Doing Violence to Reality

"Fatah celebrated the attempted murder of Rabbi Yehuda Glick, yesterday in Jerusalem, and glorified the shooter. Rabbi Yehuda Glick is the Chairman of the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation that works through educational activities to increase awareness of the central place the Temple Mount in Jewish heritage and works to promote civil rights for Jews to pray on the Temple Mount."

"Fatah referred to him as an "extremist Zionist," called the attempt on his life "the assassination of the despicable Glick," and honored the terrorist who was subsequently killed by Israel as a "heroic Martyr."  

"PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' advisor on NGOs and Fatah Central Committee member Sultan Abu Al-Einein shared a poster published by Fatah's Jerusalem branch praising the terrorist and referring to him as the "heroic Martyr" on the way "to his wedding":

 "Fatah's Jerusalem branch accompanies its heroic Martyr to his wedding, Mutaz Ibrahim Khalil Hijazi, who carried out the assassination attempt of Zionist rabbi Yehuda Glick."

"This dangerous Israeli escalation is a declaration of war on the Palestinian people and its sacred places and on the Arab and Islamic nation. Harming the places sacred to Muslims and Christians is a red line. The state of Palestine will take all legal measures to hold Israel accountable and to stop these ongoing attacks."
Nabil Abu Redeineh, spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

"We must first of all lower the flames. No side should take the law into its own hands. We must be level-headed and act with determination and responsibility, and so we shall."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

The man who was shot by 32-year-old Islamic Jihad member Muataz Hejazi, was not, as the Palestinian propaganda machine and the Western press slavishly copying them, describe as a right-wing radical, intent on taking full possession of the site where The Noble Sanctuary sits atop the Temple Mount; the former the third-most-sacred place in the Islamic canon, the latter Judaism's most sacred relic of its heritage, twice destroyed in antiquity, the third time defiled by Islam taking possession of it.

Muslims pray at Temple Mount. (photo credit:REUTERS)

It is a site historically respected by the three 'Abrahamic' religions; Judaism, Christianity and Islam. When Jordan took it upon itself to administer east Jerusalem, Jews were not permitted to go anywhere near their most sacred religious site. The reality of Christianity in the Muslim world today is one of violent persecution, and for Mr. Abbass's spokesman to invoke the name of Christianity as being in danger of Israeli provocations is beyond absurd, since it is only in Israel within the entire Middle East that Christians are safe.

Nowhere else in the world does the absurdity present itself that a nation whose religion is paramount in their history and their present, is unable to approach their most sacred religious site in fear of an violent uprising by a proportion of its citizens all of whom, supported by the entire Islamic ummah refuse to recognize the nation's majority and founders the right to worship at their own shrine of antiquity. The courtesy of administering the affairs of the Islamic portion of the Temple Mount was deferred by Israel to the Islamic Wafq.

Israel could very well instead have taken possession of the entire Temple Mount area, leaving only the Al-Aqsa mosque intact. Muslims routinely desecrate the holy sites of other religions, including those sites holy to Muslim sects that the mainstream consider to represent impure Islam. Palestinians feel so entitled to monopolizing what they call The Noble Sanctuary that they refuse to allow Jews to approach their own apportioned Temple Mount, let alone to pray upon it.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper praying at the Western Wall. Photo: Screenshot / Twitter.

The violent assassination attempt on 48-year-old Yehuda Glick whom the press label a 'right-wing rabbi' was occasioned by his presuming it to be his right as a Jewish Israeli to call for the right of Jews to approach and pray at their sacred site without violence emanating from nearby Palestinians enabled by Israeli security to pray at their third-most-sacred site. He was not advocating for Jews to have monopolistic access, but for Jews to be able to share with Muslims and Christians the right to pray to their god at the site.

He is known, in fact, to have prayed alongside Muslims, citing passages from the Koran, and being accepted by those with whom he prayed. His brother is a celebrated physician who lives in the West Bank and services the Arab Palestinian residents of nearby villages as their sole medical provider. Israel was forced, for obvious security reasons, to shut access to the entire site in the wake of the death of the man who attempted to kill Rabbi Glick, when he shot at investigating officers. Riots ensued and threaten to continue spurred on by the PA.

As a simple matter of public order it made good sense to shut down the Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary until such time as the matter cooled down, which it may or may not do, considering that an overheated atmosphere of aggressive denials have been taking place over the past month, incited by Mahmoud Abbas urging Palestinians to 'defend' the Noble Sanctuary from the evil plans of the Israelis. So much for peace and good fellowship.

The Western press, lending an obliging ear and script to the Palestinian propaganda of sole ownership of the disputed site, speaks of  'ultranationalist Jewish activists and groups' often led by Rabbi Glick... and it boggles the mind to come to grips with the equation of Jews wishing to pray at their own sacred site being labelled ultranationalist for that reason, when no one seems willing to question why and how it remains acceptable for Arab Palestinians to riot when Jews approach the site that is their own by heritage and geography.