As Jews are being knifed by random terrorists on the streets of Jerusalem, the New York Times and other major media outlets herald the cause of Palestinians who claim that Jews are out to take over the Temple Mount, as justification to destroy innocent Israeli lives.
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On Friday, Palestinians torched a Jewish holy site in the West Bank as they staged a “Friday of revolution” against Israel and a man posing as a news photographer stabbed an Israeli soldier before he was shot dead.
The article went on to delve into substantial evidence, including the historian Flavius Josephus and historical records of the Romans documenting the destruction, that the Second Temple stood on the site, likely in the immediate vicinity of the Dome of the Rock – the third holiest site for Muslims.
Middle East correspondent Yolande Knell explains the site’s significance.
A reporter then asked Kirby whether it was the administration’s view that the status quo had, in fact, been broken at all. And since then, non-Muslims have been permitted to visit – but not to formally pray at – the site.
A tenuous status quo agreement has been in place since 1967, when Israel gained control of the site from Jordan. Kirby answered, “Well, certainly, the status quo has not been observed, which has led to a lot of the violence”. Over time, the matter has become an obsession, from forbidding religious items to examining visitors’ wallets for small printed prayers, forcing women to remove earrings in the shape of a menorah and arresting a Jew on suspicion of muttering. I scorn the claim, and say with absolute certainty: we are blameless. “It is a mosque there for 1,400 years”. We must call a spade a spade-this is a case of unwarranted incitement against law-abiding individuals engaged in a legitimate protest.
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“The Temple Mount has come to symbolize a national focal point in which the fate of the whole Jewish sovereignty of the Land of Israel is to be decided”, said Persico. Walking the short distance to the mosque from his East Jerusalem neighbourhood, where Israeli police have recently limited traffic, there are “minutes of very lovely tranquility…it remains holy”. “I believe people can co-exist, but the power structure here, because of the occupation, is not healthy for us and not healthy for them”, Abu Sway said.
