Photo Credit: Sliman Khader/FLASH90
Thousands of Arab worshippers are allowed to pray on Temple Mount any time, but start a riot when a Jew dares to close his eyes up there.

Where did this imprecise and actually wrong statement come from?

Many Orthodox Jews once rejected the idea of praying in the [Temple Mount] compound, citing religious rules barring anyone not descended from one of the ancient priests from stepping on hallowed ground where holy scriptures were once kept.

Reuters, from the pen of  Allyn Fisher-Ilan with editing by Jeffrey Heller and Mark Heinrich (here, too).  (Thanks to EOZ who also tears it apart).  The language is not only imprecise but biased.  This is not news or a perspective but the political outlook of the writer and her editors.

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In any case, descent from the Kohanic line has no nearing on the real Halachic question of

(a) is the Temple Mount still considered sacred?

(b) if so, where exactly are the interior precincts which are defined-as-holy space, since the current area is much larger than the original?

(c) can we all, and not only Kohanim, be released from a state of Halachic impurity and how?

And another example:

This month alone, Israeli police have hauled away half a dozen Israelis from the site. A Jewish Israeli and an Arab citizen were held in connection with a brawl that injured a Muslim official, and four other Jewish men were detained for prostrating themselves on the holy ground.

The brawl began when the Jewish man was accosted by shouting Muslim women and simply began to photograph them.  She even writes further:

At the compound, one group of visitors walked past al-Aqsa, drawing shouting from Muslim women sitting in the shade of tree and from Palestinian children attending a day camp. They ignored the catcalls and continued deeper into the plaza.

But to return to that “brawl,” Waqf guards attempted to prevent him photographing and even tried to grab the camera. Having been pushed, the Jewish man pushed back.  That’s the complete story.

Don’t trust Reuters for correct and balanced news.

Visit My Right Word .

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Yisrael Medad resides in Shiloh and is a foreign media spokesperson for the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities.