, he is separated from the Temple Mount by the Western Wall plaza. Especially in light of the sensitivity of the site, there is a huge difference between an ultra-Orthodox man standing on the entrance steps to the Western Wall, an area next to the Temple Mount and completely under Israeli control, versus an ultra-Orthodox man standing in front of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, on the Temple Mount itself, which is under the day-to-day control of the Islamic Waqf.

This would not be the first time that an AP photo caption has incorrectly placed a scene on the Temple Mount.

2) Why refer to the Temple Mount as the third holiest site in Islam and not point out that it is the holiest in Judaism?

3) The Al-Aqsa Mosque is not known by Jews to be the Temple Mount, it is known to Jews to be on the Temple Mount.

(Also the building in the photo is not the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is located on the southern end of Temple Mount. HT to Naftali on this point)

AP corrected photo captions in September 2000 and May 2009. We await a November 2009 correction as well.

(Hat tip to Yisrael Medad, who noticed this photo on BBC's Web site).

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Notes From the Eternal and Undivided Capital of the Jewish People

Rachel Abrams
The Weekly Standard
26 October 09

A young eastern European girl survives the Holocaust, but she has lost all. First, perhaps, like so many countless others, her father is shot in the street before her eyes among scores of men rounded up in the ghetto in which her family has been living in starvation and rising terror; next, possibly, her mother dies of dysentery in the train to Auschwitz; later, maybe, when they arrive at the camp she is separated from her two brothers and they are never seen again. How does she survive and make it to Palestine? Somehow. She doesn’t speak of it, and it does not in any case seem to be the question that plagues her. In time, she marries, creates a new family, watches as her refuge becomes the State of Israel. The question that does interest her, and which she continues to ask herself, over and over again, and with which she haunts everyone among the living around her, is why she alone of all her family survived. Her son grows up; the question permeates his life. It enters the army with him, accompanies him as he rises through the ranks to become a major general. On the day on which he is named to one of the highest posts in the Israeli military, she, his mother, sits through the ceremony, then comes to him and tells him: “Now I know. Now I know why I survived.”
***
My sister, who has lived here for three decades and has just sent her third and fourth children to the army, called information a while ago to get the number of a Jerusalem restaurant. “What?” demanded the operator. “Why are you going to that restaurant? It’s terrible!” It’s better in Hebrew. But still.
***
"The fate of Jerusalem will be determined only by confrontation and not by the negotiating tables," says a survivor of a different stripe, Hamas “leader” Khaled Meshaal, from his hidey hole in Damascus, as a day of rioting by Palestinian Arabs on the Temple Mount ends. "Jerusalem is all of Jerusalem . . . . The Arabs and Muslims are [the city's] residents, and the Zionists have no claim over it." How much of this is due to the Obama Middle East policy? An un-keepable promise is made to the Palestinians that a negotiation in their favor will take place in exchange for little beyond words from their mouths (their word is their bond). Their response to the slow dawning upon them that this is a chimera is rage. A bunch of “Muslim youths” occupy the al Aqsa Mosque—one of their holiest sites—and from the windows of that sacred precinct stone and firebomb Israeli police. "I call for angry protests in Palestine and in the Arab world,” says Meshaal. “We must send a message to the world: In light of the settlements and actions in Jerusalem, there are no negotiations and we must rethink our steps."
***
Israelis are more and more openly expressing their disgust with the latest and most dangerous incarnation of the so-called peace process. They worry, with growing intensity with every escalation of violent Arab rhetoric and rage, that in the end the process will have wrought not peace but the Third Intifada. And who can argue with that? I can't help wondering, though, as I listen to the muezzin's call to morning prayers, just what question it is the Arabs are answering when they raise their children to fight for a state this way.
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Temple Mount Troubles

Backspin/Honestreporting.com

26 October.com

Some of the media's flawed coverage of Palestinian-instigated violence on the Temple Mount.

Scenes of violence on and around the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City are currently causing further damage to Israel's already fragile diplomatic and public image. Descriptions of Israeli police "storming" the Temple Mount add to the impression, aided by the inflammatory rhetoric of Palestinian groups and neighbouring Arab states, that Israel is carrying out aggression against Muslim holy sites.

In the case of the Palestinian rioting on the Temple Mount, there has been no Israeli instigation of any kind. Contrary to Palestinian claims:

• There is no construction, renovation or archaeological activities taking place underneath the Temple Mount or al-Aqsa Mosque that could in any way endanger its foundations.

Israel has nothing to hide and even took journalists on a tour of the Western Wall tunnels to show that this is indeed the case. According to chief engineer, Ofer Cohen, "There's been a lot of talk about instability [based on ongoing archeological excavations in the area], and let me reassure you, we have improved the structural stability here tenfold over the last few years and have actually strengthened areas where there was danger of further collapse."

• There was no attempt by any Jewish groups to enter the Temple Mount compound to pray or confront Muslims at prayer.

Instead, during the High Holidays, a group of non-Jewish French tourists were pelted with rocks when entering the compound (as is their right to do so under existing arrangements for visitors). Israeli police intervened to protect those tourists.

As reported by Ha'aretz, "It's true those were French tourists," said a Fatah activist this week, in a belated acknowledgment on the Temple Mount incident that sparked riots earlier this month. But he immediately played dumb: "But how could we have known?"

The Guardian, however, simply reports:

Palestinians, however, have been increasingly concerned about right-wing Jewish settlers entering the compound and about rumours - denied by Israel - of excavations near the site.

The Times, meanwhile, recycles an old myth:

It was clashes outside the al-Aqsa mosque that sparked the second intifada - a widespread violent uprising by Palestinians. The origins of that event are traced to Ariel Sharon's provocative September 2000 visit to the compound.

This, despite the evidence to the contrary as stated by members of the Palestinian leadership themselves:

Whoever thinks that the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is wrong.. . . This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations, where he turned the table upside down on President Clinton. (Palestinian Communications Minister Imad Al-Faluji, Al-Safir, 3 March 2001. Translated by MEMRI)

The Daily Telegraph disregards proven history and a wealth of archaeological evidence, referring to the Temple Mount:

where the two Jewish temples of antiquity are believed to have been built.

"Believed"? There is no question (other than in the minds of those deliberately seeking to delegitimize Jewish rights and history in Jerusalem) that Jewish temples stood on that site. Period. So why does the Daily Telegraph feel the need to use such language?

In general, the media has been content to present the story in simplistic terms - the Israeli "Goliath" versus the Palestinian "David". A bit more digging and sophisticated analysis would reveal that the situation is much more complex as the leader of Israel's extremist Islamic Movement, in collaboration with Hamas, seeks to use the Temple Mount issue to create violence and instability. The situation is also part of a continuing fight between Hamas and Fatah over control of eastern Jerusalem.

Can the media not look at the bigger picture?

Please send your considered comments to:

• The Guardian - letters@guardian.co.uk
• The Times - letters@thetimes.co.uk
• The Daily Telegraph - dtletters@telegraph.co.uk

Remember to include an address and daytime telephone number.

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The Latest Round of War

carolineglick.com
10 October 09

An atmosphere of fantasy pervaded US President Barack Obama's Middle East peace processor George Mitchell's meetings with Israeli leaders on Thursday. In separate photo opportunities, Mitchell stood next to President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak and pledged to surmount all obstacles to achieve peace not only between Israel and the Palestinians but between Israel and Syria and Lebanon and with the whole Arab world.

Mitchell's remarks were even more stunning than similar statements from him during previous visits, because this week the Palestinians launched their newest terror campaign against Israel. Like previous rounds of Palestinian terror against Jews beginning in 1929, the latest round has been precipitated by wholly fabricated claims by Muslim leaders that Israel is asserting Jewish rights to the Temple Mount - Judaism's most sacred site - and so endangering the Muslim claim to the sole right to worship at the site that was never even mentioned in the Koran.

Beginning last week, convicted felon Raed Salah - who served a prison sentence for his Israeli Islamic Movement's northern branch's financial and other ties to Hamas - began inciting Israeli and Palestinian Muslim worshipers to make war against Israel. As he does every few months, Salah claimed falsely that Jews were committing the unforgivable "crime" of seeking to worship on the Temple Mount during Succot. Succot, which we observed this past week, is of course one of the three harvest festivals in which Jews are commanded to go up to the Temple Mount. This time, Salah's lies were accompanied by similar ones from Hamas leaders and Fatah leaders alike.

As is their standard practice, Palestinian leaders used known euphemisms in their declarations of war. Rather than openly call for Jews to be slaughtered, they called on Muslims to defend the Temple Mount from fictional Jewish assault. Wheelbarrows of rocks were found stockpiled on the Temple Mount on Monday. The rocks made clear the intention of Muslim leaders to reenact the 1990 stoning of Jewish Succot worshipers at the Western Wall. That Muslim assault precipitated a steep increase in Palestinian terror during the months that followed.

This week's riots similarly recall the 1996 Palestinian onslaught. That aggression was justified by the false Palestinian allegation that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's decision to open the Western Wall archeological tunnel was part of a secret plot to dislodge the Aksa Mosque. Yasser Arafat used his manufactured libel as an excuse to order his US-trained and Israeli-armed Palestinian security forces to open fire at IDF soldiers. In the violence that followed some 15 soldiers were killed.

The most violent exploitation of fabricated claims of Jewish aggression against Judaism's most sacred site to date, of course, came in September 2000. Then Arafat and his deputies in Fatah supported by Hamas and the Israeli Islamic Movement claimed that then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon's September 28, 2000, visit to the Temple Mount - a visit that had been coordinated in advance with the PA - was an act of war against the Palestinians and against Islam as a whole. More than 1,500 Israelis were killed in the seven years of terror war that followed.

Perhaps the most overt call for a renewal of jihad against Israel this week came from Fatah leader and titular PA President Mahmoud Abbas. In an interview on Yemenite television, Abbas said, "The second intifada erupted because of Sharon's visit to [the Temple Mount] and... it lasted seven years. This time, therefore the matter of Jerusalem requires a much greater effort [by the Palestinians], something more practical. It's not enough to talk about Jerusalem in books, or to give sermons in mosques. There is a need to work for it."

THE NEWEST round of violence has been building up for the past month. According to data released by the IDF, over the past month, the volume of terror attacks nearly doubled, from 53 attacks in August to 95 in September. This week's spike in violence caused IDF commanders to warn of the possibility that the violence will spread throughout Judea and Samaria. With the near seamless integration of Arab Israeli leaders in the incitement of violence, there is good reason for concern that Arab Israelis will play a prominent role in the newest round of jihad against Israel.

Abbas and his prime minister Salaam Fayad have augmented their violent attacks against Israel with a renewed diplomatic assault against the Jewish state. Fayad and Abbas have both called for the US and European governments to condemn Israel's imaginary provocations and moves to "Judaize" the eternal capital of the Jewish people. Rather than condemn these Fatah leaders for their key roles in inciting violence, the Europeans have been embracing them. Led by Sweden, which holds the rotating EU presidency, European governments have demanded that Israel end its provocative behavior.

For its part, rather than dismissing these obviously false allegations out of hand, the Obama administration demanded that Israel give an accounting of its actions to prove that it is not provoking Palestinian violence.
(Continue)

The Incitement Towards a Third Intifada

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
08 October 09

There are clear attempts being made to spark a third intifada in Jerusalem. Violence by Israeli Arabs started two weeks ago in the wake of the meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Obama and the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and Obama’s inflammatory call at the UN for a Palestinian state that ends the occupation that began in 1967.

In an ominous echo of the ‘spontaneous’ rioting over Ariel Sharon’s walk on the Temple Mount in 2000 which was used as the pretext for the mass murder of Israelis through years of suicide bombings (Palestinian leaders later admitted the riots had been part of a planned strategy) the current spate of riots followed all-too familiar and demonstrably spurious claims that Israel was threatening the al Aqsa mosque. Last Sunday, after Palestinian Authority calls for Arabs to flood the site of al Aksa to protect it from so-called Jewish extremists (of whom, it goes without saying, there has been no evidence whatever) Israel barred men between the ages of 18 and 45 from ascending the site, whereupon Arabs hurled rocks and bottles at the police.

In the Jerusalem Post, Aaron Klein identifies the instigators of the unrest as Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority:

The riots are being directly incited by the PA, whose official media outlets and institutions are stoking Arab flames by claiming right-wing extremist Jews are attempting to threaten Al-Aksa Mosque - a decades-old blood libel that should be easily dismissible in light of heavy Israeli restrictions on Jews and Christians from ascending the Mount during most hours of the day, whereas Muslims are usually free to access the site 24/7.

Indeed, Israeli law prohibits Jews and Christians from praying on the site. If any so-called extremist Jew attempted to enter Al-Aksa, he or she would likely be immediately removed from the Temple Mount by Israeli police, who follow Jewish tour groups very closely and coordinate with the Wakf, the Islamic custodians of the site.

The PA is not just inciting violence; its officials also assist the riots. On Monday Israeli security forces released from custody Jerusalem's senior PA official, Khatem Abed Al-Kadr, who had been detained on suspicion of inciting riots. The PA-aligned Islamic Movement is reportedly even sponsoring buses to transport young, riled-up Israeli Arabs to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount from Umm el-Fahm.

Klein identifies two reasons for Abbas’s incitement:

It seems the PA, emboldened by Obama's speech, may be using the riots as a pressure tactic to send a clear message to Israel - if negotiations do not create a state in the near future, expect another intifada. The PA under Arafat was notorious for negotiating on the one hand while leading a violent campaign against Israel on the other.

Already, some of Obama's policies have hardened Palestinian bargaining positions. Most notably, the PA is now demanding a complete halt to Jewish construction in the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem in line with the US president's same demand. The PA never before set a settlement freeze as a prerequisite for talks.

The second suggested reason is that Abbas is trying to deflect Palestinian anger over his decision to call for a delay in the proposed UN show-trial of Israel over the Goldstone report.

Let us not forget that it is the ‘moderate’ Abbas and the forces he leads who America and the west say are ‘entitled’ to a state of their own, to which Israel is unreasonably providing obstacles. Without any doubt, Obama’s bullying of Israel has strengthened Arab rejectionism, undermined any fragile moves towards moderation and helped incite the Arab mobs to further hysteria. This is particularly irresponsible since Jerusalem’s Arabs, along with the rest of the region (as with Muslims in the rest of the world, including Britain), are steadily being radicalised by jihadi influence.

On Tuesday night, the Israeli Islamic leader Raed Salah was arrested on charges of inciting the rampage on Temple Mount. The flashpoint now threatens to be this Friday’s prayers after Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood (and the ‘moderate’ infamously embraced in London by Ken Livingstone), called for Arabs and Muslims to make next Friday a day of anger... to confront the ferocious Zionist attack against the Aqsa Mosque and the occupied city of Jerusalem.

We hold our breath.
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Who is really to blame for the tensions on the Temple Mount?

Avi Isaacharoff
Haaretz
05 October 09

"Sunday, however, it seemed as if the appropriate conclusions had been drawn: After learning that dozens of Muslims planned to await the arrival of "extremist Jews" at the Temple Mount, the police decided that the entire area would remain closed to non-Muslim visitors."

Palestinian clashes with Israeli police on Sunday and on the day before Yom Kippur near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City have made foreign diplomats wonder whether Israel is enacting a new policy on the Temple Mount, which is serving to exacerbate tensions.

Media outlets and senior Palestinian Authority officials have contributed significantly to this perception after repeatedly claiming that Israel is planning to allow a group of "extremist settlers" to pray at the mosque. Even the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, has blamed Israel for implementing a dangerous policy on the Temple Mount that is liable to lead to a conflagration.

Yet, reality, as always, is a bit more complicated. The status quo in the plaza surrounding the Al-Aqsa Mosque has in fact not changed since 2003. The entry of Jews and tourists is permitted on the Temple Mount from 7:30 to 10 A.M., and from 12:30 to 1:30 P.M. These visits do not have to be coordinated with officials of the Waqf (Muslim trust) and take place without any interference. Indeed, last Thursday, for example, the area was totally calm. At 1 P.M., dozens of tourists could be seen wandering around the plaza.

The advent of the holiday season in Israel, combined with the desire of Palestinian politicians to win a few minutes of fame, has recently led, however, to various violent incidents.

At present, the PA is not doing enough to ease tensions, while the Islamic Movement's northern faction is apparently working in concert with a number of Palestinian figures in an effort to spark an escalation of hostilities on the mount.

In the past, revenues generated by the tourist visits there; which reached some $200,000 per month; were transferred to the Waqf, which is run by Jordanian authorities. Since the outbreak of the second intifada, however, there has been no coordination of visits with the Waqf, and in 2003, Israel unilaterally opened the Temple Mount to tourists.

Sheikh Azzam Al-Khatib, the head of the Waqf, said that just before Yom Kippur, a number of Jewish groups distributed notices announcing that they planned to visit the Temple Mount on the eve of the holiday. In response, the former mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, called on Muslim worshipers to gather at Al-Aqsa Mosque last Sunday, to defend it against the Jews. His call was also taken up by Hatem Abdel Khader, the Fatah official who holds the Jerusalem portfolio, and other factions belonging to the Islamic Movement.

After morning prayers that day, some 200 people gathered at the square waiting for the Jews to enter.

"The police knew about this," Al-Khatib said. "One of the officers who is responsible for police coordination with the Waqf, called me and I warned him not to open the Temple Mount to Jewish worshipers."

At 7:30 A.M., the Mughrabim Gate was opened and a group of tourists entered the compound. Muslims began hurling stones at them and at the police officers who tried to hurry the tourists away from the scene.

Sunday, however, it seemed as if the appropriate conclusions had been drawn: After learning that dozens of Muslims planned to await the arrival of "extremist Jews" at the Temple Mount, the police decided that the entire area would remain closed to non-Muslim visitors.

Related: Another Day In Israel
Temple Mount: 'Palestinians' Riot
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Another Day In Israel

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
05 October 09

The Palestinian Authority is condemning Israel for restricting access to the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. In fact, there is a call to arms of sorts: “We call on the Palestinian public to confront Israel and its plans, that are intended to prevent the Palestinian people from fulfilling their aspirations of establishing a Palestinian state in the occupied territories,” the PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayad announced. What’s more, the PA condemned “Israel’s attempts to conduct Jewish prayer services in the Aqsa compound” and calls on the entire world “to force Israel to halt is efforts to Jewify the city.” “Jewify”? That’s a subtle touch. What behind this?

Well, it seems that Israeli police decided to restrict access — to those under 50 years old (terrorist-profiling has its benefits, no little old ladies to be bothered there) — because“wheelbarrows filled with rocks had been discovered throughout the Aqsa Mosque compound on Sunday.” According to the JPost report:

Palestinians had filled the wheelbarrows with stones and bricks in preparation for riots in the Old City, police assessed. The discovery of the wheelbarrows, in addition to intelligence information and the call on Palestinians to “come and defend” Al-Aqsa, led the police to restrict entrance to the Temple Mount.

The Orthodox Union put out a statement condemning the PA’s actions, noting that this all occurs during the joyous festival of Sukkot. Peace Now chimes in with a sniveling call to stop the violence, unwilling to identify who the rock gatherers were. Israel must be condemned, you see, for being unhelpful in the peace process. (Is the rock-throwing part of that process?) No word from the Obama administration yet. I’m sure there is an East Jerusalem apartment building somewhere occupying their focus.

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