Outrageous outrage over the Temple Mount

Palestinian riots on the Temple Mount

Jerusalem is roiling and seething with Muslim and Arab incitement, riots and deadly violence against Jewish Israelis, something that has been growing and building up since the summer. It started when the three Israeli teens were kidnapped and murdered and Palestinians started rioting in reaction to the security forces’ arrests of suspects. The violence spiked when the Palestinian teenager was murdered by 3 Israelis, and has not quite died down ever since. Every spike in violence can be “blamed” on some action or other by Israelis, whether it is praying on the Temple Mount, arrests or counter-terrorism activity by the security forces, and sometimes simply because Jews want to live in their capital city.

You can be quite sure that whenever violence strikes, the international community and media blames it on Israel.

The latest violence, which is simply a continuation of the previous riots, has been focussed on the Temple Mount, taking place over last week after the near-fatal shooting of Rabbi Yehuda Glick. The police located the murderer and shot him in a firefight when he opened fire at the security forces who had come to arrest him.

In response, the government decided to close the Temple Mount to everyone – Jews and Muslims – in order to prevent further violence at the holy site.  You can imagine the response.

Palestinian President-for-life Mahmoud Abbas and “peace partner” stated that this was a “declaration of war” – no matter that the closure was provoked by the Palestinians’ own violence, and was anyway aimed at all religions. More importantly  the closure was meant to prevent an outbreak of violence by his very own people whom he himself was inciting to violence by calling for a “day of rage“.

And what did the Americans do? Did they chastise the Palestinians for their violence? Did they call for restraint from the Palestinians? Did they heck! They called for Israel to reopen the Temple Mount – to the Muslims!  Did they concern themselves about Jewish prayer rights? They did not.

And what did our pusillanimous government do? They folded.

Arabs disrespect their “third holiest site” by playing soccer outside their Mosque on the Temple Mount

It took until Sunday till Jews were allowed back on the Temple Mount. And yet the Arab League had the gall to warn that Israel was crossing a red line on Jerusalem. In truth they are right. Israel had indeed crossed a red line – by banning Jewish prayer on the Mount, thereby violating the ridiculous status quo.

The Arab League warned Sunday that Israel has reached a “red line” after fresh clashes in Jerusalem, urging international pressure to stop what it branded “violations” in the holy city.

Clashes around the flashpoint Temple Mount and the al-Aqsa Mosque compound — the third holiest site in Islam and Judaism’s holiest — prompted Israel on Thursday to close the site for a day.

…

“Israel has reached a red line,” Arab League deputy chief Ahmed Bin Helli said after an assembly of the 22-member bloc’s delegates.

He called on Arabs and the international community “to put a stop to these practices by the Israeli occupation authorities in Jerusalem.”

“Touching Jerusalem will lead to results with untold consequences,” he added.

On Sunday, Israeli far-right lawmaker Moshe Feiglin visited the compound, pressing for Jews to be allowed to pray there.

He was met with protests from Muslims crying “Allahu akbar,” which means “God is great” in Arabic.

The chutzpah of the Arab League is all the more blatant when one understands that the Temple Mount has turned into a center of Islamist terror.

Watch this shocking video of the gross Muslim harassment and intimidation of Jewish visitors who are simply visiting the Temple Mount. They are not even praying, Heaven forfend (sarcasm…). But the very fact of their walking around the Mount is called “storming by settlers” in Arab-speak – and arouses the ire of the world accordingly.  Watch the Muslim crowd whip themselves into such an unrighteous fury that even the brave Israeli police are too scared to confront them and in the end drive the Jewish worshippers off the Temple Mount.

From the blurb of the clip, which was taken by Muslims:

One could be forgiven for mistaking the hundred or so Jewish worshipers who ascended the Temple Mount today for ten thousand, based on the dedication with which Muslims film and post the Jewish worshipers, harassed and heckled constantly while the police watch passively.

One can also observe in these video clips that the Jews, while forbidden to pray, or even move their lips as if they were praying, at the risk of being arrested, removed from the Mount and held in police custody for up to four hours, are nevertheless deep in thought and contemplation, seeking only an encounter with G-d, and not a confrontation with the Allahu Achbar screaming Muslims.

It was reported on the day that these clips were filmed that one Jewish youth did verbally respond in kind to the Muslim provocations. The police arrested and removed him at once.

But there is also a limit to what the police can take. And this is why, in the closing clip of the video, the police at last lose their patience and can be seen violently pushing the Jewish worshipers off the Mount. After all, why confront the hate-filled, poison-spewing offenders when it is so much easier to bully the victims?

There is more analysis and background at the Times of Israel in Jerusalem on Edge, and a report that Netanyahu met with King Abdullah to try and calm things down. The Israeli police chief declared that the Temple Mount will still remain open to Jewish visitors, despite claims from Kuwait to the contrary.

Do you think that if Jewish visits were banned, we could expect riots and violence from Jewish quarters? I doubt it somehow. Despite the fact that I object to violence on principle, our rights are always trampled because we don’t stand up for them loudly and strongly enough.