(Editor's note - Doodad used the same image in his piece below, and the Elder did, as well, because the image is evocative. It gives away the lie that Al-Aqsa is honestly considered holy among Palestinian-Arabs. It is, for them, in fact, political... violently so.)
Nothing says "holy" so much as stock-piling primitive weaponry in the Al-Aqsa mosque to be used for violence against Jews.The Temple Mount issue is of particular fun because it is particularly unjust. We are told that the holiest place within the Jewish tradition also happens to be the "third holiest site in Islam." I have not dug into this question as much as I will need to, but I wonder just when Al-Aqsa became the third holiest site within Islam?
The Temple Mount has been the holiest site for religious Jews for over three thousand years because it is the site of the First and Second Temples. It represents where the Jewish people come from. Just when - I wonder to myself aloud - did it become the third holiest site in Islam?
My guess, in historical terms, is a quarter past last Tuesday.
My suspicion, and I have yet to verify this, is that this notion of Al-Aqsa as "the third holiest" whatever is a recent invention designed specifically to challenge Jewish claims to Jewish heritage on Jewish land.
In the nineteenth century, prior to the rise of modern Zionism, the Temple Mount was desolate. Jerusalem, itself was desolate. The Arabs did not care about either until the Jews sought to save ourselves and our families through returning home to the Land of Israel after centuries of persecution by Europeans... not to mention Arabs.Probably the biggest mistake that Moshe Dayan ever made in his life was handing over the Temple Mount to the Jordanian Waqf. To this day it baffles me why he did so. I understand that he was not a particularly religious Jew and that the rabbinate generally believes that Jews should not go up there to begin with - being the site of the Holy of Holies - but why hand it over to Jordan?
That was a terrible mistake, because now they use Israel's holiest site as a weapon against Jews.
What is truly disgraceful and disheartening, however, is Israel's complicity in the discrimination against all non-Muslims on the Temple Mount. It undermines everything that Israel allegedly stands for. If Israel is the national homeland of the Jewish people, how is it that we gave away our holiest site to people who vow to drive us from our own land? If Israel is the national homeland of the Jewish people, why are we terrified to claim Judea as Jewish?
Arabs stock-pile rocks and pipe bombs and molotov cocktails in Al-Aqsa in anticipation of Rosh Hashanah because they know that Jews are going to show up to acknowledge the holiday. When Israeli police respond the West orders Israel to stand down as the Arab world screams to the heavens about Zionist intrusion onto Muslim holy space.
Jordan threatens Israel with significant consequences. The United Nations and the United States demand that Israel maintain the status quo, which means that they are demanding ongoing discrimination against Jews within the Jewish State of Israel.
It's wrong.
