LAST JEW THERE?
(Thanks to Internal Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi,
thousands of Jews have been visiting the Temple Mount
since August 2003)
July 17, 2002
Last Jew there?
By YISRAEL MEDAD
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon currently holds the unenviable record of being the last Jew, other than security personnel, to have visited the Temple Mount.
It has been almost 23 months since a Jew has been allowed to enter the Temple Mount compound to pray, to dig, or, simply, to be a tourist there. Today, no Jew can enjoy being at the most historic site of the Jewish people, a place of cultural, scientific and religious importance.
No Jew can derive any benefit from the law, adopted in 1967, that guarantees the right to free access and worship at our holy sites.
On September 28, 2000, Sharon, then a Knesset member, spent half an hour walking around the enclosed esplanade, jeered at by some 200 Islamic extremists who were egged on by a few Arab MKs engaged in unrestrained verbal violence. Their epithets eventually incited dozens of the protesters to toss rocks in Sharon's direction.
Following disappointment over the inadequate response, serious riots were engineered the next day, a Friday, under the direction of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's office via his security services.
After a long delay, the Israel Police, targeted by attacks which caused physical injuries, eventually reacted. Perhaps they assumed that the Palestinian Authority police they had allowed to attend would act to stop the mayhem. They didn't, and the rest, as we say, is history. Arafat had ignited his Al-Aksa Intifada.
In April 1947, the Mandate papers reported that a new Jewish immigrant from Czechoslovakia named Itzkowitz erred while walking though Jerusalem's Old City alleyways. He mistakenly entered the Temple Mount and was promptly stoned to death. He became the last Jew to be in the compound for another 20 years until IDF paratroopers crashed through a gate on the Temple Mount's north side and rushed across its plaza toward the Western Wall, where they hung a flag. For all intents and purposes, we have been rushing away from the Temple Mount ever since.
OF LATE, Sharon has achieved a level of relative security. He has scored a major diplomatic victory in the form of US President George W. Bush's "Palestinian democracy" speech. He has almost neutralized Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
Nevertheless, he has done nothing to correct the situation existing at the Temple Mount or other Jewish holy sites. Joseph's Tomb and the Jericho Synagogue, lost to Islamic fanatics during the terror war, are located in Area A, a geographic reality which may limit Sharon. The Temple Mount, however, is in Jerusalem, in sovereign Israel. What could be the problem here?
Under cover of the Oslo process and the total indifference of Yitzhak Rabin, Peres, Yossi Beilin and Yossi Sarid, not only did the Palestinian Authority arm itself to the teeth, but it managed to wrest the Temple Mount from the Jewish people and the State of Israel.
The goal was to de-Judaize the Temple Mount. The PA increased the number of "guards" there and provided them with hi-tech communications equipment. They dug out two huge underground mosques. They caused irreparable archeological damage.
And Israel's governments responded with nonchalance. Only archeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar has waged a campaign to save the Temple Mount's artifacts, but her efforts have been stymied.
Today's Fast of Tisha Be'av is the culmination of a traditional three-week period of mourning for the loss of the two Temples, Jerusalem and, by extension, our political independence. The Western Wall has recently become a "Weeping Wall." The seepage will certainly damage the site if left unchecked. Turning to the Wakf to fix the problem, though, is self-defeating. The Wakf administration itself has been the most inimical institution of the Temple Mount. Its destructive digging at Solomon's Stables and elsewhere has caused a bulging southern wall and now a leaking Western Wall.
The Wakf seeks to erase the Jewishness of the site. The Israeli government's policy is to avoid overt identification with the site. Israel's High Court of Justice has proven unhelpful and the Chief Rabbinate prohibits entry even though Halacha could permit it.
We are left with the hope that Sharon does not want to be the Temple Mount's "last Jew" and that eventually Jews will be again able to visit the site.
After all, this is democratic and Jewish Israel, not an authoritarian regime such as in most of the Middle East.
Sharon should not be proud of the fact that the Temple Mount still needs to be liberated, 35 years since the call "The Temple Mount is in our hands!" reverberated over the army radio transmitters and two years since he was last there.
We await his next steps.
The writer is secretary of the El Har Hashem Society promoting Jewish rights to the Temple Mount.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1025787819937
thousands of Jews have been visiting the Temple Mount
since August 2003)
July 17, 2002
Last Jew there?
By YISRAEL MEDAD
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon currently holds the unenviable record of being the last Jew, other than security personnel, to have visited the Temple Mount.
It has been almost 23 months since a Jew has been allowed to enter the Temple Mount compound to pray, to dig, or, simply, to be a tourist there. Today, no Jew can enjoy being at the most historic site of the Jewish people, a place of cultural, scientific and religious importance.
No Jew can derive any benefit from the law, adopted in 1967, that guarantees the right to free access and worship at our holy sites.
On September 28, 2000, Sharon, then a Knesset member, spent half an hour walking around the enclosed esplanade, jeered at by some 200 Islamic extremists who were egged on by a few Arab MKs engaged in unrestrained verbal violence. Their epithets eventually incited dozens of the protesters to toss rocks in Sharon's direction.
Following disappointment over the inadequate response, serious riots were engineered the next day, a Friday, under the direction of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's office via his security services.
After a long delay, the Israel Police, targeted by attacks which caused physical injuries, eventually reacted. Perhaps they assumed that the Palestinian Authority police they had allowed to attend would act to stop the mayhem. They didn't, and the rest, as we say, is history. Arafat had ignited his Al-Aksa Intifada.
In April 1947, the Mandate papers reported that a new Jewish immigrant from Czechoslovakia named Itzkowitz erred while walking though Jerusalem's Old City alleyways. He mistakenly entered the Temple Mount and was promptly stoned to death. He became the last Jew to be in the compound for another 20 years until IDF paratroopers crashed through a gate on the Temple Mount's north side and rushed across its plaza toward the Western Wall, where they hung a flag. For all intents and purposes, we have been rushing away from the Temple Mount ever since.
OF LATE, Sharon has achieved a level of relative security. He has scored a major diplomatic victory in the form of US President George W. Bush's "Palestinian democracy" speech. He has almost neutralized Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
Nevertheless, he has done nothing to correct the situation existing at the Temple Mount or other Jewish holy sites. Joseph's Tomb and the Jericho Synagogue, lost to Islamic fanatics during the terror war, are located in Area A, a geographic reality which may limit Sharon. The Temple Mount, however, is in Jerusalem, in sovereign Israel. What could be the problem here?
Under cover of the Oslo process and the total indifference of Yitzhak Rabin, Peres, Yossi Beilin and Yossi Sarid, not only did the Palestinian Authority arm itself to the teeth, but it managed to wrest the Temple Mount from the Jewish people and the State of Israel.
The goal was to de-Judaize the Temple Mount. The PA increased the number of "guards" there and provided them with hi-tech communications equipment. They dug out two huge underground mosques. They caused irreparable archeological damage.
And Israel's governments responded with nonchalance. Only archeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar has waged a campaign to save the Temple Mount's artifacts, but her efforts have been stymied.
Today's Fast of Tisha Be'av is the culmination of a traditional three-week period of mourning for the loss of the two Temples, Jerusalem and, by extension, our political independence. The Western Wall has recently become a "Weeping Wall." The seepage will certainly damage the site if left unchecked. Turning to the Wakf to fix the problem, though, is self-defeating. The Wakf administration itself has been the most inimical institution of the Temple Mount. Its destructive digging at Solomon's Stables and elsewhere has caused a bulging southern wall and now a leaking Western Wall.
The Wakf seeks to erase the Jewishness of the site. The Israeli government's policy is to avoid overt identification with the site. Israel's High Court of Justice has proven unhelpful and the Chief Rabbinate prohibits entry even though Halacha could permit it.
We are left with the hope that Sharon does not want to be the Temple Mount's "last Jew" and that eventually Jews will be again able to visit the site.
After all, this is democratic and Jewish Israel, not an authoritarian regime such as in most of the Middle East.
Sharon should not be proud of the fact that the Temple Mount still needs to be liberated, 35 years since the call "The Temple Mount is in our hands!" reverberated over the army radio transmitters and two years since he was last there.
We await his next steps.
The writer is secretary of the El Har Hashem Society promoting Jewish rights to the Temple Mount.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1025787819937
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