There Will Be Bloodshed

The world has become familiar with the volatile violence that can erupt when Muslims believe their religion and their beloved Prophet Mohammad have been slurred by non-Muslims. The infidel who desecrates a Muslim holy site by their very presence, or who defaces a page of the holy Koran, is one hugely deserving of a violent death. Anyone who deviates from Islam, preferring to adapt themselves to a different religion, is due the death penalty.

Yet there seems to be no penalties of outrage sufficient to stop Muslims from pillaging Christian churches and burning them to the ground. For fundamentalist Islamists who destroy the sacred ancient images of Buddhas revered by that religion, there is no rampaging mob of tens of thousands of Buddhists screaming vengeance, prepared to take the lives of offending Muslims.

When Muslims who find themselves in a majority prey on the-then minority status of Infidels, of Jews, or Christians or Muslim sects considered by the mainstream to represent apostasy, nothing stops them from predations on the safety and security of the non-Muslims. Where once various religions were able to live with a modicum of exchanged respect for their different views, latterly the situation has undergone a sea change.

The ancient communities of Christians, in place as a heritage hand-over where Christianity emerged in the Middle East, have slowly been dissolving under the weight of Islamic oppression, repression and violence against Christian symbols, churches and worshippers. Where once ancient Christian groups like the Syriacs and the Copts flourished, they have become a vanishing presence on the verge of utter collapse in their place of birth.

The Judaic presence in Arab lands, where they have traditionally lived and worshipped their faith has become a dim memory. One which the Arab countries acknowledge but have no wish to give credence to as symbolic of the presence of Jews in the Middle East long predating the worship of Islam which calls itself an Abrahamic religion, the last and most perfect of the three that emerged from the crucible of Abraham's calling by God.

Jews, long admonished not to make a physical presence in the most holy site of Judaism, the Temple Mount, for fear of enraging Muslims who claim it as the third most holy site in Islam where the Prophet Mohammed was said to have ascended to heaven and which Islam names the Noble Sanctuary is seen as ground zero in the territorial/religious conflict between Israel and the Arabs surrounding the State of Israel.

The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem and the ancient city which holds the Temple Mount to be the venue of their new capital in their nascent country. When the Kingdom of Jordan held possession of east Jerusalem after the British protectorate absented the Middle East, Jews were forbidden to access the Wailing Wall or any other portion of their holy site. It wasn't until East Jerusalem was taken from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war that Jews finally were able to pray at the Wall.

And now, religious Jews who had obeyed a rabbinical ban on praying on the Temple Mount but feel they should be permitted to pray there, are entreating for permission to do so. The holiest part of the two ancient temples (original Temple of Solomon, and the rebuilt Temple), the temple sanctuary, is believed to be present on the Temple Mount, with Jews hoping to eventually rebuild its presence as the Third Temple. Arabs deny the ancient presence of the Temple of Solomon.

Archaeologists have been involved in interpreting the archaeological evidence with the precise location of the ancient temples. Muslims seek to destroy any such evidence. The presumed site of the temple sanctuary is considered by the orthodox to be so holy that Jews have refrained from praying on the hilltop, choosing instead to congregate for payers at the Western Wall; for it is forbidden to tread upon the area where the holiest portion where the temple once stood.

And there is a perhaps even more compelling reason not to venture there. For Muslims seeing Jews standing at what Islam claims is its third most sacred place, represents an insult intolerable enough to result in violence. Jews have regularly been stoned by furious Muslims when they are seen on the Temple Mount, and all the more so if they are seen to kneel, or to move their lips in prayer or to move their bodies in ritual prayer.

Non-Muslims use a wood ramp to enter the complex, home to the gilded Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine, and the Western Wall, holy to Jews. (Polaris) The Smithsonian

The visits by Jews insisting it is their right in their own country to pray at their own heritage site representing the most sacred site to Judaism, are on the increase. Muslim authorities fear Israel is attempting to overturn a status quo that gives them primary rights on the Temple Mount, their Noble Sanctuary where the Muslim Dome of the Rock sits supreme.

Israel has traditionally ceded to the Waqf Jordan's Islamic authority managing the holy site, a level of authority and entitlements it restrains its own religious authority and population from assuming. Deadly violence has erupted between Jews and Muslims in the past over religious conflicts and controversies. Now, Muslims warn Jews once again not to even think of encroaching on 'their' religious sites.

"If this happens there will be a lot of bloodshed" warned Azzam Khatib, director general of the Waqf.