Temple Mount in Jerusalem was closed on Sunday morning to Jews and tourists, as Arab rioters threw stones at Jews on Temple Mount as well as the Jews praying by the Kotel.

According to Reshet Bet Radio, the incident began when a 4-year-old girl had to relieve herself at the edge of the Temple Mount compound. The girl was accompanying her father, who was among the Jewish activists visiting the holy site. There are no bathroom facilities available in the area which is permissible for Jews to access, and so the father had to take his child to a secluded area.

Arab youths in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount who heard about the “offense” started throwing stones indiscriminately at all the visitors at the site. They threw stones at police and then at the large crowd of Jews praying below the Mount, at the Western Wall. No one was hurt and police forces repelled the attackers and arrested six suspects.

The child’s father told Reshet Bet he had no intention to provoke the Arabs, but absent a proper facility, he had to take care of his child as best he could.

Jewish Temple activists said that closing Temple Mount on Jewish holidays has become a predictable ritual, as Muslims incite rioters over their websites to storm the site, and Israeli police never lifts a finger to prepare for the rioters. Instead, they let the riots begin and then use them as an excuse to close off the site.

Israel is preparing the red carpet for President Barack Obama, who will have a three-day carefully staged photo-op and an hour or so to entertain a hand-picked audience for an oratorical performance.

A force of 10,000 police officers and security officials will surround President Obama from the time his plane touches down at Ben Gurion Airport next Wednesday until it leaves two mornings later.

Just as he orchestrated his campaign visit to Israel and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in 2008, White House planners have worked it out to make sure America’s Big Boss will stay in neutral territory.

He will visit the Israel Museum, which is full of Muslim, Christian and Jewish displays, giving him the opportunity to show how respectful he is of the world’s three major religions. The highlight will be his observing the Dead Sea Scrolls, which won’t upset the Palestinian Authority since the Scrolls have nothing to do with the re-written Muslim history of Israel.

The tentative schedule of President Obama’s trip does not list the Bethlehem Church of Nativity, which the President previously said he wanted to visit. It is located only a few minutes from Jerusalem, but if he does arrive there, it will require a mammoth security operation that would require “cleansing” the area of any Arab within shooting distance and would probably cause a vicious Arab reaction.

President Obama may view the Iron Dome missile, if a trip to Bethlehem does not override it,  and he will state that  American funding of the defensive weapon against incoming short-range missiles is proof that “Israel has America’s back.”

Obama will make an obligatory trip to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, where the PA security force, undoubtedly backed up by behind-the-scenes Israeli intelligence, will try to keep his subjects out of view so they don’t greet President Obama by burning American flags.

The President will say that his visit demonstrates the United States’ commitment to the Palestinian people, including those in Gaza, where even in his worst nightmare, he would not think of visiting.

Abbas will smile with Obama, which will infuriate the Arab street given the United States’ refusal to accept Abbas’ swipe in the face of the White House by putting another nail in the coffin of the “peace process” and going to the United Nations for de facto recognition of its territorial and political demands.

Abbas will tell Obama he wants to negotiate with Prime Minister Netanyahu, although no one in the press corps will report that Abbas has left nothing on the table to negotiate.

Obama will return to Jerusalem for a gala dinner with President Shimon Peres and will speak to Israelis at the Jerusalem Convention Center for what may be his last opportunity to talk directly to Israel.

After praising Israel to no end, and after mentioning that he will visit Mount Herzl the following day to honor the memory of former Prime Minister and Oslo Accords champion Yitzchak Rabin, and after falling over himself about the emotions he will experience when he visits Yad VaShem the next day, and after saying how much Abbas really wants to make peace if Israel would only let him, he will warn everyone that the alternative to a “two-state solution” is the end of Israel as a Jewish state. He will not note that Abbas’ official maps show all of Israel as “Palestine.”

Obama will try to convince Israelis that Abbas has halted incitement against Israel, without mentioning the endless honoring of suicide terrorists and ongoing PA television programs that remind viewers that Jews are the root of all evil.

Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama will tell each other how much they are working hand-in-hand to stop Iran from reaching nuclear capability, and who knows what they will say to each other behind doors?

Five years ago, Obama visited the Western Wall during his presidential campaign, and back home,  he told Jews in the United States that Jerusalem is the “undivided capital of Israel.” The next day, a furious Arab world forced him to backtrack, and he came up with a line that he really meant it won’t be divided again as it was between 1949 and 1967, the period of the Jordanian occupation when an “apartheid” barbed wire fence kept Jews out of their former homes in the Old City.

Things have changed since then.

Every Jew living in what once was Jordanian-occupied Jerusalem is now an “illegitimate settler,” according to President Obama.

Obama probably would want to declare a “three-faith” solution for Jerusalem with a prayer at an Old City church, a solemn stand at the Western Wall again along with a tour of the Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. But even an announcement that he would want to step foot in the mosque would spark a world-wide Arab demonstration against such a desecration by an infidel, who was born into a Muslim family but is a Christian.

On Tuesday, the first of the month of Nissan (March 12), the Women will meet as they do each month, a 7 AM Rosh Hodesh prayer on the women’s side of the Western Wall. A press release sent out by the organization is warning that this weekend the Haredi neighborhoods of Jerusalem are plastered with pashk’villim—wall posters dealing with public issues, usually in an excited style—against the Women of the Wall. The posters are calling on Haredim to come in droves to the Kotel on Rosh Hodesh morning.

One poster reads:

Help!

The “Western Wall” Is Being Treaded on and Desecrated

by a group of women called “Women of the Kotel,” who wish to desecrate the Kotel on Tuesday, Rosh Chodesh Nissan, 5773, a7 7 in the morning.

Praying men and women, please come to attend the Rosh Chodesh prayer at the Western Wall on that day and protest against the desecration of holiness.

Anyone who cares about the place from which the Shechina (God’s emanation on earth) never budged must come to protest and cry out.

The Women of the Wall point out that although there were no rabbis’ signatures on the posters, it appears someone is interested in opposing the group, “despite the relative quiet of the last few months.”

They note that several prayer sessions, including their Purim celebration have gone without incident, no clashes with any Haredim at the site—although the police still detained 43 of the women over the past six months. It appears that the Jewish men who actually come to the Kotel regularly to pray have grown to tolerate the once-a-month phenomenon.

The arrests have been conducted in line with the law that prohibits women from wearing prayer shawls at the Kotel, regardless of whether or not they cause a disturbance.

If you live in faraway America, a continent not blessed with as many holy walls, you may still be able to support or protest the Women of the Wall and their right to equal use of the Western Wall, as hundreds are expected to be organizing solidarity rallies and prayer services all over the U.S. come March 12.

The most notable rally will be New York’s Wake Up for Religious Tolerance at Union Square, in midtown Manhattan, where hundreds are expected to attend, representing more than 40 participating organizations. Look for similar, though smaller events in Washington, DC and San Francisco outside the Israeli missions, and in Cleveland, Chicago and an undisclosed location in Florida.

Groups will also gather in solidarity on university campuses at the University of Pennsylvania and at Brandeis University.

A women’s Megillah reading at the Western Wall took place on Shushan Purim without incident or arrests on Monday, the day after most of Israel and the rest of the Jewish world celebrated Purim.

Approximately 80 women turned out, some donning prayer shawls, others dressed as police and Haredi Orthodox worshipers, on Monday morning in Jerusalem, the Times of Israel reported.

Hallel Silverman, the 17-year-old niece of American comedian Sarah Silverman and who was arrested two weeks ago during Rosh Chodesh prayers, participated in the Megillah reading dressed in striped prison garb, Two of her younger siblings dressed as police officers leading her by handcuffs.

Israeli police have made nearly monthly arrests related to dress code violations since June related to the Women of the Wall’s monthly Rosh Chodesh service.

In 2003, Israel’s Supreme Court upheld a government ban on women wearing tefillin or tallit, prayer shawls, or reading from a Torah scroll at the Wall. The court later ruled the women can do so on Rosh Chodesh at the southern part of the Western Wall, which is less frequented.

Women of the Wall Reform Rabbi Susan Silverman has compared the Knesset with King Achasverosh, the wicked king in the story of Purim, because the Israeli legislature listens to Haredim who “claim authority over Jewish religious practice.”

Imagine the uproar if Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Sephardic Jews, had made that comment. Israeli and foreign media would already have condemned him as spewing hatred against fellow-Jews and for being anti-Zionist.

But when Silverman writes the same thing in the Huffington Post, as she did on Purim, that’s fine – because she speaks in the name of equality, and who can argue with that?

We all probably would be better off if the Haredim were to let the Women of the Wall wail at the Kotel all they want and let them read from the Torah.

The Woman of the Wall make it a point to try to pray at the Western Wall every Rosh Chodesh in their prayer shawls and with a Torah scroll, because they say it is their equal right to do pray as men do.

Equal? Has anyone  noticed that they do not try to pray every day at the Kotel, let alone three times a day?

Silverman’s rant in the Huffington Post sounded familiar to anyone who recalls the biblical Korach, who complained to Moses that all Jews are holy and equal, and who in the H is he to tell everyone what God says?

Silverman wrote, “All Jews who take Sinai as their paradigm for authority and purpose — God’s command that we become a Kingdom of Priests, each one of us in direct relationship with and an interpreter of God — are obligated to reveal ourselves as brave and proactive Jews, like Esther. And the few who seek to hoard God, idol-like, for themselves, in their own images, are obligated to learn from Mordecai’s humility and ask: Who knows?…

“We end public readings of the Scroll of Esther with a blessing: ’Blessed are you, God, who takes up our grievance, judges our claim and avenges the wrongs against us. You bring retribution on our enemies and vengeance on our foes.’

“It’s a tragedy when those we have in mind are other Jews,” Silverman concluded.

Police have agreed to allow the niece of American comedian Sarah Silverman will be allowed to attend a women’s Megillah reading at the Western Wall despite being banned from the site.

Hallel Abramowitz Silverman, 17, was one of 10 female worshipers arrested for wearing prayer shawls during a women’s Rosh Chodesh prayer service at the Western Wall earlier this month. Her mother, Rabbi Susan Abramowitz Silverman, also was arrested.

The women were released on condition that they not visit the site for 15 days and were required by police to sign a document agreeing to the condition.

After realizing she would not be able to attend the Women of the Wall organization’s women’s Megillah reading at the Kotel because of the restriction, the younger Silverman went to the Old City of Jerusalem police station and presented a letter to request an exception to the ban. She arrived with her lawyer and her father.

Police agreed to allow her to visit the Western Wall on Shushan Purim in Jerusalem  Sunday night and Monday, one day after the Purim holiday is celebrated in most other places.

“I wasn’t going to sign, but my mom had a flight leaving in a few hours, and we were afraid there would be complications and she would miss her flight,” she told Haaretz. “Plus, I was nervous. After all, I am 17 years old and I was being held in a police station.

“I was feeling so pressured, I didn’t realize it would mean missing the Megillah,” she told the newspaper. “If I had really understood this, I don’t know if I would have signed.”

The Al-Aqsa Foundation for the Waqf and Heritage announced on Wednesday that they have recently noticed that the “Israeli Occupation” of Temple Mount is implementing around- the-clock operations for speedy and extensive revamping of the remaining part of the Western Wall leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the west.

Al-Aqsa Foundation for the Waqf and Heritage called on the Arab and Islamic countries to organize as many events as possible to support Al-Aqsa mosque and to address the occupation attacks against the mosque and the entire city of Jerusalem.

The aim of the Israelis, according to this group, which is closely associated with the Al Quds Foundation, is to transform these areas into segregated prayer enclosures and synagogues for Jewish women, transforming the remnants of an old mosque into a Synagogue. For ladies.

Sounds like a plan…

Aqsa Foundation, which has been monitoring events around the Western gate, the Mughrabi Gate, to the right of the Kotel, affirmed that “the Israeli occupation and its executive arm has been performing speedy and extensive ‘revamp and rehab’ operations on the Mughrabi Gate, especially in the gaps in the middle of the road, where the ‘Occupation’ has been restoring ancient arches and other constructs, which are part of Islamic Heritage Buildings. Also they have been restoring interior and exterior arches and doors and external structures, which include strengthening the stones of certain walls, especially in the left wall of the road at the junction with the Western Wall. The ‘Occupation’ rehabilitation operations also include tiling the floors, both within and outside the wall adjacent to the road, as well as operations to support columns. At the same time, the ‘Israeli Occupation’ continues slow demolition of the remaining upper part of the road to the Western Gate, thus destroying parts of ancient Islamic monuments.”

A bunch of busy bees, those Israeli occupiers. And the concept of conquest by fixing and restoring is pretty mind boggling.

If you look at the many images shown on the foundation’s website, you’ll realize at once what they’re describing.

Nadav Shragai, writing last fall for The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, explained that during the winter of 2004, the sand embankment in Jerusalem’s Old City known as the Mughrabi Ascent – which provides access to the Mughrabi Gate of the Temple Mount from the area of the Western Wall – collapsed due to rainstorms, snow, and a minor earthquake. The Mughrabi Gate is the only entranceway for non-Muslim visitors to the mount, and it also provides access for Israeli security forces in time of emergency.

After the collapse, Shragai continued, Israel hastened to erect a temporary wooden bridge on the spot. Nearly eight years later, Israel was preparing to replace the hazardous, temporary bridge with a more stable, permanent bridge. This has elicited severe criticism and baseless incitement against the State of Israel in radical Muslim circles, who accuse Israel of endangering the mosques on the Temple Mount and scheming to seek their collapse as part of a plot to Judaize Jerusalem.

Shragai insists that the erection of a new bridge is legal both according to Israeli and international law. And now, after repeated urging by Jerusalem Municipal Engineer Shlomo Eshkol that the temporary bridge be dismantled and a permanent bridge be built, it appears that construction has begun, if not on a permanent than on a more reliable, temporary bridge.

The Aqsa Foundation suggested that the “Occupation” is nearing completion of the “rehabilitation” and will soon be opening a synagogue “for Jewish Women” and will also convert some of the nearby spaces to reserve them, too, for Jewish women, as part of a scheme to increase the number of Israeli and foreign visitors to the Buraq, or the way the “Occupation” calls it, the “Western Wall.”

Have a happy occupation, and don’t forget to send your wives and daughters up to the ladies shul, up above the Kotel.

Great view from up there.

Thanks to Yisrael Medad for the tip.

And thanks to Salome Worch (JooJoon) for translating the original Arabic text.

An estimated 85,000 people are expected to arrive at the Kotel plaza on Monday night for the final recitation of the Selichot prayers prior to Yom Kippur, the holiday of atonement.

The central service began at 11:30 PM, led by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, and Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yonah Metzger, as well as Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Kotel and Holy Places.

Witnesses said the sounds of the prayer leaders and the giant crowd could be heard clearly on the Mount of Olives.