Ted Belman. Moshe Dayan gave the keys to the Temple Mount to the Wakf without receiving anything in return. So legally, Israel is not bound by that decision and can change the locks, so to speak. It is unconscionable that Jews are not permitted to pray there. We are not asking to pray in the mosque itself or even in the perimeter surrounding it but the temple mount was built by Jews some 600 years before it was conquered by Muslims. And the Jews have come back to claim what is theirs.
As is their wont, they obliterate the presence of any other religion on territory conquered by them. Now that Israel has conquered it back she should wipe out their presence just as they do to others. But Israel doesn’t do that. Jews are too liberal. But maybe they could learn from the Muslims. By giving respect to the Muslims, she is sowing the seeds of her own destruction. That’s why Sherman and Feiglin, and Kahane before them, want them removed from Israel. By allowing them to dictate to us, we are accepting dhimmi status in our own lands.
If Israel does not do something about freedom of prayer on the Mount, its survival is at stake.
Arab spokesmen, unlike their Israeli counterparts, are not ashamed to be “intransigent” or to cherish territory.
Arab spokesmen, unlike most of their Jewish counterparts, are not ashamed to make the Temple Mount the center of their new war against Israel.
Arab spokesmen care so much about the site that they can claim that Abraham wasn’t a Jew, that Jews never had a Temple in Jerusalem, that Jews in Biblical Israel are “the descendants of monkeys and pigs”.
Arab spokesmen were so skillful and able to manipulate history that today the UN, Europe, America and the chattering classes, which have no religion at all, are all reinforcing the Arab claim that any who died on the Temple Mount were martyred defenders of holy places, mowed down by savage, unprovoked “Israeli settlers”.
But the world’s feeble attempts to erase Jewish history from Jerusalem and the Land of Israel don’t cut the mustard. The contrary proof is simply undeniable and overwhelming. And those who advocate the Arab view are liars and charlatans.
But at this point, only people like Moshe Feiglin can peacefully liberate the Temple Mount. Because Israeli as a nation and as a state is losing the holy site. Those who ascend, like Feiglin and other brave people, are the only obstacle to the Temple Mount’s final islamization.
One of those heroes once told me: “I would sell my mother to have a minute of freedom in the Temple Mount”.
A few weeks ago, Yehuda Glick was almost murdered for having tried to pray as a free Jew on Temple Mount. Terrorists also planned to target Feiglin and other figures related to the Temple Mount movement. But the Israeli authorities, instead of showing braveness and attachment to their own history, appeased the Arab-Islamic fury and closed the Temple Mount again. It is as if nothing happened in Jerusalem in the past month.
But Jews are stronger than their leaders. A few weeks ago, I visited Jerusalem and I wanted to see the synagogue in Agassi street, Har Nof, where four rabbis had been killed by Israeli Arabs. In the synagogue of the massacre I met a rabbi, Avraham Nadler, who told me: “The terrorists targeted us because we, the religious Jews, are the symbol of unity of the country. We must grow and get stronger after the attack”.
The Israeli authorities must show the same fortitude and moral clarity in front of anti-Semitism and terrorism, which is now focused on Temple Mount.
Moshe Dayan handed the keys to the Muslims..He gave up a goal pursued for 1800 years..
In 1967, during the Six Day War, after the Arab Legion had placed its batteries on the Temple Mount, but Israel recaptured the holy site. We all know the electrifying cry of Commander Motta Gur: “The Temple Mount is in our hands! The Temple Mount is in our hands”.
But Moshe Dayan handed the keys to the Muslims. He ia said to have done it to ensure freedom of worship, while in fact with that decision he disappointed the expectations of the entire Jewish people. He gave up a goal pursued for 1800 years.
That was the root of the current “status quo”: namely, that only Muslims can pray there and religious Jews are followed by the police and arrested even if they whisper a Psalm, if they stop praying, if they bring religious books, if they take out a paper from their wallet or even if they close their eyes.
This is anti-Semitism. Pure and simple.
Had Israel insisted on Jewish rights of prayer on the Temple Mount in the places judged to be permissible for prayer as Rabbi Goren suggested, or, since not all Torah scholars agree with his findings, insisted on excavations to be sure of the exact places where Jews are allowed to pray, the Jews would be in a different and better situation today.
But it is not too late.
The question of survival that had obsessed the Jews since the destruction of the Second Temple has not been resolved by the establishment of the State of Israel. And it will not be resolved if Israel does not liberate the Temple Mount and let Jews pray there.
Bring freedom to the House of God or prepare to lose the entire State of Israel. Everybody wants to control those few sacred acres. Will the Jews take what is theirs?
The successive IL Gvts have created NEGATIVE facts on the ground under the pretext of keeping a false narrative: religious peace with the Muslim world.
Peace cannot exist with religious fanatics be they Muslim, Christian, Jewish or other.
IL should come to a “reasonable agreement” with the Muslim or close the access to the Mount to EVERYBODY regardless of belief system.
The most likely outcome would be closure because fanatics wont become reasonable. Reason MUST prevail or be imposed on the fanatics.
They did that in India. They destroyed the ancient temple in Ayodhia and built a mosque where it stood. A few years ago, the “Hindu Nationalists” destroyed this mosque, much to the consternation of the descendents of the original conquerors, and rebuilt the Ayodhia temple. It’s now under permanent armed guard.
The Israeli government should (discretely) have a discussion with the Indian government (or the appropriate state government) to get the feel for such an operation.
@ Justin:Don’t you think that its our rights that are being violated and our neck at risk that friends should leave it to us to decide if our rights are worth the risk?
@ Justin:
Justin,
I read your line of drive and must tell you again. Scare tactics do not do anything but secure that we will do onto them as is all wars so far. They will be destroyed. I recommend that you visit Mittla Pass records in the Internet and observe how we deal with the hordes.
Temple Mount is Jewish and makes no difference what foreigners sense, conceptualize, promote either openly or under the table. No compromise with anyone. That is at the hearts of the Jewish people forever.
Casualties:
Sure there will be but the other side will be decimated for generations.
Islam in their oil based region is very poorly matched to real military. The Arabic Islam and its metastasis into Africa are the only potential enemies.
@ Ted Belman:
As for the mosque on the Mount and the size of the available area, having not been near the area I do not have a good sense of the spatial realities. My impression is that it it is open enough to make a long-range defense capability difficult, and small/controversial enough to preclude any sort of defensive barriers being built. I agree it’s a travesty that Jews cannot pray there, but don’t you think that follows the recommendations of this author could very well escalate to total war? Don’t you think that should be an explicitly stated risk?
@ Ted Belman:
I take it for granted that the Arabs will riot. Whether the rioting is justified or not is a separate question.
If you know that a pack of wild boars will try to eat not just you but your entire clan if you encroach on “their” territory, do you take the risk? If you know that some in your family will surely perish, do you find another area with fewer boars, or do you insist on your property rights?
Finally, given the current trajectory of Israeli policy, one might expect that policymakers believe their policies should result in a safer Israel in the future rather than a more dangerous one. If it is not imperative to pray at the Temple Mount – that is, if it can be avoided for now – why not wait until the boars are weaker and fewer in number to reclaim your territory? Why do it now when it is likely to result in maximal bloodshed?
@ Justin:The Mount is a very big area about 600′ X 800. We can designate where we can pray without infringing on their mosques. You are concerned that they or all Muslims will riot. Do you really want to give into their threats? We believe in the rule of law and not the rule of the mob. What do you believe in?
If just visiting the Temple Mount starts the second intifada, what would happen if Israel insisted that every Jew had the right to pray at the Temple Mount? How far should Israel be willing to go to protect this right? And what would you do about the mosque on the Mount?
@ dweller:
Not words I would use. At the beginning of the Common Era, King Herod enlarged the Temple Mount. To do so he had to build the enormous walls, then fill it in with earth and rocks so that he ended with a large flat surface surrounding the Temple. This is know as the TM.
@ Ted Belman:
You mean the enclosure & courtyard, etc?
@ dweller:No. I was referring to the Temple Mount,, not the Temple.
I assume you meant 1600 years — yes?
The Jews, if we ever become functional, must take back the Mount and all of Eretz Israel.
Israel is controlled by unJews. The least they want is to protect Jewish Heritage symbols and sites.