Sar Shalom
The current spate of stabbings in Israel is driven by what Abbas claims is a threat to Islam's holy sites in Israel. Of course we know that Abbas and the PA are peddling lies, but that does not mean that Islam is not facing any threat at all. To understand the actual threat Islam faces, it would help to consider the statues of "Ecclesia and Synagoga" that were placed across Christian Europe during the Middle Ages. The humiliation shown in the statue "Synagoga" was meant to show medieval viewers how objectively mentally ill the Jews were in rejecting the truth of Christianity. Since the last century, most of Christendom has rejected the supercessionist theology underlying "Ecclesia and Synagoga."
However, as Elder pointed out in March, much of Islam today has not abandoned its supercessionist theology. While the manifestation of serpercessionism is different in Islam from how it was in Medieval Christianity, one feature of Islamic supercessionist theology is that Jews have to demonstrate their subservience to Islam. The existence of the State of Israel is the most blatant rebellion against that demonstration of subservience. However, positing that Israel exists, there remain ways for Islam to demonstrate its dominion over Judaism. One of them is in denying Jews access to their holy spaces. That is what is threatened by Jews visiting the Temple Mount. There is nothing more than that that is threatened even if the Temple itself were to be rebuilt if its location were at El Kas, in between Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock.
However, Abbas cannot stand at the dais in Turtle Bay and declare, "Islam is the master faith. Jews ignore this at their peril. Muslims will take keen offense if they lose dominion over sites they have controlled for centuries." Therefore, he has to describe the threat as though a "legitimate" interest is threatened, hence the claim that Al Aqsa itself is under threat.
What we have to do is stop playing defense and describe what is really motivating those who are "protecting" Al Aqsa. Further, we have to let those westerners who respond to Abbas and the PA's insinuations about threats to Al Aqsa with "coddle, coddle, coddle; Israel must respect Islamic holy sites; coddle, coddle, coddle," that they are enabling those who seek to lord Islam's dominion over Judaism through control of Judaism's holy sites.
