Israeli Threats In Sacred Jerusalem

"[Stop] the Israeli attacks to protect the Palestinian people.""The Israeli attacks contribute to feeding extremism and violence in the world; [the] attack on worshipers [violates the sanctity of religions] and contributes to feeding extremism and violence in the world."

"Urgent measures are required [in the wake of clashes at the Temple Mount and al-Aqsa Mosque]."

"The dangerous Israeli escalation [must be met by strong condemnation from the UN Security Council]. Serious and speedy international efforts must result along with the intervention of the Security Council to take all urgent measures to stop these violations."
Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abd al Aziz al Saud

US President Barack Obama (right) speaks with King Salman of Saudi Arabia (left) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on September 4, 2015. (AFP/Yuri Gripas)

"If you went back a couple of hundred years, before the advent of the political form of Zionism, I think you will find that many Muslims would not have disputed the connection that Jews have toward [the Mount]."
"The problem began arising with the advent of Zionism, when people started connecting a kind of feeling that Jews have toward the area with the political project of Zionism."
Sari Nusseibeh, president, Al-Quds University, eastern Jerusalem

"Israel started since 1967 making archaeological digs to show Jewish signs to prove the relationship between Judaism and the city, and they found nothing. There is no Jewish connection to Israel before the Jews invaded in the 1880s."
"About these so-called two temples, they never existed, certainly not at the [Temple Mount]."
"All this is not real. We don't believe in all your versions. Your Torah was falsified. The text as given to the Muslim prophet Moses never mentions Jerusalem. Maybe Jerusalem was mentioned in the rest of the Torah, which was falsified by the Jews."
"[Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Jesus were] prophets for the Israelites sent by Allah as to usher in Islam." 
"The Western Wall is the western wall of the Al Aqsa Mosque. It's where Prophet Muhammad tied his animal, which took him from Mecca to Jerusalem to receive the revelations of Allah."
"Al Aqsa was built by the angels 40 years after the building of Al-Haram in Mecca. This we have no doubt is true."
Chief Palestinian Justice Sheik Taysir Tamimi

"The United States is deeply concerned by the recent violence and escalating tensions surrounding the Haram al-Sharif Temple Mount. We strongly condemn all acts of violence."

"It is absolutely critical that all sides exercise restraint, refrain from provocative actions and rhetoric and preserve unchanged the historic status quo on the Haram al-Sharif Temple Mount, in word and in practice."

U.S. State Department spokesman, John Kirby

Palestinian Arabs have convinced themselves that the third most sacred site in Islam is being planned for demolition by the Government of Israel. In its place a synagogue reflective of what Jews claim to be the site of the ancient Temple of Solomon will be built. The sight of Jews  being permitted to access the plaza of the Dome of the Rock which was built over the ruins of the two ancient Israelite Temples sends Muslims into paroxysms of frenzied rage.

Their very presence is an affront, for their presence defiles the sacred precincts. Muslims insist on their exclusivity in approach and use of the Temple Mount which they call the Noble Sanctuary. It is the third most sacred site in Islam, after the mosques in Mecca and Medina. The first most sacred site in Islam, the huge mosque complex in Mecca that houses the black Kaaba that millions of pilgrims worship during the annual hajj is itself being defiled by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which has commercialized the area beyond recognition.


The First Temple was built by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. It was later destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. and the Jews were sent into exile. The Second Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian rule and the Jews were released from Babylonian captivity. That temple was destroyed eventually by the Roman Empire in A.D. 70, after a Jewish rebellion. Each temple in their turn stood for a period of about four centuries.

The Al Aqsa Mosque was constructed in about A.D. 709, meant to give service as a shrine close to yet another shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which was built by an Islamic caliph. Al Aqsa was meant to commemorate what Muslims fervently believe was the place from where the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam, ascended to heaven, mounted on a horse, to receive revelations from Allah and end his time on Earth.

Jerusalem, the holy city of the ancient Israelites, was not given even one mention in the Koran. It has a presence in the Old Testament, mentioned there no fewer than on 656 occasions. In no other country in the world is the national religion, the precursor to both Christianity and Islam, denied access to its own national shrine; the remains of the ancient Temple of Solomon, represented by the remnants of the ancient Temple's Western Wall, and the area called the Temple Mount.

But under an agreement with Jordan which had previously administered the Old City of Jerusalem, sacred to the three monotheistic religions of which Judaism was the predecessor of the following two, it was agreed that Jews would not be permitted to pray, to sing, or to make any symbolic gesture that could be construed as recognizing the area as the Judaic sacred symbol of ancient Judaism. Muslims only are able to pray there. Under Jordanian stewardship Jews were not even permitted entry to the Western Wall.

But the presence of Jews, even when escorted to ensure that they do not break 'the rules' enrages Muslims and they engage in taunting Jews, insulting and threatening them, throwing rocks and assaulting both Jews and the security personnel accompanying them. In the past week there has been a pronounced, violent escalation in the hostile attacks, along with accusations that the Government of Israel intends to destroy what Islam calls The Noble Sanctuary.

The violence is one-sided. The Saudi Press Agency has been reporting that the violence emanates from Israel. The Palestinians are once again being victimized by a cruel oppressor. Since last Sunday Israeli police have detained dozens of Palestinian protesters in the wake of 14 Israeli police officers being injured when rocks and firecrackers were hurled at them. Pipe bombs were seized at the site hours before Jews were set to celebrate Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.

An organized riot had been planned to greet them, with bombs, flares and rocks. Once protesters started tossing stones and firecrackers at the access point  for non-Muslims visiting the site, police moved in.

King Salman made his telephoned appeals to President Obama, to British Prime Minister David Cameron, to French President Francois Hollande, and to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He also contacted the United Nations' chief Ban Ki-moon to emphasize the dangerous escalation that Israel must be held responsible for, according to the King.

The American statement emphasized not that Palestinian protesters, mostly young Arabs involved in violent terrorist acts were endangering the peace, but that Israel must ensure that the treaty agreement restraining Jews from praying at the site that Muslims insist is theirs and theirs alone, must be upheld. Saudi Arabia's agitation condemning Israel, insisting that Israel's actions in defending its Jewish citizens from Muslim mob violence is responsible for Islamist terrorism, is rather risible.

When in actual fact, it is Saudi oil money that has financed Wahhabist madrassas with their Salafist teaching of Islamist imperialism and the sacred duty to jihad and prosetylization that is responsible for the creation of al-Qaeda and of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Israel has always been regarded as a useful whipping-boy in Middle East politics, where Arabs contend that the presence of eight million Israelis threaten the stability of hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims.

Nothing quite sets the world of Arabic and Muslim sensitivities aflame as mention of Israel and Jews, and their presumptive audacity in claiming original heritage in the Middle East. The dysfunctionally violent world of Islam can be brought together in a common cause, temporarily setting aside the violent enmities between tribe, clan and sect in the mass pathology of victimization by one tiny country struggling to exist in the midst of a viciously hostile environment.

A masked Palestinian youth flashes the “V” for victory sign near the Dome of the Rock during clashes with Israeli riot police. (Photo: Sliman Khader/Flash 90)