According to the official news agency of the PA, WAFA, Palestinian newspapers and other media over the weekend ignored most of the al-Qaeda induced mayhem, tearful poverty stories, victim worship items and run of the mill Jew hatred stories, in favor of one big story: Israel is building the Third Temple, or at least a big synagogue.
All three Palestinian papers reported on this plan, according to WAFA, with “al-Quds” saying the Israeli deputy minister of religious affairs supports this plan and is working on getting approval for it.
Poor Rabbi Eli ben-Dahan – they attack him in Shas, they attack him in the PA, he can’t catch a break.
The same papers also reported on an interview Chairman Abbas gave to Palestine TV on Thursday evening, in which he said he would not give up on the 1967 lines as the borders of the future Palestinian state, which will have Jerusalem as its capital.
Our frequent contributor, Elder of Zion, reported back in August: “There have been a bunch of articles … throughout the Arab world claiming that there has been some sort of official approval to build a small synagogue on the Temple Mount, mostly because of this illustration (see above) that is on some Israeli sites showing what one might look like.”
If you’ve been wondering why some clean cut, well mannered frequent visitors to the Temple Mount, like Yehuda Glick, have been banned indefinitely by police – Arab hysteria might provide a reliable answer.
So then, according to the other guys, the Islamist-affiliated Ahlul Bayt News Agency, the Hamas Movement has also issued a warning to the “Israeli occupation regime and its extremist Jewish groups” (do you get the feeling Ha’aretz’ Ezra Pound scholar in residence Gideon Levi is writing their press releases?) of building a synagogue on the land of the Aqsa Mosque and affirmed that there would be dire consequences for such violation.
“We, in Hamas, warn the occupation and its extremists of executing such grave plan or touching any part of the Aqsa Mosque,” Hamas said on Saturday.
“Attacking the Aqsa Mosque and attempting to divide it temporally and spatially are a major crime and a red line that our people cannot allow to be crossed,” it explained.
Hamas also expressed its belief that all the occupation’s plans to Judaize the Aqsa Mosque are only desperate attempts and will never succeed in imposing a fait accompli.
Of course, a proper Jewish government response (and all its extremists) would be to rebuild the synagogue that had been constructed by the late Israeli chief rabbi, Rav Shlomo Goren in the area of the compound which is permissible for Jews to access. If the Arabs respond with violence, Israel police should arrest the violent ones, as they do so skillfully when a Jew dares spend a night with his family in, say, Yitzhar.
And should our enlightened allies in the west protest, all we have to do is produce the U.S. State Department International Religious Freedom Report for 2012, which states for all the world to see:
The Jordanian-controlled Jerusalem Islamic Waqf that manages the site generally restricts non-Muslims from entering the Dome of the Rock shrine and Al-Aqsa Mosque, a practice it started in the year 2000. The Waqf does not allow non-Muslim religious symbols to be worn on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif.
On October 3, (2012) a Jerusalem magistrates’ court judge noted that “the explanation that Muslims do not approve of Jews’ praying on the Temple Mount cannot, in and of itself, prevent Jews from fulfilling their religious obligations and praying on the Temple Mount.” However, the judge noted he was not providing an instruction to the police. While arrests are subject to judicial oversight, the government, not the courts, has the authority to decide matters relating to religious rights in holy places, and the Supreme Court has upheld that governmental authority.
Israeli police controlled access to and the security of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif compound with police stationed both inside the compound and outside each entrance to the site. Entrance to the Temple Mount was legally permitted regardless of one’s religious beliefs, although access was often restricted. Police cited security concerns when restricting young Muslim men from entering the site. Police often removed from the site Jewish individuals who appeared to be praying, in accordance with a government policy dating back to 1967. Some Jewish groups were prevented from entering the Temple Mount without a police escort due to security concerns, and there were reports that the police escorts at times did not detain these groups when they prayed. The Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, part of the Jordanian Ministry of Waqf, exercised administrative control over the site and prohibited from the site non-Muslim symbols, the Bible and other religious literature, and clothing deemed immodest by Muslim standards, as well as non-Muslim entrance into the Dome of the Rock, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Al-Marwani Mosque, and the Islamic Museum.
In other words, building a synagogue on Temple Mount is practically urged by the State Dept. And since the Arabs are all worked up about it even when there are no such government plans—and if there are, they didn’t tell me—why not go ahead and build one?