ANOTHER CAPITULATION ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT.
By Paul Merkley.
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At all times over the last century and a half, the fear of mob assault has hung over the Temple Mount and its vicinity.
Modern eyes first saw this demonic power in action in 1929, during the early years of the Mandate. The cunning British government had recently conceived the idea of appointing Haj Amin al-Husseini, a prominent Arab rabble rouser, of distinguished local pedigree but without credentials as a Muslim cleric, as “Mufti” – in effect, as legal scholar of last resort on matters of Muslim life. It was assumed that, overwhelmed by the honour, he would work closely with the British masters of the Mandate in the cause of maintaining order.
This was precisely the thinking that led in 1993 to the dusting-off of the lifelong terrorist Yasir Arafat following the Oslo accords – and it had the same outcome. Once installed as leader of the people, Husseini showed off his power among the masses by announcing that the Jews were already setting in motion a plan to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque and build their Temple in its place. Everything in Mandate Palestine came to a grinding halt for many days and many lives were lost in this first of all the Arab riots. Husseini’s apocalyptic slogan told hold at once and has never gone away.
Not co-incidentally, it was this same bottom-crawler who later fled to Hitler’s side to become his active partner in the work of elimination of all the Jews from Europe as well as the Middle East.
The Arab Muslims, following the lead of “President” Mahmoud Abbas, claim that it is pure Zionist invention that Jews ever lived in any part of this Holy Land. There never was a Jewish Temple on the Mount but instead the site is pre-emptively sacred to all Muslims on account of the presence of the al-Aqsa Mosque.
This Muslim site, along with the Dome of the Rock, was imposed there roughly thirteen centuries ago by Arab/Muslim conquerors in the generation that followed the death of the Prophet Muhammad. A Byzantine church was demolished to clear the ground for these Muslim sites. Well before that, the Christian conquerors of the area had declared the area closed to all Jews – although we do know that a tiny cohort of mainly elderly Jews continued to carry on the tradition of bewailing the loss of the Temple by gathering at the base of the Wall that once upheld the platform on which the Second Temple had once stood.
This vicinity, which appears for the first time in the Bible as Mount Moriah, (Genesis 22:2), had been possessed by a local pagan-Canaanite King for several centuries prior to its capture by King David and incorporation into his new Kingdom of Israel around the year 1000 BC (2 Samuel 5.) The original (First) Temple was built by King Solomon in mid 9th century BC (1Kings 6:37, 7:11.) No references to this Temple can be found in the meagre lot of documents surviving from the contemporary world. Neither is there much significant archeological evidence. The major impediment to any hopes for discoveries to come is that no archeological activity has ever been allowed on the site by the government of Israel – acting, as ever, out of fear of a global outburst of Muslim rage. At the same time, Muslim authorities have defied the Israeli government by digging for the purpose of expanding the al-Aqsa mosque just outside the probable site of the Temple, in the area of Solomon’s Stables.
The soil left behind from this work did not interest the Muslims; and so Israelis and friends from around the world have been carting it away and sedulously sifting it in hopes of finding bits and pieces from Temple days. So far, only a few very small relics, datable from the years of the First Temple, and not a great deal more from the Second Temple have been found. Among these bits and pieces are several which illustrate the activities that went on in around the Temple. http://www.archaeologyorg.il/news40.html.
This matter belongs on the short list of Great Unintended Consequences, as it was in the piles of dirt left behind by the Muslim laborers that the Israeli scholars and their legions of volunteers from all over the world have found the only physical evidence –modest though it is – to the activities that went on in and around the Temple whose existence the Muslims consistently deny.
Needless to say: nothing absolutely has ever been found anywhere in the region to support the fantasy that the Palestine Authority promotes of an aboriginal “Palestinian” population of the Holy Land – nothing in the historical record, nothing in any literary source, nothing on the ground and nothing under the ground. The archeology makes clear that the Canaanites were pagans and remained so until their conquest by David and indeed for long after. And, of course, Muhammad and his book did not come into the world until the seventh century AD.
The Palestinian politicians respond to the evidence of the Bible, as well as all of the literary evidence and all archeological evidence of the presence of the Jews, in the way that children respond to unpleasant fact – by throwing tantrums until the adults yield.
The PLO, which is now putting itself at the head of the mobs calling for “restoration to Islam” of all parts of Jerusalem and all of Israel, began life back in the 1950s as a boldly self-declared secular movement, devoted to a programme of national self-determination. Its leaders denounced the many popular movements who were seeking, in those days without success, to win the Arab public to the goal of a Islamic caliphate. Today, these latter have the upper hand in politics everywhere in the Arab world.
A few weeks ago, Palestinian political authorities and the united front of Muslim clerics, raised again the cry that the Jews are about to destroy the Al-aqsa. For several days, screaming mobs bore down on frightened Israelis and visitors to the Wall from all over the world. Two Israeli military personnel lost their lives to these terrorists, who were armed with weapons that had been hidden inside the holy mosque. At least one elderly Israeli civilian lost her life as well. The major global television services arrived in full strength, in hopes of observing bloodshed of apocalyptic proportions.
Israeli authorities responded by announcing their intention to make safe passage for all into and out of the Temple Mount by installing security cameras – something, for example, along the line of the security cameras that constantly survey the scene around the Holy Sites at Mecca and Medina, and indeed at most major mosques in the Middle East. Also, major Christian sites, most obviously at the Vatican in Rome, have also implemented security measures along the same line.
But then suddenly the cry went out that the installation of the cameras was preliminary to closing down access the Temple Mount – while, of course its purpose was the opposite. The company of useful idiots, led by the World Council of Churches, lined up in support of the Palestinian interpretation of these events, painting it all as another chapter in Israeli “occupation of Palestinian land.”
Predictably, the Israelis backed down. Predictably, as well, the Arab Palestinians declared a victory. And again predictably, the Palestine authority and their allies have since raised their demand for exclusive Muslim control of the Temple Mount.
The bottom line to this story must be that the Palestine Authority’s campaign of denial of Jewish connection with the Temple Mount puts an end to any obligation that Israel has to engage in any plan for co-operation with any other entity as she pursues ways and means of maintaining the safety of her own people as well as the millions of visitors.
This capitulation of rational policy to mass hysteria is especially indefensible in light of the “coincidence” that it occurs at the very moment (July 31, 2017) when Jews all around the world are entering the fast of Tisha b’Av, set aside for mourning the destruction of the ancient Jewish Temples – the First in 586 BC, and the Second in 70 AD.
There is a good reason why Muhammad labeled his teaching “Islam” – which means “Submission.” The submission of the world to UNESCO’s recent declarations about Islam’s preclusive e title to Jerusalem and Hebron involves surrender of the rights of Christians and Jews and withdrawal of any right to respect.
This campaign can only end with the complete surrender of everything that history and archeology claim to know. The nihilists are winning.
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The Bayview Review 