Jews And The Temple Mount (I)
It is a travesty that Jews are not allowed to pray at the holiest site in the Jewish religion while Muslims are allowed to control their access and actions. This is particularly outrageous when Jerusalem is under Israeli control and that city is mentioned 669 times in the Hebrew Bible, with nary a reference in the book sacred to Muslims, namely the Koran.
No other nation would have allowed its sacred places to be under the control of an organization that denies its very existence and any connection to its historic and religious heritage. Control of the area by the Muslim Wafq with the call to violence by Mahmoud Abbas is only another attempt to delegitimize the Jewish state and question the indisputable evidence of its holiest sites.
Nelson Marans
Silver Spring, MD
Jews And The Temple Mount (II)
The recent spate of terrorist attacks on Israelis can be linked directly to the incendiary rhetoric of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza are not, by and large, a very religious people by Islamic standards. Rather, they can more accurately be characterized as a politicized mass of proxy rebels who respond to cues from their cowardly leaders, who more often than not seize on issues such as a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount to rally the masses.
(Further exacerbating an already explosive situation are unfortunate pronouncements by Jews, such as the recent statement by a leading Sephardic rabbi blaming Arab violence on Israelis who advocate for an increased Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. Such words ultimately provide further rationale for Arabs to riot and murder.)
Perhaps God is trying to send the Jewish people a message that it’s time to reclaim Jewish sovereignty over Judaism’s holiest site.
Lawrence Kulak
Brooklyn, NY
Jews And The Temple Mount (III)
Re Rabbi Naphtali Hoff’s “Driven To The Truth” (front-page essay, Nov. 14):
I am convinced that Avraham (our father), Moshe (our greatest prophet and teacher), and Mashiach (descendant of the line of David and Shlomo, our greatest kings) are urging Klal Yisrael to ascend the Har HaBayit to affirm Hashem’s promise of Eretz Yisrael.
I realize this is problematic because we don’t know the exact location of the Kodesh HaKedoshim, but there are legitimate Torah scholars to instruct us.
We need to establish a permanent Jewish presence on the Mount in order to fulfill the vision and courage of our great ancestors and prophets. When we believe in ourselves (as did the “refuseniks” Rabbi Hoff wrote about), the world will acknowledge the truth of our Torah.
Jerrold Terdiman
(Via E-Mail)
Gratuitous Criticism
“Despicable Calumny,” the title of your lead editorial last week, is far from an exaggerated characterization of the recent hostile actions and statements by the Obama administration.
In fact during Operation Protective Edge there was no diplomatic nuance to the gratuitous criticism of Israel’s actions from the administration and the State Department.
Hamas was wildly successful in playing the numbers game in counting Palestinian casualties in the war by inflating the numbers to include all natural deaths and those who were killed by misfired rockets that landed in Gaza instead of their intended Israeli targets.
As you pointed out, it is to the profound credit of General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that he recently commended Israel for “going to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties,” which stood in sharp contrast what we heard over the summer from the president and secretary of state.
Israel has every reason to be concerned about the intentions of a frustrated lame-duck president during the final two years of his term.