The Holy Month of Ramadan in Israel

“Once again, extremists have hijacked the holy month of Ramadan. Once again, young thugs are shooting fireworks at police out of the third-holiest mosque in Islam. Once again, terror groups seek to leverage this into a broader confrontation with Israel."

"And once again, such behavior has gone uncriticized by moderate Arab states like Jordan. This pattern brings the region to the brink of war each year, with Ramadan wielded cynically as the predicate.”  Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research, Federation for Defence of Democracies

 

“Palestinian extremists are once again inciting to violence at sensitive religious sites during Ramadan and Passover."

"They seek to take advantage of a pre-established media and political narrative that refuses to acknowledge a clear causal connection between the violence and reasonable Israeli security steps to constrain it."

"This framing not only misleads readers but fans the flames, with dangerous consequences for the people of the region.” 

Mark Dubowitz, CEO, Federation for Defense of Democracies

Police respond to Palestinian riots on Temple Mount, Israeli officer injured

"Several law-breaking youths and masked agitators [fortified the mosque] in order to disrupt public order and desecrate the mosque."  

"After many and prolonged attempts to get them out by talking to no avail, police forces were forced to enter the compound in order to get them out with the intentions to allow the Fajr [dawn] prayer and to prevent a violent disturbance." 

"When the police entered, stones were thrown at them and fireworks were fired from inside the mosque by a large group of agitators." 

Israeli Police report

Scores of Palestinians were arrested at Al-Aqsa Mosque by Israeli police early Wednesday in Jerusalem's Old City. Stun grenades were fired while Palestinians hurled rocks and fireworks, a burst of violence not entirely surprising given the tensions built up over the past months with Palestinian random attacks against Israelis increasing in numbers as a lead-up to Ramadan. In Gaza Palestinian terrorists attacked southern Israel with rocket fire, and repeated Israeli airstrikes ensued.

 

Muslims are marking their holy month of Ramadan, a time for introspection, prayer and sobering thought. It has also become a month of threats against Israel followed by violence, a ritual not entirely in keeping with the purpose of the holy month. Just as Jews in Israel and around the world were preparing for the onset of Passover, incitement to violence by Palestinian leadership led to frenzied activity on the Temple Mount around the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

 

Young Palestinian men were once again assembling rocky projectiles within the mosque, along with fireworks with the intention of attacking the Israeli Police whose function is to maintain calm and security during this time when thousands of Muslim worshippers are expected to throng to prayer at the mosque. The Palestinian militants barricaded themselves in the mosque while throwing rocks and fireworks at the police, preventing peaceful Muslims from either entering or exiting the mosque.

 

Al-Aqsa Mosque interior, Reuters

By morning, calm prevailed on the compound and shortly afterward it was reopened to worshippers. Dozens of Palestinians have time and again attempted to remain overnight in the mosque, barricading themselves within, stockpiling projectiles. Nightly, police entered to evict them. Palestinian terrorist groups gave warning of additional confrontations on the way. 

 

Medics of the Palestinian Red Crescent described 50 people having been injured at the mosque, while Israeli police spoke of 350 arrested. Most of those arrested from Al-Aqsa were released by early afternoon, while 50 remained in detention to have their cases heard on Friday. 

 

Smoke rises above buildings in Gaza City as the IDF launches air strikes on the Hamas-operated Palestinian enclave late April 6, 2023   Mohammed Abed/AFP

 

An Israeli soldier was shot and moderately wounded in the West Bank. A total of 34 rockets were fired by Palestinians, with air raid sirens sounding in the region just as residents prepared for the weeklong Passover holiday."We don't want this to escalate, [but] we will respond very aggressively", stated Lt.Col. Richard Hecht, an army spokesman, referring to the intercepted rockets to which the IDF responded with airstrikes hitting Hamas weapons storage and manufacturing sites.

Sovereign Israel

"The Temple Mount is open to everyone and if Hamas thinks that if it threatens me, it will deter me, let them understand that times have changed."

"No Israeli government that I'm a member of is going to bow to a despicable and murderous terror organization... and if Hamas thinks that I'll be deterred by its threats, it needs to accept that times have changed and that there's a government in Jerusalem."

"The Temple Mount is open to everyone."  

National Security Minister Ben Gvir, Israel

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (left) visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Jan. 3, 2023. Source: Facebook.

Israel has a newly-elected government. Yet another newly-elected government. Headed, once again by its most seasoned politician, a man who has withstood much in the greater interests of promoting Israel's security. This is the third government he will have led. A former military man, he knows that Israel must appear to its neighbours as an invincible, formidable adversary that will respond with the ferocity of existential imperative to their violent incursions in efforts to destroy the tiny geographic parcel representing a tiny proportion of its historical ancestral landmass.

Never again will Jews be trapped by a hostile world without a country, a slice of geography of their own, with their own effective, self-protective military and intelligence services to warn beforehand and to secure its presence against malign usurpation. An ancient people, an ancient land, an ancient culture and its religious devotion to a singular spiritual guide that inspired two other great religions that took from Judaism their guiding principles and values.

Both of which, Christianity and Islam, felt entitled to pick from the sacred scriptures of Judaism, what suited them from their perspectives and in the process spite the source, insisting theirs are the final words of the unifying divinity of humanity. Both institutions reverenced the monotheistic revelation of the Supreme Spirit, while denying the authentic originality of its introduction. And both institutions have traditionally persecuted the original source.

 

Jews refuse to remain a pathetic, friendless ethnic group imploring others to come to their defense, knowing from past experience there will be no saving response. Israel is the response of the global Jewish community to a world indifferent to the plight of Jews when the most barbaric extermination of human life was methodically undertaken to destroy Jewish life, culture, society, memory. A government best positioned to do just that is now viewed by the international community as 'right-wing', an epithet of rejection.

No other national government on the planet is held to the standards that Israel's is. In the General Assembly of the United Nations, the general consensus is that Israel although a legally constituted country returned to claim its ancestral geography, is itself illegal, because the land is contested by those calling themselves indigenous, and taking the identification of nomenclature along with attestations of originality attached to Judaism's ancient cultural, religious, political and socially significant sites.

An Israeli Minister, duly democratically elected, is held to have transgressed by setting foot on Judaism's most sacred site located in the ancient capital of Judean ancestry, within a legally constituted nation. Another religion, one that based itself on Judaism, claims virtual ownership rights to the site located in the Jewish capital. A capital that a group of migrated Arabs who settled from Egypt, Jordan and Syria to call themselves Palestinians, taking that designation too from the original Palestinian Jews as their own.

When Islam was brought to Bedouin Arabs in the 7th Century, its founder Mohammad's armies invaded the Arab Peninsula to force disparate populations of pagans to accept Islam. In the process, in Medina, he approached three Jewish tribes indigenous to the ancient city; the Banu Nadir, the Banu Qainuqa, and the Banu Qurayza. All three refused Mohammad's overtures to reject Judaism and adopt Islam. These indigenous Jewish tribes were punished with violent conflict that massacred their members and exiled others.

Now it is seen as outrageous that Jews, living in Israel, and Jews visiting from abroad, might wish to approach their own most sacred religious site, to pray there. They cannot. When Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan it allowed Jordan to oversee the contested site, the Temple Mount, where the (two iterations) Temple of Solomon once stood, and which Islam names the Noble Sanctuary. There, Muslims may pray, under the Jordan Waqf, but not Jews. It is a dictate of Islam and of the surrounding Muslim-Arab nations.

Arab Muslims in the Middle East, are affronted and infuriated that Jews might mount their most sacred site, the third-most-sacred site in Islam. And because a Jew on a mission to approach his own religion's original sacred site while stating the obvious, that in Israel which is twenty percent non-Jewish, with citizens who are Christian, Muslim, Druze, and other religions no one is constrained from free movement of religious devotion. Why then, should Jews be refused entry to their very own religious site in its own capital, in its own country?

Sacrilege in Al-Aqsa Mosque

"We are working to restore calm, on the Temple Mount and across Israel."

"Alongside that, we are preparing for any scenario and the security forces are ready for any task [n responding to violent Palestinian confrontations and possible attacks]."

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett

 

The Abrahamic trio of Judaism, Christianity and Islam focus on the ancient city of Jerusalem in their historical antecedents where Jews and Christians and Muslims venerate sites sacred to their religious traditions. This year, the traditional holy week holidays of Passover, Easter and Ramadan fall close to each other on the calendar. In the order of precedence, Passover celebrates an ancient memory of freedom from exile in Egypt, predating by millennia the much later celebration of a Jewish sage arising from the dead, and much later still, introspection on the Prophet's revelation of the Koran.

When Jordan took it upon itself to occupy the Old City of Jerusalem, it banished Jews from their ancient habitation, and, until the war of 1967 which freed Jerusalem entirely from its control, no Jews were permitted to access the most sacred site in Judaism. Israel has made every effort possible to accommodate the religious and cultural traditions of the faiths that erupted from the tradition of Judaism. Faiths which from antiquity to the present have never given full respectful due to their progenitor religion. 

In the peace accord signed between Israel and Jordan, it was agreed that Jordan would continue to have authority through its Waqf over the Islamic holy site--third in its pantheon of sacred places, after Mecca and Medina--while Israel would retain the responsibility of maintaining public order. Islam's Jerusalem holy site is the Noble Sanctuary, built directly over the ruins of the infinitely older two Temples of Solomon. Jordan's refusal to allow Jews entry to their most sacred site lives on in Palestinian rage over Israeli Jews accessing the site though they are forbidden to pray on the Temple Mount to appease Islam's sense of sole entitlement.

 

During Friday prayers, mosques throughout the world, including in Jerusalem often incite the faithful to acts of civic disruption, targeting Israel and Jews for violence. In Israel that takes the form of 'resistance' to the 'occupation' of Jews in the Jewish state that has not been averse to sharing its national state with people of other ethnic origins, cultures, traditions and religions. Israel is established on a small proportion of its original Judean heritage. Jews are held by Arab Muslims to be 'occupying' land sacred to Islam whose presence must be eradicated.

 

Palestinians clash with Israeli security forces at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City Friday, April 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

This weekend, yet again, as on so many other occasions, violence erupted on the Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary, where Palestinian men and women gathered at the Al Aqsa Mosque to protest Israel permitting Jews to be present on the Temple Mount for Passover. What other country in the world must pacify a minority population by disallowing the country's indigenous majority to pray in their most holy of sanctuaries? Only Israel, only Jews.

 

In Friday's rioting where Palestinian mobs threw rocks and incendiary devices at Israeli security forces, there to maintain order and peace for worshippers of two religions, two ethnic groups, two cultures, two traditions, 150 Palestinians sustained injuries as they clashed with Israel riot police attempting to restore order that would allow peaceful Israeli-Palestinian citizens to access the mosque and pray peacefully in celebration of Ramadan. Palestinian rioters sustained injuries incurred by rubber bullets, stun grenades and being beaten with police batons according to the Palestine Red Crescent.

 

This, at a time of particularly high alert following a number of deadly Arab street attacks on Jews throughout the country in the past two weeks. Israeli police described hundreds of Palestinians hurling firecrackers and rocks at their forces. And nor did they spare the Jewish prayer section of the Old City's Western Wall raining rocks down on the Jewish faithful, following morning Ramadan prayers. For a religion that celebrates itself as one of peace, it is beyond peculiar that Ramadan, a time of peaceful introspection, all too often results in violent riots perpetrated against Jews.

 

Hundreds of rioting Palestinians were detained. And the Foreign Ministry of the Palestinian Authority in reference to the violence that took place in the holy compound stated it "holds Israel fully and directly responsible for this crime and its consequences", when the crime was committed by Palestinians and Israel had no other option but to restore order while bringing the rioters under control as a 'consequence' of their violent actions. Strange how skewed perspectives can be. Yet a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas insisted that immediate intervention take place in the international community to "stop Israeli aggression against Al Aqsa Mosque and prevent things from going out of control".

 

Sacrilege in Al-Aqsa Mosque

Muslim Sanctimony

"All of the new Israeli steps on the ground from that date [July 14, when the attack took place] until today need to stop, and then the situation in Jerusalem will return to normal. Afterwards we will continue our work on everything regarding the relations between us and them."
"Since Israel tried to change the situation, the residents of Jerusalem have risen as one. You have objected to all of the steps, and we have supported you in what you have done and what you are doing. We are with you in everything that you have done and are still doing, as you are causing us pride, and you are taking care of your Al-Aqsa Mosque, your land, your dignity, your people, your religion and your holy sites. This is the response to everyone who wants to harm our holy sites. Jerusalem is ours. It is our capital and it is [under] our sovereignty, and therefore what you are doing is right."
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

Explosives detectors are to be installed at the entrances to the Holy Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Photograph: Mustafa Ozer/AFP/Getty Images  From The Guardian, 15 August 2011

Cleverly attributing the mass reaction of Palestinians to a perceived change in the status of their revered Noble Sanctuary and the al-Aqsa mosque compound in violently opposing the Government of Israel's decision to install security cameras and metal detectors for the safety and security of all who access the area -- when it is the incitement of the imams and the Palestinian Authority president himself urging Palestinians not to accede to approaching the complex through the metal detectors that is responsible for the violence -- is typical of Palestinian leadership.

"We reject all the measures that Israel is taking, and we warn against any harm to Al-Aqsa", declared the chief mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad Hussein. Palestinians were forbidden from entering the mosque compound through the metal detectors. They were instructed to pray, in their thousands, in a show of defiance, outside on the streets in front of the gates with the metal detectors, rejecting their presence, as they were instructed to do. From that ongoing series of events to violent protests urged on by their leaders matters escalated. 

Israeli security police, aided by videos that captured details of the terrorism that took the lives of two Israeli police stationed at the mosque complex validate that the weapons used had been stored at the mosque complex. The three Palestinian assassins had attacked the Israeli police from the rear. The police were facing away from the mosque, toward the entrance to the mall, anticipating that if problems arose it would be from without, not within. But the assassins approached from within. The Israeli police were shot in the back, to deadly effect.

Clearly this points to the necessity of ensuring that deadly weapons do not, in the future, make their way into the complex to enable Palestinian terrorists to wreak havoc and murder. The deaths of Israelis, whether Jews or Druze, is celebrated as a victory against the oppressive 'occupiers', there to ensure that Israeli citizens remain safe in a volatile hotbed of malignant hatred and deadly violence perpetrated on them by Palestinians infused with the ardour of martyrdom, incited by the PA.

Israeli Border Police stand guard as Palestinian worshipers pray next to the Lions gate of the old city of Jerusalem EPA

Instead of the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian religious leaders responsibly condemning the violence, the perpetrators of those violent deaths, themselves killed by security forces responding to their ongoing violent intentions, have been lionized, their families assured that they will be well compensated financially for their sacrifice. Typically, the families of those who kill Israelis, like the mother of the teenage Palestinian who stabbed to death three members of a Jewish family, express pride in their offspring's valour in killing innocent people.

Jordan, whose waqf administers the Noble Sanctuary complex urged Israel to "reopen Al-Aqsa mosque and the Haram al-Sharif (compound) immediately.” The Jordanian government "opposes any harm against Muslims in carrying out their religious worship in their holy places, freely and with no obstacles", warning any attempt "to alter the legal and historical status quo in Jerusalem" would not be countenanced. Jordan’s Minister of Waqf and Islamic Affairs, Wael Arabiyat, blamed Israel for the violence, warning of "continued unprecedented harm to the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque…under the pretense of stopping violence."

The Arab League was comfortable in condemning Israel for the violence erupting from the temporary closure while the police investigation was in progress. Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit stated Israel’s "banning Palestinians from praying"  (no such ban occurred) would "inflame extremism and escalate tension". He spoke of  "the high sensitivity of issues related to religious places", blaming Israel's "carelessness", never pausing to mention the cause.

All these events gave the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the bloc of 57 Muslim nations in the United Nations, the opportunity to criticize Israel, labelling the temporary closure of the site as "a serious crime and a dangerous precedent". Protests were mounted all over the Middle East as well as throughout Europe, with Muslims gathering to sound out their dissatisfaction with Israel's reaction to the terrorist attack on its police. Israel finally reacted by dismantling the metal detectors and cameras at the Temple Mount, stating that "advanced technologies" would be installed for security.

Israeli police officers dismantle metal detectors outside the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, July 25, 2017.  AP

That act of capitulation is, needless to say, viewed as a victory in the Arab and Muslim world order. Empowering and validating. Encouraging further demands. Viewing Israel as weak and fearful. The democracy that is Israel, giving equality to all its citizens results in Arab Israelis elected to the Israeli Knesset agitating endlessly against the very state that has given them citizenship and equality rights.

"It is far more than breaching the status quo. The Israeli government is defiling the mosques. They took advantage of the situation to impose a complete control over the compound... This move is fanning the flames and I see Israel as only the responsible cause of this situation" claimed MK (Israeli parliamentarian) Taleb Abu Arar of the Joint List. "This is our mosque and when we enter it we want to feel that. The Jews have no rights whatsoever to this mosque – it is for Muslims only. We will not accept being checked every time we want to get inside. We are asking to go back to normal and enter freely, as it was three day ago"

As though the murders had not occurred, leading to the need to secure the area. Entirely negating that the area incorporates the Temple Mount, the most sacred site in Judaism. Assaulting the Jewish presence on the Temple Mount where Jews are forbidden from praying lest they outrage Muslim worshippers. Characterizing the Jewish presence on the complex representing Judaism's most sacred religious site as a 'defiling' presence.

This sanctimony and slander is typical of Muslims. In Mecca in Saudi Arabia, there are over 700 cameras installed to track the faithful (and only the faithful may enter Mecca) for possible theft, pickpocketing and other criminal or immoral activity. Has anyone protested there? Lieutenant Colonel Fawaz al-Sahafi, who heads the security team at the mosque, informed the Saudi Gazette on an earlier occasion of plans to fit "sophisticated metal and explosive detectors" at the multiple gates at Islam's holiest of holies were under way.

Israeli police officers walk outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, July 25, 2017.

Back to Basics of "Resisting The Occupation"

Photo credits: Flash 90, Jonathan Sindel and Hadas Partosh.

"The decision of Jerusalem Police District Commander Yoram Halevy to place these metal detectors near the Temple Mount is a brave decision because this time last week we had two policemen killed. He is taking responsibility that things like this will not happen again."

"[Israel should not be intimidated by threats and should not reward terrorism by backing down]: I welcome the police on their courageous decisions and cabinet for backing them up."
"This is not a political issue, but a security related. No one is trying the change the status quo on Temple Mount, and I call on all Muslim residents to calm the spirits, avoid violence and listen to the police."

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat 

Once again the Arab and Muslim world is united against Israel. Turkey and Jordan, along with the Palestinian Authority have accused Israel of closing access to faithful Muslims to the al-Aqsa Mosque. Outrage is visceral and spontaneous, denouncing the State of Israel for denying Muslims entry to the Noble Sanctuary for Friday prayers. The Jordanian-sponsored Waqf authority has accused Israel of planning to alter the status quo on the Noble Sanctuary, the third most sacred site in Islam after Mecca and Medina, which just incidentally happens to also be Israel’s most sacred site, the Temple Mount, where archaeological remnants of the Temple of Solomon are located.

A site sacred to Judaism’s heritage for thousands of years before Islam was ever introduced to the world, in the 7^th Century. Where, typical of Islam, Islamic structures were built over the ruins of the Jewish Temple, twice destroyed in antiquity, by the Babylonians and by the Romans. But a site that remained a primary destination for the faithful, for Jews living in Jerusalem, throughout the greater Middle East, and in the far broader diaspora of dispersed Jewry. Muslim authorities insist that what they call the Noble Sanctuary cannot be shared by another religion, irrespective of how vital that site is to a religion and historical antecedents much predating Islam.

Islamic authorities speak of "Jewish feet defiling" the site sacred to Islam. Irrespective of the fact that Jerusalem represents Judaism’s ancient heritage, Muslims claim it as solely their own, and adamantly refuse to allow Jews to enter the sacred environs and to pray there. In the interests of maintaining peace between the two religions, Israel, after its successful defence in the 1967 conflict that liberated East Jerusalem's Old City from Jordan, agreed to allow Jordan to continue its stewardship of the site on behalf of Islam, through the authority of the Waqf which it administers.

Muslims may pray unhindered at their third most holy site in Islam, Jews are forbidden to pray at their most sacred site in Judaism, even though Israel administers the territory as its own. The presence of Jews at the site, permitted to enter but not to pray remains a source of adversity, however, with Muslims resenting Jewish presence and acting on the incitement by their political and religious leaders, hurl insults as Jews as well as rocks in a demonstration of contempt and rage. That demonstration of rage went somewhat further last week when three Arab Palestinians from a small village inside Israel attacked and killed two Israeli police stationed for security purposes at the site.

Those murders led to an immediate but brief shutdown of the site, where no one but police investigators were permitted entry, for obvious reasons, reflecting standard police procedure anywhere in the world where a violent crime of this magnitude is committed. This brief shutdown led to an immediate protest by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, but not a word of condemnation of the atrocity that had led to the shutdown. Saudi Arabia’s king responded by demanding the site immediately be reopened to allow Muslims to enter the al-Aqsa mosque for prayer.

Palestinians pray on a street near a road block outside Jerusalem's Old City July 21, 2017.. (photo credit:REUTERS/AMMAR AWAD)

From those very same sacred precincts came the three assassins carrying their weapons meant to kill Israelis. Connivance with some authorities within the edifices on the Temple Mount was not entirely ruled out, enabling the three to carry out their mission. Entry for Muslims through their special gate into the compound has always been carried out without security checks. Even though weapons, including rocks to be thrown at Israeli security police and tourists have been stored there in the past, to be used to satisfyingly brutal effect.

When within a day the entry gates to the complex were re-opened, it was revealed that security devices had been installed. The Palestinian Authority immediately bristled at the news that metal detectors were put in place and henceforth all who enter the shrine must first undergo a security check. Jerusalem’s elite Muslim cleric Mohammed Hussein, forbade Muslims to enter the gates in protest of the placement of the metal detectors. They must, he insisted, pray instead in their numbers outside the gates. And so, thousands of Muslims appeared on the streets, positioning themselves to pray in protest on the streets outside the gates.

All the while, Palestinians and the world at large were being informed that Israel had betrayed its assurance to the world of Islam of free access to Muslims to their third most holy site. Worse, that plans to alter the site itself were to take place. And in the worst of all possible worlds for Islam and its faithful ummah, filthy Jewish feet would not only be ascending what to Jews is their holy of holies, but they would, henceforth, pray there as well. The Arab and Muslim world has risen as one to condemn and to threaten.

Contacts with Israel, declared Mahmoud Abbas would be suspended on "all levels". Presumably that includes security. And that would certainly spell problems for President Abbas, for without the aid of the Israeli military his own life would be forfeit, reflecting the lethal animosities between the PA’s Fatah and Gaza’s Hamas. Void of Israel’s protection, the violence-inspiring Abbas would be mortally dispatched by the violently-responding Hamas, taking advantage of the opportunity to act.

In the meanwhile, riots have broken out in Israel, with Palestinians mounting protests where clashes with Israeli troops are satisfying Palestinians’ penchant for ‘resistance’ of the ‘occupation’. In Turkey and in Jordan violent protests are taking place, charging Israel with crimes against Islam. In the streets of Jerusalem and at some West Bank locations, Palestinians throw stones and firecrackers and use burning tires to attack the Israeli security personnel. In response, Israeli troops have fired live rounds of rubber bullets and tear gas.

Any excuse for violence and incitement for more that the Palestinians can grasp in their ongoing war with Israel will do to build popular resentment at a victimhood the Palestinians and the wider circle of Islamist militants graspingly hold dear to describe the brutality levelled at them by genocidal Israelis. Muslim worshippers are informed by their religious authorities to prepare for a “long test of wills” for, according to Mohammed Hussein: “We will not back off.” No, of course they will not.

Turkey’s tyrannical president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is undoubtedly pleased with these events, purporting to talk “reason” to the Israelis to persuade the removal of the metal detectors and the opening of the undefended gates to further mayhem and murder. Israel’s security measures, according to Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, are “radical”. Not so, Turkey’s response to a failed coup attempt last summer that resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of tens of thousands of Turks and Kurds, much less the dismissal of over a hundred-thousand politicians, teachers, judges, military personnel, journalists, police and lawyers on trumped-up charges that they colluded with Turkey’s Gulenist movement to overturn the 'democratic' government.

The viciously violent attacks against Jews continues unabated, and celebrated by Islamists such as Hamas and Turkey, lauded as well by Palestinians supporting the PA’s contention that Israel sits on Palestinian land. A Palestinian man entered a West Bank settlement on Friday, climbing a security fence and entering a home where a family was preparing to celebrate the birth of a child. There he attacked four people having dinner, killing three of them, a grandfather, one of his sons and one of his daughters. 

As is so often done, the killer had posted a boast on Facebook of his intention, claiming to be motivated by Israel’s wrong-doing toward Muslim worshippers at the shrine. An off-duty soldier responded to screaming at the invaded home, rushed to the scene and shot and wounded the 19-year-old attacker who just murdered three innocent people. He has now achieved for himself hero status in the Palestinian world order.

Jerusalem, Israel's Indivisible Capital

"No way. Why is this your business? This is an area that is in dispute, the Western Wall is not Israeli territory and is located in the West Bank."
"This is Trump's show; all the rest are extras, including Prime Minister Netanyahu."
U.S. White House spokesman

"These comments, if true, were not authorized by the White House."
"They do not reflect the U.S. position, and certainly not the President's position."
White House official

"No Israeli leaders [will be permitted to accompany Trump to the Western Wall]."
"He's going to the Western Wall mainly in connection with the theme to connect three of the world's great religions ... and to highlight the theme that we all have to be united against the enemies of all civilized people."
H.R. McMaster, Trump National Security Adviser

Psalms 137:5-6, “If I forget thee O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not bring up Jerusalem at the beginning of my joy.”  Indeed, Jerusalem is mentioned 349 times by name in the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible, demonstrating its centrality to Judaism

How cavalier is that? Pretty well on a par with the United Nations' UNESCO (Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), guided by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation declaring three consecutive resolutions that there is no "legal validity" to Israel's historical heritage claim to the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount (Western Wall/Wailing Wall), all that is left of the historical Temple(s) of Solomon dating to 957 B.C.E., the one destroyed by the Babylonians who laid sack to Jerusalem and slaughtered almost a million Jews in 586 B.C.E.

The Jewish population of ancient Israel was scattered into forced exile. In 538 B.C.E. Jews were given permission by Cyrus the Great to rebuild the Temple of Solomon in its second iteration. In the year 70 of the Christian Era, the Roman Emperor Vespasian responded to Jewish refusal to obey the edicts of Rome, sending his son Titus to sack and destroy the second Temple. And once  again the Jews were sent into exile, the great diaspora where Jews were scattered around the world, though some Jewish presence always remained in Jerusalem.

By the 7th Century Islam was founded, based by the Prophet Mohammad on the tenets and sacred writings and the prophets of the Old Testament of Judaism and on Christianity. When Muslim rule prevailed, the Muslim caliph ordered an Islamic shrine to be constructed over the ruins of the Second Temple, where the Dome of the Rock sits, since 691 C.E. The al-Aqsa Mosque dates from roughly the same period, standing in the courtyard of the ancient Temple. To deny Jewish claims on its own heritage is a sacrilege of history.

When Donald J. Trump was running for President of the United States, as unlikely then as it appeared that he would succeed, he boasted that he was prepared to recognize Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jewish state, Israel reborn. Now, he is on the cusp of a visit to the Holy Land, to travel to Israel, to Saudi Arabia, and to the Vatican; touching as it were, the three major religions of the world rooted in Abrahamic memory as their founder. At the same time, purportedly focusing on the conflict with violent Islam. But violent Islam is, in fact, Islam; Muslims are enjoined by their sacred texts to engage in jihad. And they do.

In meeting with the Saudi king, even Donald J. Trump would not suggest he be permitted to visit Mecca, which by Islamist decree is forbidden entry to any but Muslims. Yet this man who understands history as little as he understands diplomacy, integrity and honesty plans to visit the ancient wall, all that is left standing of the most sacred symbol of Judaism, restraining the nation's Prime Minister from accompanying him. It is as though Prime Minister Netanyahu, visiting Washington, made an official appearance at the Lincoln Memorial, forbidding Trump to be present.

In Contention

"There’s certainly a chance of it, absolutely. I’ve always liked the concept of doing it, I’ll tell you that."
"It’s a very big decision because every president for the last number of presidents, large number, they’ve come in and they were going to do it and and then all of a sudden they decide they don’t want to get involved."
"[The decision is] not easy. [It] has two sides to it." [But he is prepared to] studying it very long and hard [before making a decision]."
"I hate to do that because that’s not usually me. Usually, I do what’s right."
U.S. President Donald J. Trump

"I would like to clarify unequivocally that our view has always been, and continues to be, that the United States' embassy should be here in Jerusalem."
"Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and it is appropriate that not only the American embassy will be here but that all embassies will move here and I believe that in due course most will come here, to Jerusalem."
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu

This photo comes from 1844 and was taken by French photographer Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey. Smithsonian.com

The Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv is where most international diplomatic legates work out of, where the global community feels the Israeli capital should be located until such time as a compromise settlement is reached between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel, whose heritage since antiquity has been there where ancient Judeans lived, and where the ancient Temple of Solomon was built and rebuilt, but which the Palestinians, a recent Arab introduction to the land once named Palestine where Jews lived, have coopted as their own.

So much so, that although more than ample evidence exists in historical notations both sacred and secular in origin of Jerusalem's Jewish connection that the Palestinians have gone to extraordinary lengths to deny any connection of Judaic presence in Jerusalem, much less that the most sacred site in Judaic tradition and religious history is sited in east Jerusalem, where thousands of years later Islam, claiming the city as its own, built over the destroyed Temple, a deliberate extermination of history in a technique favoured by Islam.

"It's clear as the sun is clear that the Temple, which was demolished by the Romans [in its second iteration] is a Jewish temple."
Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General

"He [Guterres] neglected the UNESCO resolutions, which clearly said that the al-Aqsa Mosque is purely an Islamic heritage. [Guterres' remarks] are a violation to all human, diplomatic and legal rules and laws and a violation to his position as the secretary-general. He [Guterres] should apologize to the Palestinian people for his remarks", spluttered an enraged Adnan al-Huseini, Palestinian Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, referring to the UNESCO October resolution setting aside Judaic connection to the Temple Mount.

And it is precisely this entitled attitude of re-writing history to suit the Palestinian narrative of exclusive ownership of a geography and its symbolism as a sacred site to a religion hugely predating that of Islam, that Israel must contend with. Where the international community has seen fit to empathize with distortions and lies preferring the public relations campaign waged by the Palestinian Authority identifying itself and Palestinians as suffering the indignities associated with being 'occupied' by a nation's military dedicated to self-defence.

A self-defence that more recent history has proven time and again is required and is perfectly legal under international law when a nation is constantly under siege, threatened and attacked by its neighbours, with deadly consequences. Moreover, a neighbour delighting in portraying itself as the wronged party, though incitement to violence and to 'resistance' to 'the occupation' is doublespeak for murderous attacks later lionized, the 'heroes' that kill honoured, their families financially supported by the PA through funds made available by international donors.

The contested east Jerusalem which the Palestinian Authority aspires to command as its capital, is only a portion of the Palestinians' aspirations of driving Israel from the ground it occupies to 'restore' to the Palestinians the entire land mass it claims for itself, denying any Judaic presence there at any time in history.

With a new administration now installed in the  United States, one where the current President had promised to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, during the election campaign, and in compliance with the Jerusalem Embassy Act which the U.S. Congress had passed into law in 1995 and which Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama chose to waiver as they are permitted by law to do every six months, in reflection of "national security interests", Israel is awaiting action.


That promise and the anticipation that it may yet occur, has seen the Palestinian Authority threaten consequences of violent dissent. And it is clear that should the transfer of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem take place, there would be a violent reaction, impacting not only Israeli citizens and their government, but that of the United States itself. When the PA wants to have its way it resorts to violence, alternately to using diplomacy since discovering that works for them at the UN.

A flag flutters outside the US embassy in Tel Aviv August 4, 2013. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Denying History, Depriving Judaism of its Foundational Heritage

"The Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic expresses its firm opposition to a resolution approved by the Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO that denies the historical link between the Jewish people and the Western Wall and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem."
119 of 149 Czech lawmakers protested the UNESCO resolution denying historic links between Jews and their holy sites

Jews worshipping at the Western Wall [Wailing wall] in the Old City of Jerusalem

Mexico, one of the 24 countries that voted in favour of the resolution, saw its ambassador withdraw in protest at his country's decision to vote in favour. Six nations, including the United States, Germany and Britain, voted against the resolution brought forward by Arab countries on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, and another 26 abstained. Abstaining because they have no opinion on the matter of historical revisionism, denying a nation the heritage of its well-recorded sacred symbols of historical Judaism?

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova and chairman of the UNESCO Executive Board Michael Worbs expressed their personal dismay at the deliberate slaughter of truth and reality in a rank political move to discredit history for the purpose of delegitimizing Israel and with it, worldwide Jewry, through this cynical move to deprive a people and a religion of its time and place in history, denying its very existence, so completely intertwined with its singular religious identity.

Irina Bokova stated unequivocally that she personally understands and recognizes the sanctity of the Temple Mount and the Western Wall to the Jewish people, and she spoke of a number of UNESCO activities whose declared and obvious purpose was to support and acknowledge the obvious; Judaism’s primary link to the land of of their forefathers in Israel. At the same time she acknowledged the further harm done to the multi-faith reality of Jerusalem in this denial of history which can only, she stressed, harm UNESCO.

Her statements have earned her vicious threats to her personal safety.

Board chairman Michael Worbs of Germany, attempted to redeem the situation by rescheduling the ratification of the declaration to be voted upon at a later date, while expressing his own opposition to the wording of the document, expunging descriptive identification of the most sacred sites to Judaism in favour of linking the areas solely with Palestinians who did not even exist when historical Jerusalem and the Temples of Solomon occupied the site of the Temple Mount.

Denial by Arab Muslims that the site of the Temple Mount ever held a Judaic temple of huge renown and historical documentation, stressing that the site only ever had a Muslim connection in a religion that also did not exist until it was constructed into existence by the Prophet Mohammad in the seventh century, is simply typical of the Islamic way of denying any religion other than Islam, and scornfully building their own sites of worship over the ruins of other religions' sites, or transforming them into Islamic mosques as though another focus relating to an earlier religion never existed.

Unfortunately for Israel, the whipping goat of the United Nations and all of its various world body arms including UNESCO, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation is always alert to ensure that Muslim initiatives, Islamic 'honour' always be upheld against any other entities or groups who might imagine themselves to be entitled to equal consideration in any matter of public uncertainty or dispute. The influence of the Islamic clique on the Non-Aligned Nations in the UN has moved the world body from its original purpose to a single-purpose body to advance Islamic interests against all others, and particularly Israel.

When the Arab nations backing the motion understood that Chairman Worbs meant to intervene on behalf of truth and fairness and in a bid to rescue UNESCO from complete and utter discreditation, unbearable pressure was placed on the Board chairman who then felt he had no option but to recuse himself, suspending himself from chairing the meeting, as would normally occur. His replacement will be by Swedish ambassador Annika Markovic, a nation that seems to see no reason at any time not to betray the reality of Israeli existence.

And so it was that a UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization whose purpose is to promote "humanity's moral and intellectual solidarity" encompassing universal education for children along with "intercultural understanding" and the support of "world heritage" sites of universal value, chose, when it welcomed the Palestinian Authority into observer status as a semi-member, to circumvent its own purpose and reason for existence.

As far as UNESCO is concerned, through this complete abdication of their purpose and the acknowledgement of historical connections relating to heritage and pride, Judaism's most sacred sites have been coopted by the Palestinians whose leadership also claims Christ to have been a Palestinian, though the Palestinians never existed at that critical time that gave birth to Christianity. The Jewish sites that Judaism holds sacred to the memory of their forebears are henceforth recognized by UNESCO as Palestinian.

This is, of course, in complete accord to Islamic precepts, a religion which recognizes no religion other than Islam, which holds that any ground once consecrated to Islam may never surrender to the claims of any other religion, even if that religion vastly predated Islam. That UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon upheld the Temple Mount as "the holiest place in Judaism", represents an effort on his part to retain some vestige of honour for himself personally, even as another UN body, like the infamous Human Rights Council, surrenders its purpose to abusive corruption.


Jewish men, draped in prayer shawls, take part in the Cohanim prayer during Passover at the Western Wall, Jerusalem, Israel, April 25, 2016.   Menahem Kahana, AFP

"The theater of the absurd continues at the UN. Today UNESCO adopted its second decision this year denying the Jewish people’s connection to the Temple Mount, our holiest site for over three thousand years. What’s next? A UNESCO decision denying the connection between peanut butter and jelly? Batman and Robin? Rock and roll?"
"Is it any wonder the UN has become a moral farce when UNESCO, the UN body tasked with preserving history, denies and distorts history? Israel will continue to fight the lies, hatred and double standards at the UN. Israel will prevail because truth will prevail."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

The Western Wall in Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) appears not to mind that it risks irrelevancy on the world stage, lending itself to an improbable and ridiculous, let alone insultingly ignorant resolution brought forward by the Palestinians in their continuing slander and delegitimization of Israel's right to existence in its heritage geography. The resolution shared with Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar and Sudan, all without exception bastions of human rights violations, have embarked on a journey to violate history.

And they have ample support in the United Nations whose major function appears to have swivelled on a dime from promoting peace world-wide, to signing on to any and all resolutions brought forward by Arab and Muslim countries to slam Israel in the court of public opinion. The two major blocks, the Non-aligned Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, are together quite capable of co-opting the United Nations and its various forums to reflect their jaundiced view of history and human rights and national legitimacy.

Thursday at the United Nations, UNESCO members passed a contentious anti-Israel resolution denying Jewish connections to the Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem. Israel's historic heritage link to Jerusalem, the ancient city of David and Solomon, whose presence and exploits are well reflected in the ancient scripts, supported by the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus and countless others. Where archaeological digs have unearthed numberless artefacts attesting to the Jewish presence in lands Israel once ruled and once again does so, including Jerusalem and the ruins of the two Temples of Solomon, upon which a much later religion, Islam, built its own tertiary shrines.

The resolution depriving Israel and Judaism of its history and its most sacred Judaic symbol was voted in favour by 24 UNESCO member states upholding the re-writing of history. Of UNESCO members who abstained from the vote in a cowardly withdrawal, there were 26, leaving a mere six countries to vote against the absurdity of a petty, spiteful resolution demeaning the UNESCO committee, willing to defame Israel, as is the singular wont at the United Nations.

The draft resolution, which acknowledges that the city of Jerusalem is holy to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity also claims the Temple Mount holy site is sacred only to Muslims, deliberately overlooking its major significance to Jews. And nor does the resolution dignify the Judaic history of the site by mentioning its Hebrew or English names of Har HaBayit/Temple Mount. Rather, the emphasis is solely on the site's Muslim names (Al-Aqsa Mosque and Haram al-Sharif).

Six UNESCO members — the US, UK, Germany, Holland, Lithuania and Estonia — voted against the resolution, while France, Spain, Sweden, Russia and Slovenia were among the non-Arab nations who supported the resolution. Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States objected, to their great and everlasting credit. They, at the very least, can look at one another without cringing in shame.

Israel's foreign ministry has produced a publication featuring archaeological findings providing ample evidence of Jewish connections to Jerusalem generally and specifically to the Temple Mount complex. Israel's ambassador to the world cultural organization wrote a letter emphasizing to the UNESCO committee that the archaeological findings "leave no doubt…of the deepest and longest Jewish presence in Jerusalem since ancient times". The initiative challenging Judaism's link to Jerusalem "is an attempt to rewrite history in a dangerous, unfair and one-sided manner."

Gil Cohen/AFP
"Jewish worshippers draped in prayer shawls performing the annual Priestly Blessing during Sukkot at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel, Sept. 30, 2015."

Brazil's Foreign Ministry appears to have suffered ill conscience and in a statement released last week explained that leaving out the Jewish connections to the site in the text of the resolution was an "error":
“However, the fact that the decision does not make express reference to the historical ties of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, particularly to the Western Wall, the holiest shrine of Judaism, is an error, which makes the text partial and unbalanced".

"Brazil reiterates its full recognition of these bonds and its position in favor of the free access of believers of the three religions, Christianism, Islamism and Judaism, to the holy sites of the Old City of Jerusalem, as well as its support for the existing agreements between Israel and Jordan on the administration of the city." The government of Brazil vowed to "review its vote if the deficiencies pointed out in the decision are not corrected in future assessment of the subject by UNESCO."

France, which had also voted in favor of the resolution, has backtracked on its vote, as well, as the result of a "misunderstanding".  In a letter he had addressed to the French Jewish community, French President Francois Hollande stated France's support of the resolution occurred as a result of a "misunderstanding." Pledging that France would not support such assaultively, insultingly historically corrupt initiatives in the future.