Yossi Schwartz, ISL the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 23.04.2022
The Zionist police has attacked Muslims in Al Aqsa during the Ramadan and have caused a lot of anger amongst the Arab and Muslim people. It has forced the local ruler’s allies of Israel like Jordan, Morocco UAE and Turkey to condemn the Israeli government in spite of the Abraham accords. The right wing government of Bennett-Mertz has accused the Arab rulers of lying.
The attacks on Al Aqsa are not simply a clash between religions. It is a clash between Settler colonialists who want to erase the Arab and Muslims culture and the native Palestinians struggling against Zionist imperialism and its supporters.
As Salman Abu Sitta wrote: “The escalating Israeli attempts to take over the Aqsa Mosque and the rest of the Noble Sanctuary (al-Haram al-Sharif) in Jerusalem is a sign of Israeli boldness to complete the occupation of all Palestine. It is also a sign of Israeli realization that neither Palestinians nor Arabs have a determined leadership to defend Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim rights” This development is a direct result of the absence of a trustworthy Palestinian leadership, of its acquiescence in the Oslo Accords to serve the Israeli occupation, of the failure of the Arab government to defend Arab rights – with some actually siding with Israel – and of the inability of 1.5 billion Muslims to defend the first Qibla and the third holy mosque after Mecca.But resistance will undoubtedly rise, possibly from unexpected quarters.”. [i]
Ironically, Putin who is committing war crimes in the Ukraine accused Israel of violation of human rights after Israel voted for expelling Russia from the UNHRC.
Putin said: “The Israeli Foreign Minister’s statements evoke regret and rejection. There was a poorly camouflaged attempt to take advantage of the situation in Ukraine to distract the international community’s attention from one of the oldest unsettled conflicts – the Palestine-Israeli one. Moscow also condemned Israel for its occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip, which it noted was backed by the United States “It is also noteworthy that… the longest occupation in the post-war world history is carried out with the tacit connivance of the leading Western countries and the actual support of the United States,” the Russian statement said” [ii]
The Zionist police stated: “The police will act quickly and aggressively to quell any riot that breaks out, chief of police Shabtai added. He also stressed the importance of combatting false news, which he said was part of the Palestinian attempt to ignite the situation, by providing accurate versions of the events to the Arab public and throughout the world” [iii]
Calling protesters against oppression rioters should not surprise us as the white settler colonialists in North America called the rebelling black slaves criminals before and after they hanged them and the South Africans white racists called the protesting blacks terrorist mob before and after they shot them.
Cynically police Minister Omer Bar Lev who allowed the right-wing Zionists to enter the Al Aqsa compound said:
“Again, this morning, the police are acting determinedly and responsibly against incited and violent rioters, who themselves are the ones who are violating the freedom of religious worship for Muslims on the Temple Mount and Jews at the Western Wall,” Bar Lev said” [iv]
This statement is like the slave masters saying the rebelling black slaves were violating the right to freedom.
The Zionist propaganda relating to the Zionist police attacks on the Al Aqsa Mosques is: “The falsehood that Israel is storming and trying to take over the Aqsa Mosque is an ongoing Anti-Semitic propaganda ploy with multiple aims” [v]
Really? That the Zionist [A1] police stormed al-Aqsa mosque compound in East Jerusalem on April7, Sunday, 17 and Friday 22, with tens of people injured during the ensuing clashes and hundreds arrested has been reported in all major news outlets. Video from April 22 showed a police drone dropping tear gas atop the Temple Mount to disperse a crowd[vi].
That the Zionist police protected right wing Zionists who have entered the Al Aqsa compound to pray in spite of the agreement that forbid Jews from praying in Al Aqsa compound is also recorded.
“Right-wing Israeli rabbi Yehuda Glick forced his way Tuesday into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound into occupied East Jerusalem.Glick, a former member of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), posted a video of him while touring the flashpoint site. Dozens of Israeli settlers also stormed the complex through its Al-Mughrabi Gate, southwest of the mosque, under police protection. Israeli police began allowing the settler incursions in 2003, despite repeated condemnations by the Islamic Endowment Department, which oversees religious sites in Jerusalem” [vii]
The question is does Israel plan to take over the Aqsa Mosque and build a Jewish temple instead of Al Aqsa as the Arabs and Muslims believe or is it a lie and expression of Anti-Semitism as the Israeli government claims?
Let us start with the Western Wall. During the British Mandate the Zionists denied that they wanted to possess the Western Wall that according to them was the external wall of the Second Jewish Temple. For the Muslims, it is the place the Prophet was transported from al-Masjid al-Haram to al-Masjid al-Aqsa, from where he ascended to heaven.
There are not any archeological findings that prove that the Western Wall is part of the Jewish temple and there are many indications it is a wall of Antonia Roman fortress. The Roman 10th Legion composed of about 6,000 soldiers and perhaps 2,500 to 3,000 support staff lived in this fort. In his book “The Temples That Jerusalem Forgot”, “Ernest L. Martin presents a drawing that most accurately conforms to those dimensions related by Flavius Josephus, especially the wall of “three hundred cubits” (450 feet), east of the Temple. The present walls surrounding the Haram do not give us a section anywhere near this height. After analyzing Martin’s drawing, we can more accurately see a Roman fort that looks like a city. Flavius Josephus was a 1st Century witness to the destruction of Jerusalem. Josephus describes the fortress as occupying the highest part of this hill above the Kidron Valley, so that the “Temple could not be seen from the north” (Wars, book 5, chapter 5, paragraph 8). He further stated that one must “look down” on the Temple from the fortress. (Wars, book 5)” These observations contradict the Zionists’ model of the temple as they present evidence to the claim that the wall is part of the temple. Josephus recounts the total destruction of the city of Jerusalem to its foundations, except for the Antonia Fortress which still remained upon the ruins of the city. “Where is this city that was believed to have God, himself inhabiting therein? It is now demolished to the very foundations: and hath nothing but that monument of it preserved; I mean the camp of those that hath destroyed it: which still dwells upon its ruins.” (Wars, book 7, chapter 8, paragraph 7)” In plain words, he states that the city of Jerusalem and the Temple were completely destroyed, only the Antonia Fortress survived. No Stones from Solomon at any level in the Western Wall. Foundation layers of stone from Solomon’s time appear only in the lower City of David. The first 7 courses of this wall are from the time of Herod the Great. If king Solomon built his Temple on the Haram, then where are those stones from the time of Solomon?” [viii]
During the British Mandate the Zionists leadership -The Vaad Leumi, responding to Arab fears, declared in a statement that “We herewith declare emphatically and sincerely that no Jew has ever thought of encroaching upon the rights of Moslems over their own Holy places…” [ix]
When Zionist fanatics attacked the Buraq Wall (Western Wall) in 1929, an international committee was convened to investigate the situation; it determined that the Buraq Wall is an absolute Muslim property and Jews are only allowed to pray there “as per custom”, provided they do not install any permanent structures.
That no Jew has ever thought of encroaching upon the rights of Moslems over their own Holy places was a lie. The Zionists brought stools to the walls as if it was a synagogue. Not only this but “While the history of the violent clashes at the Wall during the 1920s has been told many times, less-known were various attempts by the Jews and British to strike a deal with the Muslims to buy the area in front of the Wall and the Wall itself. In the spring of 1918, for example, Chaim Weizmann approached the British military government about buying the Wall and pavement area, along with the Moghrabi dwellings. The Military Governor, Sir Ronald Storrs, floated the idea with the Muslim community” [x]
“In 1926, a Jewish effort was launched to buy properties in front of the Wall as a first step toward acquiring the entire Moghrabi area and eventually the Wall itself. In early October 1928, Frederick Kisch, a Jerusalem-based Zionist official proposed, in a confidential letter to the Zionist Executive in London, that the Muslims be compelled to sell the pavement and the Moghrabi area to the Jews for £100,000, “in exchange for another suitable area in the Old City, with the inevitable addition of a cash payment for the benefit of the Wakf authorities.” [xi]
“Already in 1926, Colonel George Stewart Symes, Chief Secretary to the Government of Palestine, spoke on behalf of the Mandatory Power before the Permanent Mandates Commission at its ninth Session in 1926 and said: “Jews were accustomed to go to the western Temple wall to bewail the fallen grandeur of Israel. The site, however…belonged to a Muslim Waqf, and, while the Jews were allowed to go there, they were not legally allowed to do anything which would give the impression that the site in question was their own property… the Muslims who owned the site in question had raised objections to the bringing of stools by the Jews to the site, for (they said) after stools would come benches, the benches would then be fixed, and before long the Jews would have established a legal claim to the site” [xii]
The ultimatum proof to the intention of the Zionists was given when Israel occupied East Jerusalem and took over the Western Wall even though it is actually a Muslim shrine, according to an official report published (Nov. 22,2010) by the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Information. “The document, which was written by Al-Mutawakei Tahad, a senior ministry official and respected writer, states that the Wall — long considered by the Zionists the sole surviving piece of the Second Jewish Temple built atop the Temple Mount more than 2,000 years ago– is actually part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, built on Haram al-Sharif, the Arabic name for the Temple Mount. Israel says of course that Taha’s report contained lies that will only serve to undermine the fragile peace process.” [xiii]
According to all monotheist religions “Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave of the field of Machpelah, facing Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan.” (Gen. 23:19) Later he was buried in the same cave, as were his son Isaac and Isaac’s wife Rebekah, and his grandson Jacob and Jacob’s wife Leah. Unlike the temple in Jerusalem, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron survived the Roman Jewish wars of the first and second centuries. It remained a Jewish holy site well into the Byzantine era. By the sixth century a Byzantine Basilica had been built within the enclosure. Christian primacy in Hebron continued for another 200 years, until the Islamic conquest of the Holy Land in the seventh century The Crusaders wrested control of the Holy Land from Muslims at the end of the 11th century and, a few decades later, they rebuilt the Byzantine church-turned-mosque over the tomb of Abraham. The Crusaders, in fashioning a late Romanesque church, used Herod’s stonework for its walls. Massive pillars built around earlier columns supported a complex system of groin vaults. The roof of the church thus spanned walls that were 1,000 years older. Before the Six-Day War in Israel in 1967, Muslims had controlled the Tomb for about 700 years. Between 1967 and 1995, Jews and Muslims shared the sanctuary according to a daily schedule. This arrangement ended two years ago, after Dr. Baruch Goldstein entered the Tomb when it was being used by Muslims and massacred 29 of them. The Israeli government then divided the sanctuary and set up 2 separate entrances for Jews and Muslims. Thus, under the Zionist occupation the Palestinian Muslim and Christians are forbidden from entering part of the cave that is used only by Jews.
In the case of the Joseph tomb, while some Jews believe the biblical Joseph is buried in the tomb, Muslims say a sheik is buried there. Academics have raised serious questions about the site’s authenticity noting a lack of archaeological corroboration. The current structure surrounding the tomb dates back to the 19th century. Since Operation Defensive Shield in early 2002, when the IDF began to gradually re-establish its control over the entire West Bank, the army has been devoting considerable resources to accompanying groups into Nablus for periodic visits to Joseph’s Tomb Over the years, visitors, especially followers of convicted sex offender Rabbi Eliezer Berland, play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with security forces, quite often while carrying out acts of random vandalism and violence toward Palestinian civilians. While the Tomb is a Jewish praying place the Palestinians are barred from entering the place.
In light of this history the Palestinians have all the reasons to believe that the Zionist state intend to divide the Mosques and turn a part of them to a Jewish praying place. Already in 2016, “Israel’s Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau told the Knesset Channel (Israel’s equivalent to CSPAN) earlier this week that he would like to see a Third Temple built, and expressed his belief that the Muslim holy sites located on Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount need not be demolished in order to make room for it” [xiv]
Down with the Zionist apartheid state from the river to the sea!
Down with the Zionist attacks on Al Aqsa!
For a Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[i] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/9/21/analysis-why-israel-wants-a-religiou
[ii] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/russia-ukraine-accuses-israel-using-distraction-Palestine-issue
[iii] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-704830
[iv] Ibid
[v] https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-704745
[vi] https://www.timesofisrael.com/clashes-resume-at-temple-mount-after-friday-afternoon-prayers-for-ramadan/
[vii] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/right-wing-israeli-rabbi-storms-al-aqsa-mosque-complex/2274355
[viii] https://www.cob-net.org/inspire/Fortress-or-Temple.pdf
[ix] Jump up to:a b Kassim, Anis F. (1998). “Special Report”. The Palestine Yearbook of International Law 1996-1997. Martinus Nijhoff. pp. g.375. I
[x] https://www.timesofisrael.com/revealed-an-arab-princes-secret-proposal-to-sell-the-western-wall-to-the-jews/
[xi] Ibid
[xii] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/when-jews-were-banned-from-sitting-at-the-western-wall-comment-673915
[xiii] https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2010-11/palestinians-claim-ownership-western-wall
[xiv] https://www.972mag.com/israels-chief-rabbi-urges-building-jewish-temple-on-temple-mountharam-al-sharif/