Amira Hass : The Sanctity of Provocation on Temple Mount
Temple Mount should be closed to Muslim worshippers,” a surfer named Ronen wrote in a comment on an article by Nir Hasson last Tuesday about clashes between Israel Police and young Palestinians on the site holy to Muslims.
One could dismiss it as another hallucinatory comment from another Jewish talk-backer exercising his freedom of expression.
If we try hard, we can dismiss as hallucinatory and fringe the Hebrew website “Temple Mount News” with its headlines like “The movement for establishing the Holy Temple invites you to ascend Temple Mount” and listing on its masthead opening hours for Jews. [see mount-home.blogspot.co.il]
The site reported on Sunday that Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, who traditionally visits the mount every Rosh Hashanah, was there among the many Jewish visitors. They ascended the holy site after a heavy police presence used force to keep away young Palestinians who intended to stop the visit by throwing stones and firecrackers. The clashes repeated on Monday and Tuesday. Palestinian sources report that at least 40 Palestinians were injured, among them many journalists. They also report extensive damage, including broken doors in the mosque.
Ariel, the website reported, blessed the Jewish people with the priestly blessing. This is the same Ariel who in July met with the parliamentary team of Students For The Temple Mount, and promised that he would take action to end “discrimination against Jews on Temple Mount.” He also promised the students he would set up a meeting with Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan to examine the “behavior of Israel Police toward Jews visiting Temple Mount.”
And here we are, this week Erdan praised the police for doing a firm job on Sunday and said the current arrangements on the mount have to be reviewed.
Ariel, as housing minister, called two years ago for rebuilding “the real Holy Temple on Temple Mount.” He apparently has not repeated the statement publicly since then, but it is not the passing remark of an Internet comment-writer. Between the “visits” and the recurring break-ins of armed Israelis into the holy Muslim site, his statement is a scary indication.
The attempt to present visits by Jews to the site as affirmative action motivated by the principle of equality is playing dumb and dangerous in its pretention, akin to the (successful) Israeli journalistic attempt to squeeze out of Palestinians theological denials about the Jewish connection to the land and mount, and to the possibility of the Holy Temple’s past existence.
The Jews are not a persecuted minority in Israel struggling for its religious rights. The Jews are the rulers. Our occupation regime has already proved the direct connection between “hallucinatory” statements 47 years ago and the reality of land grab for the good of settlers between this and the Palestinian reservations, and all the way back to the Palestinian expulsion in 1948.
Thus, Palestinians have every reason and justification to fear that the “visits” and the police raids in the holy mount are part of a Jewish operational plan: a plan to complete their exclusion within their own homeland and the marginalization of Palestinian history, a plan to wipe out the deep ties of some 12 million people to this country.
From this perspective, Al-Aqsa is a microcosm of all of Palestine. Its religious importance to Islam unites and empowers Palestinian resistance initiatives more than any other threatened region, such as Gaza. Here, everybody – religious and secular, Christian and Muslim, Fatah and Hamas – are united. And instead of refuting their fears, the Israel Police and Israeli government act as if directed by the conviction that the Jews’ right to a provocative “visit” is holier than the duty to prevent a religious war.
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Amira Hass
Haaretz Correspondent
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