Sunday, March 07, 2010

Temple Mount violence

Whenever the Palestinians are unhappy about anything Israel does, not only do they threaten violence but they practice it. The riots on the Temple Mount after Friday prayers are a typical example of how they use violence. The Imams inside the mosques incite them to violence (who thinks Islam is a peaceful religion) and tell them to go out and kill Jews. They then throw rocks down on the assembled Jewish congregants praying below at the Temple Wall, the holiest site in Judaism. There are of course casualties, and then the Israeli riot police are called in to restore calm. In the fighting 6 policemen and 20 Palestinians were injured. I don't know why the Israeli authorities don't permanenly rope off part of the area of the Mount above the Wall so that the rioters cannot throw rocks down from there, but they don't, maybe it would cause more rioting. It always seems that the Israeli authorities are caught off-guard, when almost anyone could have predicted this violent reaction.

What is angering the rioters this time is the inclusion of two sites on the West Bank, Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem and The Cave of the Patriarchs at Machpela in Hebron, on a list prepared by PM Netanyahu of Jewish Heritage Sites. No-one on earth can deny that these are in fact sites of Jewish Heritage. Particularly the building above the caves in Hebron was built by Herod the Great while the Romans still held sway here, more than 2,000 years ago. The site had been revered by Jews for ca. 2,000 years before that as the burial place of Abraham and his family. Herod's construction over teh caves was the second largest building after the Temple in Jerusalem. Because the Muslims conquered the area around 700 ce and then declared it part of their Empire, they think that they wiped out the Jewish connection. They tried by banning Jews from praying there except up to the seventh step leading into the building, but they did not succeed. Jews, even those like me who have no desire to pray there, still maintain a vital link to our ancient history and will not give this up in the face of Arab intimidation.

Instead of making purely verbal complaints, the Arabs take direct violent action every time. They have not reached the level of mature political discourse and they think that only violence can solve their problems, although they are dead wrong. So far the list is purely that, a list on paper. Nothing has been done and will not be done for some time. In any case there is no intention to change the ritual practices at either site for Jews and for Muslims. Not only that, the list is subject to change, for example, the two sites on the West Bank could be placed in a separate category from the other sites or they could be developed in conjunction with the PA. It could be that Netanyahu should be criticized for not seeking some kind of accomodation with the PA in the first place, but the Palestinians are much more in the wrong in trying to use violence to achieve their aims, and that certainly is to deny Jews any rights at their sacred sites.

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