But, Israeli policies will certainly push them in that direction. The Israelis are making this a religious war, which is reckless and dangerous.

And please, Israel apologists, don't claim this isn't typical Israeli behavior. That old tune isn't working anymore.

You don't think Jews should be able to quietly pray on the temple mount, that Jews praying is some sort of provocation?

That's not what I said. Try re-reading it.

Last edited Sat Oct 18, 2014, 04:59 AM - Edit history (2)

Even before I read Mosby's post.

Last edited Sat Oct 18, 2014, 05:19 PM - Edit history (1)

I think all religious people should be able to pray on the Temple Mount, not just Muslims.

Why is this so difficult for you?

In the US we protect the free speech of all kinds of people, even ones we vehemently disagree with like skinheads and those idiots at Westboro baptist church. Regardless of the affiliation and politics (pay attention Israeli) Jews and others should be free to pray on the Temple Mount in the name of religious pluralism.

The conflict over Jerusalem’s Temple Mount has been a sticking point in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations for nearly 15 years. But as time goes on, it becomes clearer that the zero-sum game between Muslims and Jews is but a grim reflection of the reality of the occupation.

By Nicholas Saidel

Imagine religious Jewish and Muslim pilgrims praying together at a shrine venerated by both communities. Imagine Jewish and Muslim custodians of the shrine working cooperatively to preserve the site and its religious artifacts, and to ensure that all who come for worship can do so freely and without fear for their safety. This may all sound surreal to those following the Temple Mount controversy which is once again simmering, yet this example of harmonious co-existence was the reality for many centuries during medieval times in places such as the Prophet Ezekiel’s shrine in Kifl, Iraq.

The Temple Mount, which was captured by Israel in the 1967 War yet is administered by the Jordanian Islamic Waqf, is arguably the holiest site in all of Judaism. It is the ground upon which the First and Second Temples – for over 1,000 years the epicenter of all Jewish life – once stood. For Muslims, the courtyard is called the Noble Sanctuary, home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, both of which are interwoven into the tale of Muhammad’s night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem on his winged steed al-Buraq, and ultimately, his ascension to heaven. While Jews are allowed to tour the grounds of the Temple Mount, the Waqf has imposed a ban on Jewish prayer.

The crux of the current Temple Mount debate is two-fold: should Jews be given the right to pray on the Temple Mount; and what can be done to better protect and preserve Jewish artifacts on the Temple Mount? At first blush, it seems only fair to allow Jews to pray there and to allow Israeli archeologists to care for relics of religious significance. It is, after all, under Israeli control (for now) and Muslims are free to pray there – so why not Jews? Such bizarre circumstances leave one wondering why such ostensibly reasonable requests for equal access and religious rights have gone unmet? What is preventing a solution comparable to Kifl?

In short, these seemingly benign requests are being sullied, fairly or unfairly, by the identity and questionable motives of the activists who seek change – members of the religious-Zionist settler community. The recent spike in Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, and the push in the Knesset for new laws regarding the status of the Temple Mount, is a two-pronged strategy spearheaded by settler rabbis and their representatives and sympathizers in Israel’s right-wing coalition government, (especially in the Jewish Home party and Likud MK Moshe Feiglin). Many of the provocative calls to prayer are made by a messianic organization called the Temple Institute, whose mission is to rebuild the ancient Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount grounds – thereby destroying both the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque.

It is in this context that we must view the Waqf’s rejectionist stance regarding Jewish prayer on the Mount, a stance echoed in sentiment by the Palestinian Authority. From their perspective, Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is a precursor to another land grab by Israel – a precedent ingrained into Palestinian collective consciousness by the continuation of Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and the renewed calls for West Bank annexation by the very same voices demanding “fair” treatment for Jews on the Temple Mount. This is in addition to the Palestinian narrative of historical victimization on the Temple Mount and the symbol and imagery of Al-Aqsa as a rallying cry for the Palestinian national movement. This narrative accuses Jews of desecrating the mosque (to be fair, similar accusations are being made by some in Israel regarding the desecration and destruction of Temple artifacts by the Waqf – in effect, a de-Judaization), accuses Israeli archeologists of digging under the Al-Aqsa so that it will collapse, and accuses the IDF of arbitrary age, gender, and geography-based restrictions placed on Muslims attempting to worship on the Temple Mount during Friday prayers.

With this legacy of physical and spiritual encroachment in mind, it is not surprising that there has been an almost-reflexive refusal by Waqf officials to accommodate such dubious requests for “access” to the Temple Mount, especially from those who overtly seek to Judaize most, if not all, of historic Palestine. Given the political climate of distrust and bad faith where any concession in remark or deed is seen as a sign of weakness, it is also no wonder that the Waqf and PA President Mahmoud Abbas venture so far as to publically question whether a Jewish Temple even existed on the Temple Mount. For them, a Temple Mount that is basically Judenrein is better than one that is Judaized – a false choice borne out of the political realities of the Israeli occupation.

It is worth noting that in challenging the status quo of the Temple Mount, these religious-Zionist rabbis and their congregants are also challenging traditional Jewish law concerning worship on the Temple Mount. For a good portion of history, Jews were banned from visiting the Temple Mount, not only because of the anti-Semitic policies of various Christian and Muslim conquerors, but also because of rabbinic decree on the issue, which since the pre-Israel time of Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935), who served as Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine, proscribes Jewish visitation due to the possibility of the ritually impure walking upon, and thus desecrating, the Holy of Holies – a room housing the Ark of the Covenant where only the high priest may enter on Yom Kippur. This law was confirmed by Israel’s chief rabbinate in 1967 and again in 2013 after incidents involving Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount began to increase. It is illuminating that these settler rabbis will contravene halacha in order to fulfill their expansionist aspirations. Such prioritization of territorial acquisition at the expense of well-established religious law casts these rabbis’ character as apolitical religious figures merely seeking worshipping rights further into doubt.

The current stalemate regarding the Temple Mount is a vivid reminder that peaceful co-existence and the prospect of joint custodianship will remain elusive absent a final and comprehensive peace agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis. A portentous infusion of Jewish ultra-nationalism and religious extremism now looms over the Temple Mount, rendering the chance for a solution comparable to Kifl bleak indeed. That the issue of Temple Mount worship has become a zero-sum game between Muslims and Jews is a grim reflection of the reality of the occupation. Unilateral Israeli moves, led by national-religious extremists, will only result in unnecessary bloodshed and violence on the Temple Mount.

Nicholas Saidel, JD, MA, is the Associate Director of the Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis & Response (ISTAR) at the University of Pennsylvania.

Source: http://972mag.com/judenrein-or-judaized-a-false-choice-for-the-temple-mount/84961/

It doesn't matter who is leading this, you either support religious pluralism or you don't, period.

...both words I have been struggling to understand since I joined here .... I'm not American either .
I'm an Israeli Left wing post zionist aetheist .

I support Peace and the end to the occupation .....and that is the last thing Moshe Feiglin and his motly crew want .

If you have a problem I suggest you contact the Chief Rabbinate's office and request that he change the religious law governing prayer on that place that I refuse to call holy to anything .

More on the subject for you BillZBubb......

Jews challenge worship rules at holiest of Jerusalem sites

JERUSALEM (RNS) This holy city, home to three monotheistic faiths, is no stranger to religious tensions. One locale, however, stands above the rest.

Known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Haram As-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), the most sensitive site in this most sensitive of cities is buffeted by a growing chorus of Israelis demanding their government allow Jewish worshippers access to the site, and thereby reverse decades of political and religious precedent.

Miri Regev, a parliamentarian from the ruling Likud Beitenu party, has held several hearings on the issue during the past several months. One such hearing degenerated into a heated argument between right-wing Jewish parliamentarians and Israeli-Arab representatives who eventually stormed out.

“Every citizen of the State of Israel should be allowed to pray in the places holy to them, whether they are a Muslim, a Jew, or a Christian,” Regev said.

Israeli-Arab parliamentarians countered, claiming Regev and other parliamentarians were “pyromaniacs,” playing with fire around an issue “that could lead to a conflagration.”

According to Jewish tradition, the Temple Mount was the site of the Jewish temple, destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. The Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site today, is believed to be the last of the ancient temple’s massive retaining walls. Perched directly above the Western Wall is the Al-Aqsa Mosque as well as the Dome of the Rock, a gold-colored gem that dominates Jerusalem’s skyline and is, according to tradition, the place where Mohammad ascended to heaven.

During the 1967 war, Israel seized East Jerusalem and with it the Old City and the holy sites. Since then, the Israeli government has ensured relatively open access to people of all faiths — Jews, Muslims, and Christians. This openness is now being used by some Israeli Jews to gain legal access to the Temple Mount.

Concerns about how the site is handled are well founded. The Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is the scene of sporadic riots by Muslim worshippers targeting the Israeli security presence there, as well as the Jewish worshippers below.

When Ariel Sharon visited the site in 2000 as Israel’s opposition leader, he helped spark the Second Intifada (“uprising”), referred to by Palestinians as the “Al-Aqsa Intifada.” The opening by Israeli authorities of archeological tunnels under the Temple Mount in 1996 led to widespread clashes in the West Bank and the deaths of more than a dozen Israeli soldiers and scores of Palestinians. In the 1980s, Israeli authorities arrested an underground Jewish terrorist cell that was planning to blow up the Dome of the Rock.

Muslim authorities say any talk of allowing Jewish worship on the Temple Mount is a provocation that would undo the status quo.

“Jews don’t have a right over one gram or centimeter,” said Mahmoud Abu Atta, spokesman for the Al-Aqsa Institute for the Preservation of the Trust and the Heritage. “If they try to change past agreements — to divide Al-Aqsa — there will be a religious war in the entire world.”

For their part, Jewish pressure groups, both within government and outside, claim they only want a small area in the Temple Mount courtyard set aside for Jewish worship. The problem they face, however, is not political or security-related, but religious.

Israel’s Chief Rabbinate, responsible for all religious decrees touching on state institutions, has ruled that Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is forbidden according to Jewish law. The ruling has to do in large part with its location as the resting place of what Jews consider the Divine Presence, the “Holy of Holies.”

Rabbi Eliyahu Ben Dahan, the deputy minister for religious services from the pro-settler Jewish Home party, recently petitioned the Chief Rabbinate to reconsider.

“I have asked the Chief Rabbinate to recognize the reality that there’s a growing public [in Israel] that has its own rabbis . . . that allow them to go up to the Temple Mount,” Ben Dahan has said.

Such rabbis overwhelmingly hail from the religious-nationalist stream of Orthodox Judaism, considered close to the settler movement.

“The Chief Rabbinate isn’t the sole authority,” an aide to Ben Dahan said.

Observant right-wing Jews continue to visit the Temple Mount on a regular, if limited, basis. Hundreds of foreign tourists and non-Muslim Israelis are allowed to visit the site monthly, according to the Israeli national police.

But Israeli police officers securing the Temple Mount complex uphold the ban on any form of (non-Muslim) worship, although zealot activists often clandestinely recite prayers under their breath. Such acts, and the growing public debate over allowing Jewish worship at the site — and with it militant Islamic voices in Israel calling on the faithful “to defend Al-Aqsa” — have increased tensions.

The fear, according to Nidal Othman of the Mosawa Center for the Rights of Arab Citizens of Israel, is not that the ban on Jewish prayer will be overturned. For that to happen, the Chief Rabbinate, the Ministry of Religious Services and a host of other government agencies will need to be consulted, including the Prime Minister’s Office and the Justice Ministry.

Moreover, as Othman said, the “international community would never allow it.” Jordan has historic “custodianship” of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Futhermore, East Jerusalem — including the Old City — is deemed by international law to be occupied territory, subject to peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

“The real fear,” says Othman, “is that there are people on the extreme [Israeli] right who are trying to draw attention to the issue and inflame the ground, for political gain.” As past events have shown, all it would take is one incident on the Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for things to spiral out of control, he says.

“Such actions are a threat to public safety that could endanger lives — Jewish, Muslim, and Christian,” Othman adds wistfully. “Even their own children’s.”

Source : http://www.religionnews.com/2013/11/19/jews-challenge-worship-rules-holiest-jerusalem-sites/

is that a joint statement, from the Muslim guardians of the Temple Mount and Israeli leaders (mainly the chief rabbi), that recognizes a historical link for Jews and the Temple Mount. Furthermore it should say that all people are allowed upon the Temple Mount as tourists, but not to pray. Finally the chief rabbi should say that the temple mount is currently a mosque.

We do not expect mosques to be opened for Christians and Jews to pray, nor do we expect St. Patrick's cathedral in NYC to have Muslim and Jewish prayers held, so why should prayers be allowed by others on the Temple Mount, which is currently governed by Muslims.

I think it is important that the Muslim guardians admit the historical link for Jews to the Temple Mount, as numerous Arab and muslim leaders in the past have denied any historical link for Jews to the Mount.