The Palestinian Authority is circumventing “peace talks” and intensifying incitement over the Temple Mount, warning of a “religious war” while Fatah terrorists announce they plan Erev Yom Kippur attacks on Jews throughout Israel.
A Knesset minster fueled Muslim outrage by performing the Priestly Blessing there on Wednesday.
Jewish activists promoting visits to the Temple Mount have escalated their campaign, and Israel’s senior police official announced a dramatic turnaround in his attitude, categorically stating that Jews have a right to pray at Judaism’s most holy site.
Israeli police chief Yohanan Danino said visiting the holy compound was “an undisputed right for Jews,” reflecting recent notations by the High Court that the prohibition against Jews to enter is discriminatory. It also has more than hinted that Jews have a right to pray there.
The Chief Rabbinate has ruled that Jews are not allowed to ascend the Temple Mount because of issues of impurity where the Holy Temples once stood, but many national religious rabbis and some Haredim have concluded that visits are permitted in particular areas.
The most prominent visitor this week was Housing Minister Ariel, who arrived at the site on Wednesday under heavy guard less than three days before the Yom Kippur holiday begins Friday night. Approximately 100 yeshiva students accompanied him, according to the Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency.
Ariel, a Kohen, not only visited but he also committed the ultimate in in the eyes of Muslims by performing the Priestly Blessing for Jerusalem City Council candidate Dov Kalmanovitz.
A Music cleric went bananas and called for police to stop this terrible crime, an offense to Muslims all over the world.
Ariel’s visit revealed some real crimes on the Temple Mount, such as Muslim construction there without a building permit.
The Jewish delegation left the site after approximately 45 minutes.
Ma’an reported that Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, Head of the Islamic Higher Commission warned of “Israeli ambitions” to allow Jews as well as Arabs to pray at the site. Ariel makes no bone about his desire that Israel take sovereignty over the Temple Mouton and allows Jews to pray there.
“This is an invitation to a religious war in the region, and official encouragement urging the extremist Jewish groups to storm al-Aqsa Mosque and ruin it,” the PA ministry warned.
Following PA Mahmoud Abbas policy of preaching peace while inciting violence, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades threatened that it has given the “green light” for attacks on Friday, the day before Yom Kippur.
Referring to the Temple Mount, the Brigades denounced what it said has been “an invasion of herds of settlers to the compound and (they) harm the worshippers without any intervention from the international community.”
Muslim official also stepped up this week the rejection that Jews have any connection with the Temple Mount and rejected the announced discovery of Jewish gold coins near the Temple Mount as a hoax.
The Al Aqsa Foundation of Waqf and Heritage has categorically rejected Israeli claims that rare golden “Jewish treasures” labeled the discovery “as an attempt to support Israeli claims about Jewish rights in the holy city and to impose Israeli sovereignty on the occupied holy compound through the use of fake evidence,” Gulf News reported.
Israeli archaeologists discovered a treasure chest of 36 gold coins from the Byzantine era and a gold medallion with a menorah.
“An immediate Arab and Muslim campaign is needed to stop the Israeli attempts to Judaize the holy city of Jerusalem,” said the statement. “Excavations and findings of Israeli institutions in the holy city are not objective,” said the statement, because the archaeologists are “enthusiastic servants of Zionist ideology.”
It added, “Many of those who conduct excavations on the boundaries of Al Aqsa Holy Compound have been involved in major operations to fake history, and those excavators have been taking advantage of the excavations and findings to prove their Torah theories and claims.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry can rest assured that Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat is not talking with his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni about the Temple Mount in their American-orchestrated “secret talks.”
They are talking about borders and security, but Kerry does not understand that the Palestinian Authority, always being careful to abide by the strictest religious opinions, will depend on the Chief Rabbinate’s ruling that Jews cannot pray on the Temple Mount.