Should Jewish Prayer at the Temple Mount Cause a Religious War?
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by Itamar Marcus
Palestinian protestors walk around during clashes with Israeli security forces at the compound that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City April 22, 2022. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Under Israeli law, Jews have the right to pray on the Temple Mount the same way that Muslims have the right to pray in the Al-Aqsa Mosque. However, Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that should Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount prompt Muslims to respond with violence and terror, Israeli police have the right to prohibit it.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has taken advantage of this ruling, and whenever Jews go the Temple Mount, especially on important religious days like Tisha B’Av, the PA makes sure to incite violence. The PA has learned that if enough Palestinians respond with violence, it will confirm the necessity of preventing Jews from praying at Judaism’s holiest site in the interest of keeping the peace.
On Tisha B’Av, after a few thousand Jews went to the Temple Mount and some prayed there, the Palestinian Authority was quick to promise a religious war.
Often, when the PA wants violence and terror for its political needs but is fearful of directly inciting terror because it could lead to arrest, it “warns” that the so-called Israeli violations of Muslim feelings will lead to violence and “religious war.”
The following are some examples of the PA’s terror incitement packaged as “warnings” following Jewish prayer today on the Temple Mount.
The Supreme Sharia Judge of Palestine and the President’s Advisor on Religious Affairs and Inter-Islamic Relations, Sheikh Mahmoud al- Habbash, said that the continued invasion of the Al-Aqsa Mosque [i.e., the Temple Mount Plaza] by the settlers and the extremist Jews will ignite the fire of the religious war, which will consume everything, and the whole world will be consumed by its fire, and not only the Palestinians. .. Jerusalem is an occupied city for all its Islamic and Christian holy places, and that the occupation state has no right to any inch of it. [emphasis added]
The PA’s Jerusalem Governorate said that the fact that extremist Israeli ministers broke into the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque today while leading thousands of settlers, held Talmudic ceremonies, and waved Israeli flags inside it is a dangerous crossing of all the red lines … Netanyahu and his extremist ministers are dragging the region into a religious war.
“PLO Executive Committee member and head of the Jerusalem Affairs Department, Adnan Al-Hassini, said … [Israel] is heralding the beginning of the implementation of a meticulous plan led by the extreme racist right in the Israeli occupation government, which prioritizes the demolition of the Holy Plaza of Jerusalem and the construction of a so-called [Hebrew] Temple on its ruins.
In a statement he published today following the break-in of thousands of Israeli extremists… Al-Hassini said that these provocations are part of a religious war … All 144 of its acres (i.e., including the Temple Mount and the Western Wall) are considered a purely Islamic site.
Itamar Marcus is Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.
