The ISL, RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 03.02.2023
If you ask most non-Muslim people: What is the Western Wall in Jerusalem? The answer will be “What is left from the Jewish temple” and that this is the most holy place for Jews.
If you ask Muslims, they will tell you that Al-Aqṣā Mosque, is the place the Prophet Muhammad’s Isrāʾ journey. According to Islam, (the Qurʾān17:1) Muhammad was miraculously transported one night from Mecca (al-masjid al-ḥaram, or “the sacred place of worship”) to this site in Jerusalem (al-masjid al-aqṣā, “the farther place of worship”). On that spot he led Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other messengers (rusul) of God in ritual prayer (ṣalāt). The same night he was taken up to heaven from the site of the Dome of the Rock for a meeting with God. For this reason, it is the third holy place after Mecca and Medina.
The Muslims do not believe that the Western wall is part of the first or the second Jewish temple. “The former mufti of Jerusalem, Ikrema Sabri, has made the claim that there never was a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount, and the Western Wall was really part of a mosque. “There was never a Jewish temple on Al-Aqsa [the mosque compound] and there is no proof that there was ever a temple,” he told The Jerusalem Post via a translator. “Because Allah is fair, he would not agree to make Al-Aqsa if there were a temple there for others beforehand.” Sabri rejected Judaism’s claim to the Western Wall as part of the outer wall of the Second Temple. “The wall is not part of the Jewish temple. It is just the western wall of the mosque,” he said. “There is not a single stone with any relation at all to the history of the Hebrews.” Asked if Jews would ever be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount under Muslim control, he replied: “It is not the Temple Mount, you must say Al-Aqsa. And no Jews have the right to pray at the mosque. It was always only a mosque – all 144 dunams, the entire area. No Jewish prayer. If the Jews want real peace, they must not do anything to try to pray on Al-Aqsa. Everyone knows that.” “Zionism tries to trick the Jews claiming that this was part of a Jewish temple, but they dug there and they found nothing,” Sabri added. Archeologists overseeing Islamic infrastructure work on the Mount announced this week that they had unveiled a sealed archeological level dating back to the First Temple period. The First Temple was built by King Solomon in the 10th century BCE, and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The Second Temple was built 70 years later, enlarged during the first century BCE by Herod, and destroyed by the Romans in the year 70. The Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque were constructed on the Temple Mount site in the late seventh century. The controversial issue of the holy sites is expected to come up during negotiations ahead of a US-sponsored summit on the Middle East in Annapolis later this year. Palestinian leaders, most notably the late Yasser Arafat, have consistently denied Jewish claims to the Mount. Sabri made the comments in an interview with the Post’s Friday supplement, In Jerusalem, for a cover story on how religious leaders view the capital” [1]
If you ask Jews in Israel, many will tell you that the place belongs to Israel and it is the place the third temple will be built. Netanyahu has said many times that the idea of building the temple in this place is Muslims’ incitement. However, in 2015 acting foreign minister, Tzipi Hotovely, said in a television interview that she dreams of seeing the Israeli flag fly over the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, calling the site the “center of Israeli sovereignty.” In 2013 Uri Ariel, who was the construction minister at the time, told an archeological conference held in a settlement: “We’ve built many little, little temples. But we need to build a real Temple on the Temple Mount.” In June 2016 the chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau said he would like to see the Jewish temple rebuilt on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.[2] In May 2022 the French newspaper Le monde wrote: “Jewish messianic groups are consolidating their presence on the Al-Aqsa Compound, with the tacit support of the Israeli authorities” [3]
While the more educated Jews know that the Jewish temple was not built in Haram el Sharif, the blinded Zionists believe the myth that King Solomon built the first Jewish temple that was destroyed by Babylonia, the second temple was destroyed by the Romans, and the Western wall is what has left of the temple. The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587–586 BCE, and the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.
For example, Slava Bazarsky, a tourist guide writes: “The Wailing Wall is Judaism’s holiest site. The latter is, more precisely, the Second Temple, which, like the First, is built on the Temple Mount. The significance of this Wall is unique: it is all that remains of the Temple, but according to the midrash, the Divine presence never leaves the Wall. The Wailing Wall is a fragment of the Temple Mount’s fortifications – all that remains of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple by the Romans, led by Emperor Titus, during the First Jewish War in 70 AD.
According to the Holy Bible, the Second Temple was built and consecrated in 516 BC, 50 years after the destruction of Solomon’s First Temple by the Babylonians. Around 19 BC., Herod the Great launched a large-scale project to expand the Temple Mount, expanding not only the Temple itself but also the plateau on which it was built (the natural relief was expanded artificially). This is how the Temple Mount got its current shape. A retaining wall ran around the mountain’s perimeter, supporting the embankment that was used to expand its area. A section of this retaining wall is known as the Wailing Wall. Herod, on the other hand, never finished the Wall. According to the historian Josephus Flavius, the construction was completed only during the reign of King Agrippa II, Herod’s great-grandson.
From the perspective of Jewish tradition, the Wailing Wall is a conditional term that comes from the Arabs. The Hebrew name is “Kotel Hamaaravi ” (Western Wall), and the English name is simply Kotel (wall). To put it another way, if you ask a religious Jew in Jerusalem where the Wailing Wall is, he is unlikely to understand you.
For many centuries, the wall has been a symbol of faith and hope for many generations of Jews, serving as a focal point for pilgrimage and prayer. True, there were times in modern history when believers were not permitted to visit this shrine, such as from 1948 to 1967, when Jordan controlled East Jerusalem and the Western Wall” [4]
Almost convincing is it not so? Well, the learned Muslims, the bible, the Archeologists and historians like Josephus Flavius all tell us a very different story.
If you ask historians and serious archeologists, they will tell you that the Jewish temples could not be built where Haram Al Sharif is built.
In this brochure we will show that the Jewish Temples were not build in the place where Haram Al Sharif exists and will try to explain why the Zionists are waiting for the right moment to destroy the two masques and build the third Jewish Temple in the location the Jewish Temples were never there and the question is why?
History of Al Masjid Al Aqsa – Qibla Masjid
“The Masjid comprises 144,000 square meters approximately 1/6th of the entire area of the Old City of Jerusalem) and with capacity to accommodate in the region of 500,000 worshippers.
Al Masjid Al Aqsa was the first qibla in Islam. It was built 40 years after Al Masjid Al Haram in Mecca.
According to the Muslim’s tradition, when Umar Ibn Al Khattab arrived at the site of Al Masjid Al Aqsa in 637/638 AD, he didn’t find a place of prayer but rather a plot of land that had been left barren and had been used as a rubbish tip by the Romans. Upon seeing this he took the responsibility to remove the waste with his own hands and to rebuild Al Masjid Al Aqsa. Both the Christians and the Jews were pleased with the arrival of Umar and the Muslims, and with their just rule.
In 691/692 AD, Abd’ al Malik bin Marwan began constructing what is nowadays known as the Dome of the Rock on top of the rock which some believe was the place where Prophet Muhammad embarked on his Miraj to the Heavens., The western wall main significance derives from it being within the boundaries of Al Masjid Al Aqsa and therefore part of Al Masjid Al Aqsa.
The Muslims lost Al Masjid Al Aqsa to the Crusaders in 1099 AD and were as well the Jews the victims of one of the darkest and most bloody days in its history. On arrival in Jerusalem the Crusaders announced that they would not take any prisoners, resulting in a large proportion of the Muslims fleeing to Al Masjid Al Aqsa in order to seek refuge. The Crusaders later entered the Masjid and massacred thousands of Muslims inside. Al Masjid Al Aqsa was then converted into a palace, and it took 88 years before the Muslims reclaimed it in 1187 under the leadership of the great leader Salahuddin Ayyubi. Like Umar Ibn Al Khattab, Salahuddin Ayabbi did not allow a massacre of civilians or soldiers, and after reclaiming Al Masjid Al Aqsa he also used his own hands to clean the blessed land, and famously sprinkled rosewater through the Masjid.
The Muslims once again had control of Jerusalem and Al Masjid Al Aqsa for approximately eight centuries. Al Masjid Al Aqsa became a great center of learning with scholars from all over the world traveling to study there. Throughout almost this entire period, the Christians and Jews were provided safety and protection, and their rights were (relatively) respected, as People of the Book.
For 400 hundred years during the Ottoman caliphate, the city of Jerusalem and Al Masjid Al Aqsa were preserved with dignity, with Muslims being in charge of the administration of the city. In line with Islamic law and the Ottoman millet system, they provided religious freedom and security for the Jewish and Christian minorities. However, all this changed when the Zionist movement in Europe emerged with the aim of creating a Jewish state in Palestinian land. This Zionist movement which was supported by the British, was further strengthened during World War 1 when the British captured Jerusalem and brought an end to eight centuries of Muslim rule. On arrival into Palestine in 1917 they found a land that was 90% populated by Arabs and with 56,000 Jews (of which only 5% were native Palestinian Jews, with the majority being those who had fled European persecution in recent decades). The British allowed the Muslims control of Al Masjid Al Haram during this period.
Five years after the British capture of Jerusalem, the first restoration works of the 20th century in Al Masjid Al Aqsa took place, and a couple of years later in 1924 Trans-Jordan took over custodianship of Al Masjid Al Aqsa.
In 1947, prior to Britain passing over the issue of Palestine to the UN, the Jews owned less than 6% of the total land of Palestine. For this reason, when the UN General Assembly recommended (despite this being outside of their competence according to the UN Charter) having a “Jewish state” which would comprise 54% of the Palestinian land, the native Palestinians rejected the proposal.
In 1948, after a war and numerous massacres and atrocities committed by the Zionists, the Jews established “Israel” on 78% of Palestinian land, and captured approximately 85% of Jerusalem. The Jordanian Arab Legion took control of the West Bank – including 11% of the eastern parts of Jerusalem which encompassed the Old City and Al Masjid Al Aqsa.
In the 1967 war, Israel occupied East Jerusalem and claimed to unify Jerusalem as part of Israel. Following its capture of Jerusalem and the protests that followed, the Jewish authorities handed Al Masjid Al Aqsa back to Muslim control.
Following attempts by prominent Israeli figures to establish Jewish prayers at Al Masjid Al Aqsa and subsequent protests, a law was passed prohibiting Jewish prayer on Al Masjid Al Aqsa. The decision also meant that Jews and foreign tourists could only enter Al Masjid Al Aqsa through the Maghrebi gate. However, since 1967 many Israeli authorities have passed rulings permitting Jews to offer worship on the site of Al Masjid Al Aqsa and many ultra-nationalist Zionist groups have been lobbying Israeli officials to start the process of rebuilding the third Jewish Temple on the sacred land of Al Masjid Al Aqsa.
In March 2013 Jordanian King Abdullah II signed an agreement with the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas which reiterated the status quo that the King of Jordan is the official custodian of the holy sites in Jerusalem and that he has the right to exert all legal efforts to preserve them, especially Al Masjid Al Aqsa.
In November 2013 a draft Israeli law was proposed in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) allowing Jews the right to pray on Al Masjid Al Aqsa. This development was the result of 40 years of intense lobbying by the ultra- nationalists who wish to destroy Al Masjid Al Aqsa, and replace it with a Jewish temple.
In October 2014 Israeli authorities closed Al Masjid Al Aqsa for the first time since 1967. This resulted in mass protests across Palestine and the Muslim world, and was swiftly followed by Al Masjid Al Aqsa being reopened.” https://www.islamicity.org/78515/islamic-history-of-masjid-al-aqsa/
The new government of Netanyahu that includes extra-nationalists is more than likely to create serious conflicts over Al Masjid Al Aqsa.
Israel systematically denies access to Al Masjid Al Aqsa to most Palestinians, has permitted excavation works to be carried out under Al Masjid Al Aqsa damaging the foundations of Al Masjid Al Aqsa, and has permitted Jews to enter Al Masjid Al Aqsa during certain times on most days (despite this being contrary to traditional Rabbinical law for fear of disrespecting such sacred land). In addition to this, Israel maintains a security force on Al Masjid Al Aqsa permanently despite numerous appeals by the Supreme Muslim Council – and yet still fails to prevent Zionist extremists causing damage to Al Masjid Al Aqsa. [5]
Where were the Jewish temples?
Amit Naor in his article from July last year writes:
“The defenders of the claim that the Western Wall is what has remained of the Jewish Temple may be quick to respond by quoting the Midrash: “The Divine Presence has never departed from the Western Wall.” Yet those very knowledgeable people surely know that the Western Wall mentioned by our sages of blessed memory is not the same enormous wall we today call the Western Wall. How then, did the western retaining wall of the Herodian Temple Mount come to be the most prominent national-religious site for Jews around the world the Western Wall next to which people pray today is one of the four retaining walls built by King Herod as part of the expansion and renovation of the Temple Mount compound and the Temple that stood in the center of it. When the sages wrote of “the Western Wall” (HaKotel HaMa’aravi in Hebrew), they probably were still able to see the remains of the western wall of the actual Temple building itself, in addition to the retaining walls of the Temple Mount Plaza. This was an impressive relic that apparently remained standing after the Roman fire. This was the wall closest to the Holy of Holies, and its miraculous survival probably added to the sense of awe and sanctity of the place. According to historical estimates, its final destruction occurred by the end of the seventh century at the latest, when the recently arrived Muslims built the Dome of the Rock on the same site.
At some point, the Temple building’s western wall was destroyed, and what remained was the western wall of the Temple Mount – the retaining wall of Herod’s Plaza. However, anyone who has ever looked over the Old City must have noticed that this is not the only wall of the Temple Mount left standing. The southern and eastern walls of Herod’s mighty building project also remain, and still support the Temple Mount Plaza. Only the northern wall is no longer visible today. The southern and eastern walls were actually incorporated into the walls of the Old City itself. The famous Gate of Mercy, also known as the Golden Gate, through which the Messiah is traditionally supposed to enter Jerusalem, was carved into the eastern Wall.
Indeed, testimonies of travelers who visited the Land of Israel as early as the Byzantine period do not mention prayers taking place on the western side of the Temple Mount necessarily. The account of the “Pilgrim of Bordeaux”, who visited in 333 testifies that Jews still ascended the Temple Mount once a year (probably on the 9th of Av), “and wept and mourned over one stone that remained from their Temple and anointed it with oil.” Could this have been the Foundation Stone which sits today inside the Dome of the Rock? In any case, whether for halakhic reasons or due to the objections of various rulers, Jews stopped ascending the mount itself and contented themselves with frequenting adjacent areas.
Later testimonies mention the Western Wall, but not necessarily the place of worship known to us today. A text from the Cairo Genizah written in the 11th century records prayers near the Western Wall, but further north, at a site directly facing the destroyed Holy of Holies. The famous 12th-century Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela cites the Western Wall by name, stating that Jews prayed there. However, he also placed the Gate of Mercy in the same wall, though, as mentioned, this gate is actually found in the eastern wall. To this must be added the fact that Jews were generally barred from entering the city during this period, and therefore it is unlikely that he personally witnessed Jews praying near today’s Western Wall.
Only in the 17th century did clear evidence of Jewish prayer in the specific location begin to appear. Initially, it was individuals praying, and slowly, over the years, we see increasing reports of public prayers held at the site. At first, these were special prayers on the Ninth of Av, and later a general prayer site formed that became ingrained in the hearts of all Jews. What strengthened the position of the Western Wall over the other retaining walls of the Temple Mount? There seem to be two main reasons: one is that it is the same Western Wall mentioned by the Jewish sages. Even if there is confusion in identifying the western wall in question, the current Western Wall is indeed still the closest to the Holy of Holies, the ascent to which, at some point, was forbidden. The second reason is perhaps more prosaic: in the middle of the 15th century, the Jews left their neighborhood on Mount Zion and settled instead in the location of today’s Jewish Quarter. The proximity of this new quarter to the Western Wall helped to turn it into the preferred prayer site for Jerusalem’s Jews. An earthquake in the 16th century apparently uncovered more parts of the Western Wall, enabling the creation of the place of worship familiar to us today. It seems the exclusive sanctification of the Western Wall can be traced to this century” [6]
It should be added that the chief military Zionist General Rabbi Goren who made a speech, recorded and later broadcast on Israel’s army radio in which he said of the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque that “Certainly we should have blown it up. It is a tragedy that we did not do so” [7], admitted in his book on the temple:” “The prayers at the Western Wall are a symbol of destruction and exile, and not of liberation and redemption, because Jewish prayers at the Western Wall began only in the sixteenth century – before that, Jews prayed for centuries on the Temple Mount… only about three hundred years ago, the Jews began praying at the Western Wall. And this is the proof: in every reference in the Midrash where it is mentioned that the shechina (Divine Presence) has not moved from the Western Wall, and learns this from the verse in Shir Hashirim (Song of Songs): ‘Behold! There he stands behind our wall’ – this refers to the western wall of the azara, or the wall of the heichal, in other words, the wall of the Kodesh HaKodashim, and not the wall of the Har Habayit, which we call the Western Wall. The Necessity to Ascend from the Western Wall to Har Habayit” [8]
The only eye-witness account of Jerusalem at the time of its destruction comes from the most controversial of historians Josephus, who graphically describes the city and the Temple before and after its destruction by the Romans. Surely, Josephus would mention that the western wall is part of the Jewish temple, but such a description is nowhere to be found in his books.
In the book the Jewish war Josephus Flavious described the total destruction of Jerusalem and the temple except three towers: “Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay, or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury: (for they would not have spared any, had there remained any other work to be done:) Cæsar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city, and temple: but should leave as many of the towers standing as were of the greatest eminency, that is, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamne: and so much of the wall as inclosed the city on the west side. This wall was spared, in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison: as were the towers also spared in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued. But for all the rest of the wall, it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground, by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited. This was the end which Jerusalem came to, by the madness of those that were for innovations. A city otherwise of great magnificence, and of mighty fame among all mankind” [9]
Before the Zionists arrived to Palestine most Jews prayed on Mount Olives: In 1481, an Italian Jewish pilgrim, Meshullam of Volterra, wrote: “And all the community of Jews, every year, goes up to Mount Zion on the day of Tisha B’Av to fast and mourn, and from there they move down along Yoshafat Valley and up to Mount of Olives. From there they see the whole Temple (the Temple Mount) and there they weep and lament the destruction of this House]” [10]
When Jerusalem was totally destroyed and the Temple gone, surely the wall which is now so massive and imposing must have stood out but, there is not one single word about what must have been the only major structure standing in all of Jerusalem. After all, if it had been built by Herod, it must have been there standing out in all its massiveness. Nor can this be the sin of omission. Josephus does mention that one wall was left standing, the one that enclosed the CITY on the West side. However, nothing is said about a massive wall surrounding the Temple Mount. [11]
What about the bible surely, we can learn from the Bible where King Solomon built the temple. However, the Bible tells us that King Solomon built many temples for many Gods. The Bible tells us the following:
“1 King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter–Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites.
2 They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love.
3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.
4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.
5He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech [1] the detestable god of the Ammonites.
6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done.
7 On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites.
8 He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods.
9 The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.
10 Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the LORD’s command” [12]
What about the investigating journalists?
We learn from the Israeli daily Haaretz that lately an ancient Place of Worship Found Near Jerusalem Challenges Assumptions About First Temple. At least the same size as Solomon’s Temple and resembling that structure’s description in the Bible, Motza temple was used for worship of both Yahweh and idols. [13]
Ruth Schuster a journalist of Haaretz wrote on Aug 26, 2021
“One isn’t usually grateful for an overpass over one’s head. But if this accoutrement to the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway hadn’t been erected, we might never have seen the huge early ninth-century B.C.E. temple at Motza, contemporary with the First Temple in One isn’t usually grateful for an overpass over one’s head. But if this accoutrement to the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway hadn’t been erected, we might never have seen the huge early ninth-century B.C.E. temple at Motza, contemporary with the First Temple in Jerusalem just 5 kilometers (about 3 miles) away. And the archaeologists wouldn’t be able to peacefully and meticulously excavate in the shadow of the bridge as traffic roars by overhead.
Shua Kisilevitz of Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority and Prof. Oded Lipschits of Tel Aviv University are leading the 2021 summer dig of the temple at Motza (alternatively spelled Moza). But who exactly was worshiped there is quite the question.
On Monday, the archaeologists unearthed a rather weatherbeaten horse figurine. Another one, that is. The coarsely depicted quadruped was apparently one of many figurines that had squatted on a shelf inside the temple, which was built in exactly the same format as the First Temple (reportedly built by Solomon), according to the biblical account of what that edifice had been like and possibly also like Solomon’s temple, this one may have served to worship one of the most famous maps from antiquity — the Madaba Map — which shows Jerusalem in all its splendor in the middle of the sixth century AD.”
Yoram Tzafrir, the Israeli archaeologist, an expert on the Jerusalem portion of the map, states:
“The disappearance of the Temple Mount from the city’s topography probably occurred in the latter part of the fourth century. The Bordeaux pilgrim visited the area in 333 and described the monuments built on and around it”. [14]
In 558 the Roman historian, Procopius, wrote about the emperor Justinian in connection with Jerusalem:
“Such were the works of the Emperor Justinian in Cilicia. And in Jerusalem he dedicated to the mother of God a shrine with which no other can be compared. This is called by the natives the “New Church”; and I shall explain of what sort it is, first making this observation, that this city is for the most part set upon hills; however, these hills have no soil upon them, but stand with rough and very steep sides, causing the streets to run straight up and down like ladders.
All the other buildings of the city chance to lie in one group, part of them built upon a hill and part upon the lower level where the earth spreads out flat; but this shrine alone forms an exception. For the Emperor Justinian gave orders that it be built on the highest of the hills, specifying what the length and breadth of the building should be, as well as the other details.
However, the hill did not satisfy the requirements of the project, according to the emperor’s specifications, but a fourth part of the church, facing the south and the east, was left unsupported, that part in which the priests are wont to perform the rites. Consequently, those in charge of this work hit upon the following plan. They threw the foundations out as far as the limit of the even ground, and then erected a structure which rose as high as the rock.
And when they had raised this up level with the rock they set vaults upon the supporting walls, and joined this substructure to the other foundation of the church. Thus, the church is partly based upon living rock, and partly carried in the air by a great extension artificially added to the hill by the emperor’s power.
“The stones of this substructure are not of a size such as we are acquainted with, for the builders of this work, in struggling against the nature of the terrain and laboring to attain a height to match the rocky elevation, had to abandon all familiar methods and resort to practices which were strange and altogether unknown. So, they cut out blocks of unusual size from the hills which rise to the sky in the region before the city, and after dressing them carefully they brought them to the site in the following manner. They built wagons to match the size of the stones, placed a single block on each of them, and had each wagon with its stone drawn by forty oxen which had been selected by the emperor for their strength. But since it was impossible for the roads leading to the city to accommodate these wagons, they cut into the hills for a very great distance, and made them passable for the wagons as they came along there, and thus they completed the length of the church in accordance with the emperor’s wish. However, when they made the width in due proportion, they found themselves quite unable to set a roof upon the building. So, they searched through all the woods and forests and every place where they had heard that very tall trees grew, and found a certain dense forest which produced cedars of extraordinary height, and by means of these they put the roof upon the church, making its height in due proportion to the width and length of the building.” [15]
This raises two questions:
1. If there was a massive wall in existence at the time Justinian did his building why would Procopius state: “The stones of this substructure are not of a size such as we are acquainted with“?
2. If the so-called Herodian walls were there in ruins why would they need to build carts and bring new stones from the hills surrounding Jerusalem.
Lambert Dolphin and Michael Kollen wrote a very comprehensive document that puts a very large question mark on the Zionist claim that the two Jewish temples were built in the place that the Muslims call Haram el Sharif –the courtyard that El Aqsa stands.
“According to Rabbinical sources both the First and Second Temples were built on the same foundations, at the same location somewhere on the Temple Mount. The site had to be consecrated ground that had not been previously used for tombs and that was not a previous pagan worship site (“high place”). The innermost sanctuary of the Temple, the Holy of Holies, or Kodesh Hakodashim, where the Ark of the Covenant was placed, marked the exact center of the world
In one of his final discussions with his disciples (Matthew 24), Jesus predicted the destruction of the Second Temple. It was in fact leveled to the ground on the 9th day of the month of Av in 70 C.E. The temple was thoroughly razed and the site has been so extensively modified during the late Roman, Moslem and Crusader eras that considerable doubt exists as to where the temples actually stood
Among the numerous controversies about the Temple is the precise location of the original. There are three primary conjectures under active discussion in recent years. These three areas of interest on the Temple Mount have been the focus of intense investigation, much debate and discussion, and growing controversy. Behind many of these discussions lie serious plans by a number of Orthodox Jewish groups for the building of a Third Jewish Temple on the site when political conditions will permit this.
The primary areas on the Temple Mount which are:
1. The present site of the Dome of the Rock. This is the so-called “traditional location.” The traditional site of the Temple is said to lie beneath or very near to the Moslem shrine known as the Dome of the Rock. Certain historical accounts by Zionists and their friends say that this building was built by the Muslims to overlay the location of the original Jewish Temple(s) and most rabbis in Israel today associate the original Temple location with this site. Dr. Leen Ritmeyer has researched and written on the original 500-cubic square boundaries of the original Temple Mount site based on this assumption. Former Jerusalem District archaeologist Dr. Dan Bahat defends the traditional location – drawing on his years of experience and study of the entire city and its history from Zionist perspective.
2.South of Dome of the Rock. Tuvia Sagiv, a Tel Aviv architect, has proposed a Southern location for the Temples with extensive documentation and research. If Tuvia Sagiv is correct, the Temple site lies due east of the Western Wall,under the clump of trees between the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque. If Tuvia Sagiv is correct, the Temple site lies due east of the Western Wall” http://www.templemount.org/theories.html
If Tuvia Sagiv is correct, the Temple site lies due east of the Western Wall, under the clump of trees between the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque.
In The Hidden Secrets of the Temple Mount Tuvia Sagiv an Israeli architect wrote:
“Scientific surveys began in the area of Moriah Court (Haram Es-Sharif) in Jerusalem in the middle of the past century. From these surveys it has been discovered that the court area forms a rectangular trapezoid. Its average dimension is approximately 300 x 500 meters, which equals approximately 150 dunams.The court differs in its shape and dimension from what we know of it in the historical literature.
According to the Mishna, “The Temple on the Mount was 500 x 500 ama which is approximately 250 x 250 meters and its area equals approximately 60 dunams.
According to Josephus Flavius, the size of the area was “ris by ris”. This is approximately 190 x 190 meters and its area approximately 36 dunams. He also mentioned that the length of the royal colonnade was a ris (approximately 190 m) and it continued from the Eastern Valley to the Western Valley. (6) Today the length of the southern wall is approximately 290 m.
Clearly the dimensions mentioned by the two sources are different from one another and from the size of Haram Es-Sharif.
Josephus Flavius, in The Jewish Wars, describes the fact that King Herod Agrippa could look out from his Hasmonean Palace (at or near the present Citadel at the Jaffa Gate), and view the sacrifices at the Azarah, at the altar of the Second Temple. This the Jews, who then built a wall extending the height of the western rear wall of the Temple proper in order to block the view. Roman soldiers, patrolling the western threshold – thus unable to view the Azarah – demanded that the wall be demolished. The Jews objected, and even obtained the consent of Emperor Nero to leave the wall in place.If the Temple were at the location of the Dome of the Rock, it would have required a Palace tower height of 75 meters to view into the Azarah. There never was a building of such a height in Jerusalem. This all implies a lower, more southern location of the Temple.” [16]
The dimension of what the Zionist call the Temple Mount area today is 3 times larger than what was described by the sources and the shape differs as well. Consequently, some theories have been developed in an effort to locate the temple in the court area of Haram Es-Sharif (Moriah Court). The four main theories are as follows: the Central system, the Middle system, the Northern system and the Southern system. The Central system and the Middle system are almost identical. [17]
Sagiv in this article also address The Water Tunnels that Supply Jerusalem:
“Water tunnels (aqueducts) supplied water to Jerusalem. The aqueducts began in the area of the Hebron Mountains South of Jerusalem. The water was collected at Solomon’s Pools in Bethlehem and from there the tunnels gradually sloped toward Jerusalem). The later upper tunnel brought the water to the area of David’s Tower, or the Citadel, as it is referred to today. The older, lower tunnel supplied water to the Temple Mount. This tunnel cuts through the foot of the mountain on which the Jewish Quarter is now located and from there it enters into the Temple Mount through the Wilson Bridge. Visitors to the Western Wall who descend by the steps at the Southern end of the Kotel from the Jewish Quarter can see this aqueduct today, about half-way down the stairs. According to the description in the Mishna, the purpose of the water tunnel was to supply water for those located above the Water Gate. Another purpose of the water tunnel was to cleanse the sacrificial court area of the animals’ blood. For the purposes of the Temple rituals the water had to be “living water,” that is, fresh flowing water, not water lifted from a cistern. According to all proposed systems for locating the Temples, except the Southern system, there is no way to bring the water from the aqueduct to the Ritual Bath (mikveh) by gravity as is required by religious law. The aqueduct is lower by approximately 15-20 m from the level of the Ritual Bath Also, the cleansing of the Azarah (the priest’s court) by the water aqueduct is impossible because the aqueduct is lower by 2-8 m. from the level of this court
In order to bring the water to the High Priest’s mikveh, located above the Water Gate, and to enable cleansing of the court, we have to lower the level of the Temple Mount by 16-20 m. from the level of the existing court.”
Thus, the water to the Jewish temples did not come by Water tunnels (aqueducts).
He also addressed The Ancient Moat and the Antonia’s Fortress:
“According to British research from the last century, there is a moat between the Dome of the Rock and the El-Omariah School, in the Northeastern section of the court area. The moat is covered today and cannot be seen. According to the other systems for placement of the Temples – the Central, Middle and Northern – this moat would be located between Antonia’s Fortress and the Temple.
On the other hand, in the literary sources there is no mention at all that there was such a moat between those two structures. Antonia’s Fortress and the Temple Mount were connected. There were steps which one could descend, from the Fortress to the arcades of the Temple Mount. According to Josephus Flavius, there was a moat whose location was North of Antonia’s Fortress If we will assume that this moat is the same moat that was mentioned in the literary sources, then Antonia’s Fortress, which was built on a rock, was South of the moat.
The only outcropping rock which can be found South of this moat is the bedrock of the Dome of the Rock so we can assume that Antonia’s Fortress was built on this rock. According to the sources, the Temple Mount was south of the rock, which means that the Temple Mount was located south of the Temple of the Dome of the Rock.
The Southern system, which places the Temple Mount south of the Dome of the Rock, substantiates the above-mentioned claim that Antonia’s Fortress was located in the rock of the Dome of the Rock” [18]
Sagiv deals also with the issue of the level of the Temple Mount according to Antonia’s Fortress:
“The height of the rock in the Dome of the Rock was +743.7 meters above sea level. According to our assumption, this is the rock on which stood Antonia’s Fortress. The difference in heights between the rock and its surrounding was 50 cubits, which equals 22 m. Therefore, the level of the Temple Mount, which was connected to Antonia’s Fortress, was +721.7 meters above sea level. The level of the Water Aqueduct was 737.5 m The difference in the heights between the Temple Mount and the Water Aqueduct was 39 cubit which equals 17.2 m. Therefore, the level of the Temple Mount, according to the Water Aqueduct, was +720.3 meters above sea level. The level of the Barclay Gate, according to Warren, was +721.3 meters). The level of Barclay Gate, according to current surveys, is +720.1. From all of this information we can therefore conclude that there is a correlation between the literary descriptions about the Water Aqueduct and Antonia’s Fortress” [19]
Bert Boersma wrote on September 25, 2022:
“Since the conquest of the city of Jerusalem in 1967, intensive research has been done by Jewish archaeologists Benjamin Maser and Ernest Martin, and more recently by Bob Cornuke, all of whom have conclusively demonstrated that the Temple was in the City of David, and not on the Temple Mount as we know it. No matter how shocking this may sound, there has never been a Temple on the so-called Temple Mount, rather a Roman fortress called Fort Antonio. This fort was built to house 10,000 men (6,000 soldiers and 4,000 support staff) as all Roman forts have a standard size: 35 acres, or 14.2 hectares.
An important piece of evidence regarding the location of the Temple is the Gihon Spring, which is situated in the City of David. King David conquered this city from the Jebusites and established the City of David, and it was here that he bought the threshing floor of Ornan in order to make sacrifices to the Lord at the direction of the Angel of the Lord, not on the Temple Mount.
No matter how shocking this may sound, there has never been a Temple on the so-called Temple Mount, rather a Roman fortress called Fort Antonio. This fort was built to house 10,000 men (6,000 soldiers and 4,000 support staff) as all Roman forts have a standard size: 35 acres, or 14.2 hectares.
The traditions locating the Jewish Temple on the plateau above the Western Wall are so ingrained that this shocking revelation will continue to be ridiculed and quashed for as long as possible. If archaeologists were to publicly comment on these revelations, they would probably lose their jobs and be defamed.
The fact is that archaeologists have uncovered a Roman amphitheater under the Western Wall, which means that the wall could not be a part of the Jewish Temple.
“Bob Cornuke is a former FBI agent and has helped solve countless murder cases. He said about his job as an agent: “If you have the right suspect, all the puzzle pieces will fall into place.” He also located the Mount of Moses in Saudi Arabia (Jabal Al-Lawz), and not in the Sinai Peninsula, as the mother of Emperor Constantine established in the fourth century.”
Cornuke has written a book on this entitled Temple: Could History Be So Stunningly Wrong?
“An important piece of evidence regarding the location of the Temple is the Gihon Spring, which is situated in the City of David. King David conquered this city from the Jebusites and established the City of David, and it was here that he bought the threshing floor of Ornan in order to make sacrifices to the Lord at the direction of the Angel of the Lord, not on the Temple Mount.
The Romans built water storage cisterns under the so-called Temple Mount that were supplied with water from southern Bethlehem. This water provided for the thousands of men in Fort Antonio. The suggestion has been made that the Temple and the Fort both stood on the same Temple Mount plateau. The way they explain this is that only a small Roman fort for just 600 men was situated adjacent to the Temple complex on the same hill. However, this is illogical. After all, the NT tells us that just to bring the Apostle Paul to Caesarea required a force of 470 Roman soldiers. That means that the Romans would leave only about 130 men behind to keep the masses of rebelling Jews under control in Jerusalem. That also is not logical. The Temple Mount is much too small for both the Temple and its surrounding buildings, together with a 6,000-soldier Roman fortress.
The Gihon Spring is the only source of fresh running water in Jerusalem, which was a requirement for the priestly services (Numbers 19). The Roman water storage sites unearthed under the so-called Temple Mount can contain only stagnant water and are absolutely unsuitable for the Temple service of the priests, who required access to fresh running water. This fresh running water was available at the Gihon Spring in the City of Davi.
The traditions locating the Jewish Temple on the plateau above the Western Wall are so ingrained that this shocking revelation will continue to be ridiculed and quashed for as long as possible. If archaeologists were to publicly comment on these revelations, they would probably lose their jobs and be defamed.” [20]
Why the claim that the Jewish Temples were built in the Haram Al Sharif?
From the very beginning of the Zionist colonization of Palestine the Zionists claimed that the Western wall is what remained of the Jewish Temples. When the British imperialists occupied Palestine they gave the Zionists permission to pray at the Kotel (Western wall).
In 1919, after learning of the Balfour Declaration proclaimed in November 1917, the Arabs united against it in the so-called Moslem-Christian society. This movement was led by the Husseini family, descendants of the Prophet and the leading family of Jerusalem. “It was at first supported by the Muslims and Christian Arabs and led by Musa Husseini the Mayor of Jerusalem. The Arabs demanded a nominated legislative body and an advisory Arab agency similar to the Zionist Agency, on the ground that none of the different British plans gave the Arabs a political influence in proportion to their numbers. In 1925 the Arabs of Palestine demanded from the British a national Constitutional Government where Arab and Jews would be represented in proportion to their numbers. This demand would end of course the Zionist aspiration to a Zionist state. The Zionists claimed that this demand reflects the interests of the corrupted feudal.
The Muslims fear especially for the supposed Temple area which contains the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque, second in importance only to the Mosque at Mecca. A Jewish majority would doubtless be under strong pressure to reacquire this site of Solomon’s temple.”
In the 1920s probably the majority of Zionists in and out of Palestine, Hertzl, the originator of Zionist movement desired a Jewish state in Palestine, but a majority of them said that they agreed to limit the immediate objective to a cultural entity in Palestine. At the same time the Ashkenazi orthodox who lived in Palestine before the Zionists were hostile to Zionism. This would change after the 1967 war.
During the 19th and the first half of the twenty century the Zionists in Palestine denied that they wanted to possess the Western Wall, other Zionists including Moses Montefiore, Edmond de Rothschild and the Odessa committee tried to buy the wailing wall and the Murgab’s neighborhood. [21] The Palestinians were aware of it and they knew the Zionists in Palestine were cheating. The Murgab’s neighborhood was built by the son of Salah el Din at the end of the twelve century.
The conflicts over the western wall during the British Mandate
To use historical materialism at the Western Wall without being lost in the large volume of materials that analyze the history of Palestine is to start by first examining two specific historical events. These include the escalation of the Jewish-Arab dispute over the use and control of the Western Wall during the beginning of the 1920s and the Arab conflict that took place at the Western Wall in 1929
In November 1917, the British imperialists issued the Balfour Declaration, which called for “the establishment in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people.” Needless to say, the native people of the Arabs of Palestine were not asked to give permission to Zionists colonists to settle in Palestine and they believed that the Zionists wanted to remove them from Palestine to form a Zionist Jewish state.
On April 4, 1920 the Nebi Musa (Mosses) festival, a Muslim gathering at the grave of Musa near Jericho, erupted into a violent clash that left five Jews and four Arabs dead after three days of fighting.
In his memoirs, Ronald Storrs, the British Military governor of Jerusalem writes, “Enough that for the time all the carefully built relations of mutual understanding between British, Arabs and Jews seemed to flare away in an agony of fear and hatred. Our dispositions might perhaps have been better (though they had been approved by higher authority), but I have often wondered whether those who criticized us in Europe and America could have had the faintest conception of the steep, narrow and winding alleys within the Old City of Jerusalem, the series of steps up or down which no horse or car can ever pass, the deadly dark corners beyond which a whole family can be murdered out of sight or sound of a police post not a hundred yards away. What did they know of the nerves of Jerusalem, where in times of anxiety the sudden clatter on the stones of an empty petrol tin will produce a panic? The Police were but partially trained and wholly without tradition. There was no British Gendarmerie: we had not one single British Constable.” [22]
In 1922, to reassure the Arab population of Palestine of Britain’s fair policy, Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, published a policy statement asserting Britain’s goal not to make Palestine wholly Jewish. Among other pledges, the 1922 White Paper ties the rate of Jewish immigration to the economic absorptive capacity of the country.
In 1929 the tension over the western wall exploded. The large Jewish demonstration organized by Zionist groups on August 15, 1929, at al-Buraq Wall / Western Wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque ignited widespread clashes between Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem. It climaxed on August 23 and continued in the following days, punctuated by clashes between Arab demonstrators and the British army. The confrontations became known as the Buraq Uprising, during which 133 Jews were killed and 339 wounded, while 116 Arabs were killed and 232 wounded. While the Arabs see this event as uprising against colonialists the Zionists call it riots and pogroms.
“September 1929 saw further serious unrest, this time centering on al-Buraq Wall. This site in the heart of old Jerusalem, known to Jews as the Wailing Wall, forms part of the western wall of the al-Aqsa mosque and is therefore viewed by Muslims as a sacred site not to be bought or sold. At the end of the 1920sa group of rabbis urged Jewish settlers to gather at the wall to perform a public prayer. The aim after the call was to seize the wall, and declare it as a sacred place for Jews.
Muslim Palestinians were outraged and clashes erupted. It became an uprising that spread across the country. Fights between Arab Palestinians and Jews backed by British occupation forces, continued for two weeks.
As early as 1929 a British inquiry investigated the destabilizing effect of mass immigration, concluding that civil unrest was the likely outcome of making the indigenous population landless
In June 1930 the League of Nations sent a fact-finding committee, the International Commission for the Wailing Wall, to investigate the reasons behind the uprising. After five months of investigations, the committee concluded that the area around the wall was an Islamic endowment, but that the Jews could continue their prayers at the wall with certain restrictions” [23]
The Zionists claimed that this was a pogrom and a pre Zionist account tells us: “In 1929, Arab clerics and politicians provoked riots across Palestine by accusing Jews of plotting to take control of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque.
The 1929 riots destroyed the Jewish community in Hebron. They persuaded Labor Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion that socialist fraternity among Jewish and Arab workers and peasants would not ensure peace. They impelled Palestine’s Jews to bolster the Haganah, their underground self-defense group. And they vindicated Zionist warnings against relying on foreigners for security. To investigate the riots, the British government, which controlled Palestine at the time, appointed an inquiry board known as the Shaw Commission.
The commission noted that Arab objections to Zionism were ideological, comprehensive, intense, and inflexible. In its report, it nonetheless devoted thousands of words to minute details of specific Arab grievances. It plumbed complaints that Jews, on one occasion, brought a chair to Jerusalem’s Western Wall and, on another, set up a screen there to divide male and female worshipers.
All this brings to mind the story of a man who thoroughly detests his wife but makes his case for divorce on the grounds that she doesn’t put the cap back on the toothpaste tube. Obviously, what he gripes about is not what accounts for his detestation. Confusion on this score was characteristic of Middle East policy officials in 1929, and it still is” [24]
Comrade Trotsky dealt with the events of 1929 in Palestine:
IV. Question: The official Communist Party characterized, without question, the Jewish-Arab events in 1929 in Palestine as the revolutionary uprising of the oppressed Arabian masses. What is your opinion of this policy?
Answer: Unfortunately, I am not thoroughly familiar with the facts to venture a definite opinion. I am now studying the question. Then it will be easier to see in what proportion and in what degree there were present those elements such as National Liberationists (Anti-imperialists) and reactionary Mohammedans and Anti-Semitic Pogromists. On the surface, it seems to me that all these elements were there.
V. Question: What is your attitude about Palestine as a possible Jewish “Homeland” and about a land for the Jews generally? Don’t you believe that the anti-Semitism of German Fascism compels a different approach to the Jewish question on the part of Communists?
Answer: Both the Fascist State in Germany, as well as the Arabian Jewish struggle bring forth new and very clear verifications of the principles that the Jewish question cannot be served within the framework of capitalism. I do not know whether Jewry will be built up again as a nation. However, there can be no doubt that the material conditions for the existence of Jewry as an independent nation could be brought about only by the proletarian revolution. There is no such a thing on our planet as the idea that one has more claim to land than another.” [25]
Trotsky was right that the killing of the anti-Zionist Jews in Hebron and Tzfat was reactionary while the clashes with the Zionists and the British armed forces was revolutionary.
The Palestinian fears were justified. In 1967 the Zionists occupied east Jerusalem and destroyed the Mugrabi’s Neighborhood to make rooms for a praying space adjusted to the Western wall only for Jews. A Muslim that will try to pray at the Western Wall will be lynched. The war criminals who were responsible were Dayan, Chaim Herzog who will be later on the president of Israel, Solomon Lahat the future military governor of East Jerusalem. [26]
The Israeli Jewish colonial fundamentalist group “The Returning to the Mount,” which advocates the construction of a “Third Jewish temple” in al-Haram al-Sharif, the third-holiest place in Islam, and is associated with the racist Kach group, announced in April 2022 that it plans to sacrifice animals as part of the Jewish Passover rituals in al-Haram al sheriff.
Well, the friends of the Zionists will say: “This is a marginal movement that does not represent the Jews of Israel.” After all Israel’s Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis, along with hundreds of other rabbis, issued a Halachic ruling that it was forbidden for Jews to enter the area, let alone pray there, as that would be in violation of Jewish religious law, or Halacha, on account of the “impurity” of all Jews after the destruction of the Second Temple.
However, the secular extreme religious nationalists as well as religious Zionist groups, argued that the rabbis were wrong and that Jews should build a synagogue there. These ugly characters are part of the government of Netanyahu. However in the former government led by Bennett Israeli police eased restrictions on Jewish prayer at the compound; Jewish worshippers have also been filmed being allowed to pray freely on the mount as police officers look on. While such incidents slowly grew in frequency in recent years under the previous Netanyahu governments, the sharp rise under the former government led by Bennett was noticeable. In mid-July 2022, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett published a statement that seemed to affirm the right of Jews to “freedom of worship” at the mount, leading to severe condemnations by Muslim According to Ofran, it was during the tenure of Gilad Erdan as public security minister between 2015 and 2020 (Erdan is now Israel’s UN ambassador) that the Israeli police began cooperating with Jews who wanted to go up to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. This continued under Amir Ohana, who served in the post between 2020 and 2021 (Ohana was ultimately elected Speaker of the Knesset on 29 December)[27] . This is what the demonstrators these days against Netanyahu’s government call democracy.
MK Ahmad Tibi, who heads the Joint List’s internal Al-Quds (Jerusalem) committee, concurs that the Bennet- Lapid-Meretz government coalition is allowing Jews to access Al-Aqsa compound in greater numbers. “There are more incursions, and above all, discreet prayer taking place in the presence of police,” Tibi said, adding that although the right-wing parties in the coalition were facilitating the increase, “the center-left is keeping quiet and looking the other way in order to avoid shaking the coalition” [28]
Azzam al-Khatib, the head of the Waqf in Jerusalem, said that the Islamic trust’s position on the recent developments is “very clear.” “These incursions violate the religious, legal, and political circumstances that have been in place since 1967,” he said. “It is unacceptable and contrary to international norms to desecrate the [compound’s] mosques in this way.” Al-Khatib concurred that the rate of Jewish entrants had increased under the new Bennett-Lapid government, and that prayers were taking place openly — with little-to-no police interference, even when the Waqf requested their intervention. The current situation is “unprecedented,” he said” [29]
In 1969, an Australian Christian fundamentalist set fire to al-Aqsa Mosque and was arrested by the Israelis, alleged to be mentally ill, and deported five years later.
The Jewish Underground (Hebrew: המחתרת היהודית was a radical right-wing organization formed by prominent members of the Israeli political movement Gush Emunim that planned to destroy the Al Aqsa. The group adopted the symbol of the Stern Gang as their emblem. They were caught and sent to jail. Most of them received sentencing ranging from 3 to 9 years. 20 members were released after less than 2 years, in September 1986.
In 1986, 70 rabbis convened by the former chief military Rabbi Goren issued a new injunction that permitted Jews to “enter and pray on the Temple Mount in most of its area,” and that a synagogue could be built there.
In 1990, 20 Palestinians were killed in clashes after an attempt to lay a cornerstone at the Haram Al Sharif by the Temple Mount Faithful, a Zionist group seeking to build the Third Temple and reinstitute Jewish animal sacrifice. Needless to say, rebuilding the Jewish Temple would effectively involve destroying the Dome of the Rock.
“In 1992, Israeli archaeologist Leen Ritmeyer expanded Mazar’s theories of the location of the Second Temple by claiming that it stood directly below the Dome of the Rock Mosque in the Noble Sanctuary.He furthered his claims in his 1996 book, The Ark of the Covenant: Where it Stood in Solomon’s Temple, by stating that the Ark – housing the Ten Commandments – was located in a chamber under the Dome of the Rock Mosque” [30]
His claims sparked a renewed interest in tunneling under the Noble Sanctuary. Violent clashes broke out in Jerusalem between Muslim protesters and the Israeli occupation army. Seventy-three Palestinians were killed.
In 1996 the Temple Mount Faithful conducted a Gallup poll seeking a referendum on rebuilding the temple over al-Aqsa Mosque. More than 58% of polled Israelis supported such action. [31]
In September 29, 2000 “guarded by an Israeli security cordon, Ariel Sharon, the right-wing Israeli opposition leader, led a group of Israeli legislators onto the bitterly contested Temple Mount to assert Jewish claims there, setting off a stone-throwing clash that left several Palestinians and more than two dozen policemen injured The violence spread later to the streets of East Jerusalem and to the West Bank town of Ramallah, where six Palestinians were reportedly hurt as Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated bullets and protesters hurled rocks and firebombs.”I brought a message of peace,” Mr. Sharon said after a one-hour tour that Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, condemned as a ”dangerous action” against Muslim holy sites. [32]
“In what has widely been seen as a provocation, more than 1,000 Jewish Israelis marched into the Al-Aqsa compound in East Jerusalem on July 22. Under heavy police protection, they walked the grounds, praying and singing Jewish liturgy, both of which are forbidden in Al-Aqsa” [33]
While Palestinians aged 18-50 are barred many times from praying in the mosques Jews protected by the police enter and pray in the courtyard of the Masques. In the beginning of January 2023 Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in 1967 occupied East Jerusalem in a move Palestinians called a “deliberate provocation”, ignoring warnings from Israeli politicians that his appearance at the holy site would inflame tensions.
“While there is certainly no formal Israeli government plan to partition the Temple Mount or destroy the Dome of the Rock — as was reportedly suggested by the army’s chief rabbi immediately after conquering the 37-acre site years ago, and even attempted on several occasions by the Jewish Underground and Yehuda Etzion — there has been a marked increase in visits by nationalist activists in the last five years. What began as a fringe activity has become much more acceptable in Israel’s mainstream, especially during Jewish holidays specifically tied to Mount Moriah” [34]
The Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, David Lau, said he would like to see the Jewish temple rebuilt on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
“To build it, there was no need to remove any of the Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount, where there was plenty of room for “Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone,” he told the Knesset Channel on Tuesday.
“I can’t tell you exactly what was in the temple, but the truth is that when you see the prophets, the writings, the sayings of the sages, you understand that whoever went there came back full of inspiration, emotion, joy and satisfaction, so I yearn for those days,” he added” [35]
Conclusion
All the evidence leads one to suppose that the famous “Herodian Wall” surrounding the Temple Mount was in fact built by Justinian some five hundred years later, and that puts the final nail in the coffin of the theory that Solomon’s Temple and Herod’s Temple were ever on the Temple Mount. They were built in the most logical place of all, over the Gihon Spring in the City of David, just 200 meters down the road.
Since the conquest of the city of Jerusalem in 1967, intensive research has been done by Jewish archaeologists Benjamin Maser and Ernest Martin, and more recently by Bob Cornuke, all of whom have conclusively demonstrated that the Temple was in the city of Jerusalem.
“The Gihon Spring is the only spring within the city limits of Jerusalem. We have the eyewitness account of a person from Egypt named Aristeas who viewed the Temple in about 285 B.C.E. He stated quite categorically that the Temple was located over an inexhaustible spring that welled up within the interior part of the Temple. About 400 years later the Roman historian Tacitus gave another reference that the Temple at Jerusalem had within its precincts a natural spring of water that issued from its interior. These two references are describing the Gihon Spring (the sole spring of water in Jerusalem). It was because of the strategic location of this single spring that the original Canaanite cities of “Migdol Edar” and “Jebus” were built over and around that water source before the time of King David. The Gihon Spring is located even today at the base of what was called the “Ophel” (a swelling of the earth in the form of a small mountain dome) once situated just to the north and abutting to “Mount Zion” (the City of David). So close was the Ophel Mound to the City of David that David began to fill in the area between the two summits with dirt and stones (calling it the Millo or “fill in”) to make a single high-level area on which to build his city and later the Temple. David’s son Solomon completed the “fill in” between the two summits and called that earthen and rock bridge the Millo. Solomon then built the Temple on the Ophel Mound directly above the Gihon Spring. This Ophel region became known as a northern extension of “Zion.” This made the Temple so close to the City of David (where the citadel or akra was located) that Aristeas said a person could look northward from the top of the City of David and could easily witness all priestly activities within the Temple precincts. The area of the Dome of the Rock, however, is 1000 feet north of the original City of David and is much too far away for anyone to look down into the courts of the Temple. Also, there has never been a natural water spring within the Haram esh-Sharif. That fact alone disqualifies the area around the Dome of the Rock from being the site of the former Temples” [36]
The fear of the Palestinians that the Zionists want to destroy the Mosques is justified. Just look at what the Zionists call David Tower.
“The Zionists authority has recently removed the dome and crescent of the minaret of the Jerusalem Citadel, south-west of the Old City the Jerusalem Citadel is an ancient citadel located near the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem. The current structure is a composition of Ayyubid, Crusader, Mamluk, and Ottoman constructions, in addition to the ancient Roman fortification. However, large portions of the contemporary structure date back to the Mamluk period, with some additions from the rebuilding of the city walls during the Ottoman period.” [37]
Following the capture of Jerusalem in 1967, Israel took control of the Citadel and turned it into a museum, after renaming it: “The Tower of David” or “Jerusalem History Museum”. Muslims prayers were prevented in the Citadel’s two mosques located near the Hebron Gate (one of the Old City gates.
Very recently the “Israeli Antiquities Authority” declared that the tower is in danger of collapsing and repair and renovation. It removed the top of the citadel with its crescent and rebuilt the tower without the crescent. In other words, the Zionists wiped out the sign of Islam and future Jewish youth will not know that the so-called historical museum is Muslim minaret.
Ibrahimi Mosque/Tomb of the Patriarchs (Cave of Machpelah), is another proof of what is waiting in the best case for the Haram al Sharif. Looking rather like decorated tents, the mostly Mamluk-era cenotaphs commemorate the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their wives, but it’s the cave below that both Jews and Muslims believe was chosen by Abraham as the actual final resting place of his family.
Built by Herod the complex was altered by the Byzantines in the 6th century – they added a church, beside which a synagogue was built. When the Arabs conquered the area in the following century, the church was converted to a mosque, but the synagogue remained intact. After the Crusaders were defeated and left the country, the Mamluks built another mosque.
In 1994, the Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein committed a massacre in the Ibrahimi Mosque where dozens of Palestinians were killed inside the mosque during the early Muslim prayer. The impact of the attack was that the Israeli army closed some rooms and parts of the mosque which belonged to the Muslims and transformed these rooms into special places for Jews. The Ibrahimi Mosque was divided into both a mosque and a synagogue.
The Ultra-Orthodox want to destroy the Mosques in Haram Al Sharif for religious reasons –to build the third temple or at least divide the Haram Al Sharif. The secular right-wing nationalists want to destroy the place as part of whipping out any sign of the Palestinians. If the Arab revolution does not win in the next years the Zionists’ dream, that is a nightmare, will become reality.
Endnotes:
[1] https://www.jpost.com/Israel/Western-Wall-was-never-part-of-temple
[2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-chief-rabbi-urges-rebuilding-jerusalem-temple/
[3] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/05/30/in-israel-the-defenders-of-the-temple-are-gaining-ground_5985091_4.html
[4] https://slavaguide.com/sites/western-wall-in-jerusalem-wailing-wall-brief-history
[5] https://www.visitmasjidalaqsa.com/islamic-history-of-al-masjid-al-aqsa/
[6] Amit Naor History of Israel How the Western Wall Became One of Judaism’s Holiest Sites https://blog.nli.org.il/en/hoi_western_wall/
[7] Nur Masalha, The Bible and Zionism:Invented Traditions, Archeology and Post-Colonialism in Palestine-Israel, Zed Books, London 2007 p.79
[8] Goren Har Habayit p 26
[9] the Jewish war part vii chapter 1 paragraph 1
[10] Nom de Deu, J. (1987). Relatos de Viajes y Epistolas de Peregrinos Jud.os a Jerusalén. Madrid. p. 82 Michael Bard
[11] https://hope-of-israel.org/wailingwall.html
[12] The Bible Kings 11
[13] https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2020-02-03/ty-article/.premium/temple-found-near-jlem-challenges-archaeologists-assumptions-on-first-temple/0000017f-f131-d223-a97f-fdfdf3b20000
[14] Michael S. Sanders: Was the “Wailing Wall” Part of Herod’s Temple? https://hope-of-israel.org/wailingwall.html
[15] https://www.hope-of-israel.org/wailingwall.html
[16] https://believersweb.org/location-of-the-1st-and-2nd-temples-in-jerusalem/
[17] http://www.templemount.org/tempmt.html
[18] Ibid
[19] Ibid
[20] https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/new-findings-suggest-israel-can-build-third-temple-now/
[21] Shmuel Bahat the Demolition of the Moroccan Quarter in the Six Day War
[22] Storrs, Ronald, The Memoirs of Sir Ronald Storrs, 1937, p. 348)
[23] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/12/9/the-history-of-palestinian-revolts
[24] https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/the-hebron-riots-of-1929-consequences-and-lesson
[25] Leon Trotsky: On the Jewish Problem (1934)
[26] Shmuel Bahat the Demolition of the Moroccan Quarter in the Six Day War
[27] https://www.972mag.com/temple-mount-jerusalem-bennett-lapid/
[28] Ibid
[29] https://www.972mag.com/temple-mount-jerusalem-bennett-lapid/
[30] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2004/7/28/jewish-groups-raze-mosques-rebuild-temple
[31] Ibid
[32] https://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/29/world/sharon-touches-a-nerve-and-jerusalem-explodes.html
[33] https://insidearabia.com/emboldened-by-government-right-wing-israelis-continue-to-encroach-upon-al-aqsa-mosque/
[34] http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/10/15/third-temple-jerusalem-messianic-dream.html
[35] https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-chief-rabbi-urges-rebuilding-jerusalem-temple/
[36] New Evidence for the Real Site of the Temple in Jerusalem (Abridged)
Ernest L. Martin
[37] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20221208-israel-continues-to-obliterate-islamic-antiquities-in-o-jerusalem/