The Justice of Mob Anger

"Keep the settlers and the extremists away from Al-Aqsa and our holy places."
"We will not allow our holy places to be contaminated. Keep them away from us and we will stay away from them, but if they enter al-Aqsa, [we] will protect al-Aqsa and the church and the entire country."

"Israel’s leaders are making a big mistake if they think they can turn back history, to impose a reality, and to divide the al-Aqsa Mosque [into separate prayers times and areas] as they divided the Ibrahimi Mosque [Cave of the Patriarchs] in Hebron." 

"[Such a move] would be unsuccessful, since in their actions, Israel’s leaders will lead the region and world into a devastating religious war."

"The Muslim and Christian worlds will never accept Israel’s claims that Jerusalem belongs to them. The Jerusalem that was occupied in 1967 belongs to us."     Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

Israeli security forces walk near Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount on November 5, 2014. photo credit: AFP/AHMAD GHARABLI)

Christians may be surprised to learn that Mahmoud Abbas has given himself the authority to speak for them. Under Israeli rule Christians have free access to their holy sites. And of course, the 'extremists' to whom he refers are Israeli Jews who feel their patience has come to an ebb, waiting for the Palestinians to be more reasonable about shutting Jews out of their most sacred religious site adjoining that of the Muslims' third-most religious site to which they feel entitled to pray, excluding Jews.

This vitriolic issue where Jews have been compliant in the pacification of Arab and Muslim mistrust on seeing Jews approaching what they feel is their monopolistic place of worship, hoping that reason and justice would eventually prevail, enabling them too to access their sacred site has come to a virulent head of incitement to violence. The very man who rails against 'extremists' has been inciting his people to extreme acts of violence to prevent Jews from ascending the Temple Mount.

To Muslims it is the Noble Sanctuary, with two buildings built over the ruins of the ancient Temples of Solomon. A fitting desecration of a Jewish sacred site, since as Muslims would have it, Islam made Judaism unnecessary, redundant, with the ascendancy of Islam representing God's final word, the preliminary Judaism no longer relevant. At no time has any Judaic authority proclaimed Islam an interloper, its influence jarring and intolerant.

Which has not made it any less so. More than amply demonstrated by the violence perpetrated by Palestinians against Jews, denying them their freedom to worship, while proclaiming it is their right only to exclusively worship at their shrines, that of the Jews serving only to desecrate Islam. The action that Mahmoud Abbas has enjoined his people to act upon has resulted in mortal attacks against Jewish civilians. 

A series of attacks by Palestinians on Israeli targets, which has also activated some of the 20 percent of Israel's population who are Arab-Israeli citizens. With good reason Israel now accuses Mahmoud Abbas of inciting violence, of failing to condemn deadly attacks on Israelis rather than cite the perpetrators for heroic bravery in 'resistance' to the 'occupation'. And finally by urging Palestinians to continue blocking Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount 'by any means'.

Assailants have driven vehicles into people waiting at transportation hubs. On Monday an Israeli soldier was stabbed to death waiting with a crowd for a train in Tel Aviv. That assailant hailed from the West Bank city of Nablus, and was in Israel without a permit. Another Palestinian stabbed three people at a bus stop next to the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut, killing a 25-year-old Israeli.

That stabbing took place at the very place where three Israeli teens were kidnapped and murdered in June by Hamas terrorists. Thanks to the violence-enhanced political urgings and defamation of Jews by the Palestinian Authority, East Jerusalem Palestinians continue their violent protests, charging that Jewish zealots are planning to control the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock. 

 

And while Israel, which has responsibility for security hopes to control the situation by imposing restrictions on those entering the compound, Muslims charge that Israel plans to take over the area for a Jewish-only presence, threatening the very existence of their sacred sites with a rebuilding of the ancient temple to create the final assault against Islamic dominance.

The hysteria of religious fervor and deliberately trumped-up paranoia has created the perform storm for the onset of another intifada.

Palestinians stand around a burning tyre during clashes with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank village of Seir, near Hebron, 11 November 2014. Meanwhile, two Palestinians stabbed and killed two Israelis in separate attacks in Tel Aviv and the West Bank, police said, amid heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions. Picture: EPA.