Muslim Thugs on the Temple Mount

By David M Weinberg, ISRAEL HAYOM

On Wednesday morning, for the holiday of Hoshana Rabbah (the last day of Sukkot), 20,000 Orthodox Jews gathered at dawn for prayers at the Western Wall. Waves of worshippers made their way silently on foot in the very early morning twilight through the alleyways of the Old City toward the Kotel.

Then magically on cue, they belted out the core “Shma” prayer as the sun crested the horizon. Then they waved their lulavim (palm branches) while singing Hallel (psalms of praise to God), and pounded their aravot (willow branches) on the ground in expiation of sin. By 8:30 a.m., the enormous crowd dispersed quietly.

No one would know about this uplifting holiday event from listening to Israel Radio or checking any Israel or global news website. Because there was no violence involved.

Because Jews go to pray at their holy sites, not to riot.

Unlike the Jews described above (of which I was one), Muslim Arabs in, on, and around the Temple Mount launched violent demonstrations that same morning, attacking Jewish worshippers and police all around the Old City. That made the news on Israel Radio.

After more than three months of incessant Arab violence in Jerusalem, and three weeks of Muslim violence on the Temple Mount, the police knew to suspect trouble on this Jewish holiday, so they restricted access to the Mount to Muslims over 50 years of age. That served as an excuse for more rioting.

Israel Radio, which often seems to be more of a mouthpiece for Israel’s detractors than a national news station, devoted more than 10 minutes of air time to Israeli Arab MK Jamal Zahalka (Balad) who bemoaned Israeli “aggression” against the “status quo” — whereby Muslims have exclusive control of, and prayer rights on, the Temple Mount. No rebuttal to this canard was offered.

On Wednesday, masked Muslims attacked visitors on Temple Mount in what could have become a massacre. Hordes of young men surged out the mosques (in which they had slept overnight to surprise the Jews) and fought a pitched battle with police forces, throwing rocks, firebombs, fireworks, metal pipes and concrete slabs that had been stockpiled in advance. They started fires at the mosque entrances for smoke cover. Police had to drive the rioters back into the mosques and lock them inside in order to prevent a mass-casualty incident.

This is organized thuggery, designed to turn the Temple Mount into the hottest battleground between Israel and the Arab world, and to undermine Israel’s control of the holy city.

Unfortunately, the Israel Police are under orders to avoid escalation almost at any cost; and as such, have become serial capitulators to the Muslim muggers and the many radical Islamic forces that are encouraging, funding and defending the brutes on the Mount. Jerusalem District Police chief Yossi Pariente ordered his troops to stand down and withdraw last month as Islamic radicals ransacked and burned the police station on Temple Mount. And he has taken no retaliatory or punitive action since.

It’s obvious that the Netanyahu government fears the response of the Arab world and the international community and is therefore hesitant to change the status quo on the Mount — the situation whereby Jews have only limited visitation rights and are all-together forbidden from praying there while Muslims claim exclusive religious rights and have set up an armed camp there.

One possible solution would be a time-sharing agreement with alternating slots for Jewish and Muslim prayer on the Mount, similar to the arrangement in place at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. But alas there are no signs that this government is planning to take that route.

Nevertheless, at the very least the government has a responsibility to run the ruffians off the Mount and punish them for attempting to turn the holy site into an Armageddon battleground.

It can do so in two ways. First, it can close the Mount to Muslim worshippers for 24 hours or 24 days each time the waqf allows its premises to become a weapons depository or a staging ground for riots. If the Muslims don’t respect their own houses of prayer and instead turn them into forward attack bases, why should we respect their prayer rights? If the Mount is closed to Jews because of Muslim violence, let it be closed to Muslims, too, for a while.

Secondly, Israel should make mass arrests among the rioters and fine them 10,000 shekels ($2,700) for each rock thrown while simultaneously stripping their families of the generous National Insurance Institute payments they happily collect each month. Israel should also slap each of the rioters with a criminal rap sheet, and hand down jail sentences, making it impossible for them to gain the visas they covet for study at American and European universities and for anti-Israel propaganda tours abroad.

Note: Israeli Jews who passively blocked roads in protest against the Gaza disengagement were in some cases thrown in jail for 18 months. So why are we going soft on the Muslim hotheads who are desecrating the holy of holies?

The terribly mislabeled Palestinian “Authority” has become an extremist, not a moderate, actor in this matter. Its ministers are spreading lies about Jewish threats to the mosques on the Mount, and encouraging the violence. Perhaps it’s time for Israel to strip Mahmoud Abbas’ radical minions of their travel and other VIP rights, as well.