JWR Wandering Jews

Home
In this issue

Oct. 13, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Happiness Quotient

Jonathan Rosenblum: Ignore the Grandchildren

Oct. 10, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The limitations of scientific miracles

Caroline B. Glick: Lebanon on the brink --- and why it matters

Oct. 8, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: The day when the sane talk to themselves

Ana Veciana-Suarez: Many nonobservant Jews are finding religion

Oct. 7, 2008

Gary Rosenblatt: Of politics and prayer

Caroline B. Glick: The ironies of the West's collusion with the Arabs and Iran

Oct. 6, 2008

Rabbi Yitzchok R. Rubin: Mamma to the masses

Jonathan Tobin: Ahmadinejad Isn't Too Impressed

Oct. 3, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The 'living dead' are all around us

Caroline B. Glick: Olmert's parting blows

Oct. 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Often customers looking for our competitor accidentally enter our store. Can we just serve them without comment?

Jonathan Tobin: Jewish pundit quiz on next year's news

Sept. 29, 2008

Rabbi Eli Gewirtz: Lehman Brothers and the Day of Judgment

Rabbi Leiby Burnham: Apples, Honey and You

Sept. 26, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The shofar and the Echo of Sinai

Caroline B. Glick: A road paved on reality

Sept. 24, 2008

Greg Crosby: Home for the Holy Days

Ethel G. Hofman: Rosh Hashanah Favorites: Old-fashioned taste, reduced calories

Sept. 23, 2008

Caroline Glick: Liberalism or lives!?

Michael Ledeen: Dear President Ahmadinejad

Sept. 22, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I gave a check to a local merchant, but it hasn't been cashed in months. Probably they lost it. Do I have to tell them?

Diana West: We are losing Europe to Islam

Sept. 19, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: On harvesting success

Caroline B. Glick: It is time to act

Sept. 18, 2008

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Is camping the panacea to save Jewry from self-destruction?

Craig Gordon: Was SNL hilarity too much for Hillary?

Sept. 17, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: The Whole World Is Watching

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: East meets Southwest in this quick meal: MEXICAN-ASIAN TOSTADOS

Sept. 16, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. : Into the fire

Everything's Relative : Your Official Jewish Guide to the 2008 USA Presidential Election

Sept. 15, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Enabling risky behavior

Diana West: A day that will live in ... accommodating Islam

Sept. 11, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The skeleton in my closet

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein: Persecution and systematic destruction of Christians in the Middle East must be stopped

Sept. 10, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: There's Something About Sarah

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: Who needs Chili's when you have these? Recipes for Mexican that taste great and are dietetic! Our commitment to freedom

Sept. 9, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Must counterinsurgency wars fail?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.:

Sept. 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?

Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something

Sept. 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?

Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review August 27, 2003 / 29 Menachem-Av, 5763

Opening the Temple Mount: Making of a tinderbox or preventing historical destruction?

By Michael Matza


http://www.jewishworldreview.com | (KRT) JERUSALEM It was a tinderbox three years ago, and it is a flashpoint today.


Printer Friendly Version

Email this article

The sacred plateau known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al Sharif reopened last week on a limited basis to people of all faiths for the first time since violence forced its closure to non-Muslims in 2000.

But the situation remains edgy. Some Jews welcomed the reopening and took immediate advantage of it; some angry Palestinians called it a provocation.

Three officials of the Islamic Trust, which runs the site, were arrested Monday for obstructing access to the mount, but other than that, there have been no incidents since Israeli police last Wednesday began permitting morning visits by about 100 non-Muslims at a time through the tightly guarded Mugrabi Gate.

A visit Tuesday, however, found tensions clearly seething below the surface as Jews in skullcaps, Christian pilgrims and secular tourists moved uneasily among mostly grim-faced Arab men and women.

Scores of Israeli police wearing body armor and carrying riot batons circulated on the plateau.

"This Israeli policy is a recipe for friction and violence," Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement criticizing Israel for facilitating visits at such a volatile stage in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"This is a very important place for the Jewish people," countered Yoav Cohen, 20, an Israeli student.

Jews revere the mount as the site of the First and Second Temples, while Muslims hold it sacred as Mohammed's stepping stone to Heaven.

Cohen was tailed by an official of the Islamic Trust, or Waqf, loudly accusing him of uttering Jewish prayers in violation of the "status quo" agreement. In effect since Israel captured the mount in the 1967 Six Day War, the agreement permits non-Muslims to visit but not to worship openly.

Cohen's Hebrew mumblings, which a friend acknowledged were Jewish psalms, infuriated the Waqf official, who tried unsuccessfully to get an Israeli policeman to stop him.

"We are Muslims. Allah said that the mosque is only for Muslims. Why are they coming here? What temple? Where?" said Mouna Kawasmeh, a Palestinian woman who looked askance at visiting Israelis and dismissed their assertions that two temples were built, and destroyed, on the mount in biblical times.

With archaeological inspectors from Israel's Antiquities Authority no longer a presence on the mount, said Dore Gold, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the Waqf removed "about 13,000 tons of unsifted archaeological rubble," some of which might have contained artifacts affirming that temples once stood there.

The opening the mount to non-Muslims was long overdue, added Gold. The status quo arrangement fell apart, he said, when the Waqf banned non-Muslims after the intifada broke out in 2000 and Israel responded by closing the site on security grounds.

"That developed into a new situation that was becoming dangerously permanent. And the Waqf was exploiting its self-declared exclusive control to engage in activity that involved removing archeological remains as part of their preparation of a huge subterranean mosque," Gold said.

"What you had from 2000 to 2003 was basically a deviation that was a product of Palestinian violence," said Gold. "All Israel is doing is re-establishing the pre-September-2000 status quo whereby access is guaranteed to all faiths, which has been a cardinal principal of Israeli policy since 1967."

"People don't understand the historical situation here," said Tsvi Rogin, 51, an Orthodox Jew who runs a center in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City dedicated to building a third temple on the site. He was visiting it yesterday with 11 friends.

"The Temple Mount was not conquered by the Jews. It was bought by King David for cash … so that no one could say the Jews stole it and no one has the right to give it away," said the black-robed Rogin, whose graying beard reached to his belt.

In an effort to defuse the violence, Israel has also sporadically kept Muslim men under 40 years old from attending Friday prayers at the site, infuriating many Palestinians.

Israel cannot expect a full return to the status quo, according to Adnan Husseini, director of the Waqf, as long as certain Muslims are banned from praying at one of their most sacred places.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Michael Matza is a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Comment by clicking here.



© 2003, The Philadelphia Inquirer Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services