Patrick Ventrell, acting Deputy State Department spokesperson:

QUESTION: Okay. And finally on the same issue, do you comment on the recent violence around the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock?

MR. VENTRELL: I am aware of the arrest of the Grand Mufti. Is this the same incident? I’m not aware that they’re the same incident.

QUESTION: Right. It’s the same incident. Actually, the Israelis arrested the Jerusalem Mufti but they did release him a couple of hours ago.

MR. VENTRELL: Right. I mean, we’re concerned about the recent tensions surrounding the Temple Mount, Haram al-Sharif, including the detention today of the Grand Mufti. We understand that he was released, as you just mentioned. But we urge all sides to respect the status quo of this holy site and to exercise restraint and refrain from provocative actions.

Okay?

Well, not really okay.

First, who was “violent”?  Who was attempting to exercise their legal rights and who was throwing chairs, screaming racist slogans and trying to provoke a riot?

Second, the status quo cannot remain static any longer.  It was forced on Jews by an intolerant Islamic approach that perceives the Temple Mount as not belonging to the Jews or that Jews have no rights to their holy site.  That will change.

Jews pray in Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs when, for centuries previously, they couldn’t even ascend past the 7th step outside.  Muslims also pray there, under one roof.  It may be thought of as awkward, but it works.

There is more than enough area on the Temple Mount to reach an accommodation.  A bit of good will is required.

I think the State Department should be pressuring the Arabs on that.  They are involved enough with the population so let their programs concentrate also on tolerance, coexistence and plain humane consideration.

Turning a blind eye to their religious fanaticism (State’s reports on religious freedom are wishywashy) doesn’t help.

Get more concerned, please.

Visit My Right Word.

The arrest of the Jerusalem Mufti on Tuesday for throwing chairs at Jews on the Temple Mount prompted the Jordanian parliament on Wednesday to demand that King Abdullah expel the Israeli envoy. The legislators also called to start a draft for a law to scrap the peace treaty with Israel.

Police arrested an Arab from entering the Temple Mount, and an enraged Grand Mufti and other Arabs began throwing plastic chairs at five Jews who entered the Temple Mount under police escort. Arab media said they prostrated themselves, an act of prayer that the Waqf prohibits, except for Muslims.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told The Washington Post the group did not carry out any act of prayer. As usual, Palestinian Authority media exaggerated the entire scene. Arab media always report that Jews “stormed” the Temple Mount. The Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency reported that 50, and not five, Jews prostrated themselves.

Israeli police stepped in to end the clash before it could get out of hand and arrested the Mufti, a rare action.

It did not take much time for Jordan to hear of the altercation, and the country’s parliament unanimously agreed that the kingdom should expel the Israeli ambassador and recall its own ambassador from Tel Aviv. The parliament added its own imagination to the facts and claimed that Israel is trying to build a bridge between the Al Aqsa mosque and Jerusalem “settlements.” The parliament also called for drafting legislation to scrap the peace treaty with Israel.

Several hours later, Israel released the Mufti, which probably was not related to the Jordanian parliament’s move. The government knows full well that the Arab world will not sit passive with the Jerusalem Mufti being taken from his home for interrogation.

The U.S. State Department was asked by reporters to comment on the fuss, and assistant spokesman Patrick Ventrell told them, “We urge all sides to respect the status quo of this holy site and to exercise restraint and refrain from provocative actions.

As usual, the State Dept. does not what it is talking about.

Status quo? From when? From 1967?

The Israeli government passed the Protection of Holy Places Law on June 27, 1967.

It states:

“The Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places.”

The wise State Dept. does not also know much about the Mufti, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein.

In 2006, he stated that suicide bombings of Israelis were “legitimate, of course, as long as it plays a role in the resistance.”

On the other hand, one could say he simply was maintaining the status quo, which the Oslo Accords and the peace treaty with Jordan changed.

Jordan controlled the Temple Mount until the Six-Day War in 1967. Before then, Amman did not let Jews visit holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It also prohibited Christians from most churches and holy sites in the Old City, Judea and Samaria, except for few and far between visiting foreign dignitaries.

After Jerusalem was restored to Israel in 1967, the Israeli government didn’t want to have much to do with the Temple Mount for many reasons, not the least of which was the concern of a religious war with Muslims as well as the complicated and complex issue in Jewish law of whether it is even permitted for a Jew to ascend to the site of the destroyed First and Second Temples.

The government left authority for the Temple Mount site in the hands of the Muslim Waqf site, with the stipulation that Israeli police could patrol the site and enter the mosque area, if necessary.

The “status quo” ended in 1969, when an Australian evangelical Christian tried to burn down the mosque to hasten the Second Coming, if not World War III.

Muslims began to renovate buildings on the Temple Mount and tried to minimize the presence of Israel soldiers. A plot by a Jewish underground movement to blow up he Al Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock to awaken Jews to a spiritual revival, or alternatively, bring on World War III.

In an unusual move, police have detained the Jerusalem Mufti, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, on Wednesday, according to an AP report.

The detention followed Arab attacks and violence against Temple Mount tourists on Tuesday.

The police did not say what the Mufti’s specific involvement was.

Over the past few months, Arabs have been escalating the level of their violent attacks on the Temple Mount to include stoning and firebombs.

In April, the Waqf, controlled by the Mufti, informed the Prime Minister of Israel that “World War 3″ would break out if MK Moshe Feiglin visited the Temple Mount.

In 2006, Hussein stated in an interview that suicide bombing by Palestinians against Israelis was “legitimate, of course, as long as it plays a role in the resistance”.

In 2011, at an event marking the 47th anniversary of the founding of the terrorist organization Fatah, Hussein quoted a controversial hadith, stating: “The Hour will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jews will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call: Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

In short, the man’s got a history.

Police said the Mufti would be released later today, but still, even for this short time, this was a nice gift to Israel on Jerusalem Liberation Day.