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Menu There is no diplomatic solutionIsrael should declare three nos;
no to nuclear Iran, no to two-state solution, no to bi-national state
no to nuclear Iran, no to two-state solution, no to bi-national state
I see that I was a bit ambiguous there. It was the site of the Dome which had been used for centuries as a rubbish dump. Because I was writing about the Aksa just before that, It might have been mistakenly believed, that I meant that the Aksa site had been the rubbish dump,
Sorry.
@ deanblake:
You are making the common mistake that many others make. You refer to the Dome of the Rock, which is NOT a mosque. The Al Aksa Mosque is built along the southern edge of the platform, and although destroyed several times by earthquakes and rebuilt… in 2012 an archaeologist discovered underground at that site, the remains of a Byzantine Church, and under that a mikvah of Herod’s time.. Which is what the original;tradtion (before this discovery) always said, (paraphrasing) that the Aksa was originally a Byzantine Church which had a few domes added to it and converted to a mosque. It originally was a part of the colonnade of Herod’s Temple which was destroyed by the Romans. Before the Dome, it was a huge rubbish dump.
The Dome was built by Al Malik, who was fighting a civil war (which he eventually won) against the Meccan Arabs and a rival Caliph. He did this because a Jewish advisor told him that the Mount was the Holiest place in the whole world.-where the sacrifice of Isaac was to have taken place. That G-D was there…etc… The Dome was built deliberately with 4 entrances, at the points of the compass, to show that all were welcome from everywhere. Ths was whlst he was tryng to wean away Arabs from allegiance to Mecca; at the same time his general was conducting the war against the rival Caliph..
I have been all around inside the Dome, in the late 1970s, and saw the Rock; it looked volcanic, pitted and eroded with a railing all around, and a tiny set of steps at the side (about 4-5) down to where there was supposed to be a holy cave. It wasn’t a cave, just a depression in the side of the rock about big enough to fit a 3 year old kid. But these stores and traditions grow and very few know any better than to accept them.
The Mosque was originally built as an Eastern Orthodox Baptistry to a church that stood there. That’s why it had eight sides and sits on a 2d Temple waterworks.