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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.
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 | ||||||||||
