Photo Credit: Courtesy: YMedad
Jews arrested for violating the rule against prayer on Temple Mount

“This is an action that represents discrimination and not the democratic government of Israel.”

Glick called on others to follow suit and complain to the court.

Advertisement




While the court delivered its decision, Americans reading The Washington Post woke up to see the front page article that could not have been better timed, not only because of the court ruling but also because it still is Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday that recalls the Hashmonean revolt against the Romans and the re-establishment of Jewish authority at the Holy Temple.

The newspaper opened up with the expected warning that Jewish demands to pray on the Temple Mount will make the Muslims furious.

The world now knows the absurdity of the Muslim prohibitions against Jews. “Many [Jewish activists] then embark upon a game of hide-and-seek with their police escorts — whispering forbidden prayers while pretending to talk into cellphones, and getting in quick but banned bows by dropping coins and then bending to pick them up,” The Washington Post reporters wrote.

The Muslim position is obvious and well-known.

“This place belongs to the Muslim people, and no others have the right to pray here,” Sheik Azzam al-Khatib, director of the Waqf, told the newspaper. “If they try to take over the mosque, this will be the end of time. This will create rage and anger not only in the West Bank but all over the Islamic world — and only God knows what will happen.”

The Muslim opposition and wild Arab propaganda that almost daily reports of Jews ”storming” or “invading” the Temple Mount, has been so gross that Jews finally have reacted, as usual, only when their backs are against the wall.

For the first time, senior Knesset leaders have vocally supported the right of Jews to pray on the Temple Mount.

Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, deputy minister of religious affairs, has proposed giving Jews an hour a day to pray there.

“There is a growing reality among sectors of the population who want to go up there and pray, and there are rabbis who are encouraging their followers to do so,” he told a recent Knesset committee. “The rabbinate needs to recognize this reality.’’

Housing Minister Uri Ariel would like nothing better than to announce plans for building the Holy Temple, but it is doubtful that Kerry would approve.

The Washington Post reported to Americans what Israelis and Jewish Press readers knew here weeks ago. “There is no such thing as the Temple Mount! It does not exist. It is not there,” said Arab Knesset Member Jamal Zahalka.

After Luked MK Miri Regev said Jews have a right to pray there, Arab MK Ahmed Tibi burst out, “Because of your games at the al-Aqsa mosque, a third intifada could erupt. You are a dangerous woman — to yourself, your children and all of us. Enough of playing with fire!”

There is nothing like the threat of violence to bring Goosebumps to Western governments that think they know more about the Middle East than people living there.

The Palestinian Authority, under the direction of Yasser Arafat, launched the Second Intifada, or the Oslo War, latching onto the excuse that Ariel Sharon provoked it by visiting the Temple Mount in his campaign for Prime Minister

The Muslim religious police hatred of Jews is so crude that the Washington Post’s reportage of it is not going to help the anti-Zionist camp.

“On a recent weekday morning, a dozen Jews led by an activist rabbi assembled at Mughrabi Gate to enter the Temple Mount,” the article stated. “Because they had skullcaps and some had long beards and were wearing religious garments, they were escorted by armed Israeli police and trailed by three escorts from the Waqf.

Advertisement

1
2
3
SHARE
Previous articleWatch your Language: West Bank No More
Next articleIsrael’s New US Ambassador Presents Formal Papers to Obama
Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu is a graduate in journalism and economics from The George Washington University. He has worked as a cub reporter in rural Virginia and as senior copy editor for major Canadian metropolitan dailies. Tzvi wrote for Arutz Sheva for several years before joining the Jewish Press.