Israel continued to fly in the face of Arab and Muslim protests over increasingly daring efforts by government-backed messianic Jewish fanatics aimed at wresting the Aqsa Mosque of Jerusalem from Muslim hands.
The mosque also known as the Haram-el-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary has been under the exclusive administration of Jordan which controlled the West Bank before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
However in recent months and years millenarian Talmudic Jews encouraged by the advent of the extreme right wing-government of Binyamin Netanyahu carried out almost daily “storming” into the 1400-year Islamic shrine performing Talmudic rituals and infuriating Muslim Waqf (endowment) authorities as well as ordinary Muslims in occupied Palestine and the rest of the world.
Earlier this week paramilitary Israeli troops shot and killed Muataz Hijazi at the Thouri neighborhood to the south of the Haram compound. Eyewitnesses reported that the killing was actually a cold-blooded murder.
“They could have arrested him he was not armed” said Hijazi’s cousin and neighbor Muhammad.
“But they came to spill blood.”
Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas paid a condolence call to Hijazi’s family prompting some Israeli officials to call Abbas “terrorist and enemy of Israel.”
The Israeli police claimed Hijazi had earlier shot an extremist rabbi named Ehuda Glick who had been incessantly inciting fanatical Jewish circles to demolish the Aqsa Mosque and the adjacent Dome of the Rock. Glick was seriously injured.
Following the murder of Hijazi the Israeli police shut off the Haram el-Sharif barring Muslims from performing daily prayers there. The draconian measure unprecedented since 1967 was in the words of one Israeli official a “timely reminder to Muslims to realize that the master at the Temple Mount is Israel not Jordan not the PA or Sissi.”
Predictably the closure of the Mosque infuriated Palestinians in the West Bank who took to the streets to protest the “naked Israeli aggression” against the paramount symbol of Islam in Palestine.
Muslim Waqf official Abdul Azim Salhab warned Muslims worldwide that “unless you stand up in defense of Islam’s First Qibla and Third Holiest site it will be destroyed by Jews.”
The situation seemed so explosive that a looming intifada or uprising was a foregone conclusion.
Gog and Magog
A former Shin Bet (Israel’s domestic Security Agency) chief warned that tinkering with the delicate status quo at the Haram el-Sharif could spark off a “Gog and Magog” war that no one would be able to stop.
Pointing out that Israel has already “lost the battle” over the Haram el-Sharif Menachem Landau accused both the Israeli governments and Israel’s own Islamists of “fanning the winds of incitement.”
“I often tell my friends that if the War of Gog and Magog were be realized this would be the reason” There are plenty of people heating up the atmosphere here; the (Islamic Movement’s) Northern Faction and the politicians provide fertile grounds to fan the winds of incitement and we do not give it much thought and perceive it as provocation” he explained.
“I believe we must consider the fact that we live together with a population that does not like us but we have to live with them. And I foresee that in the future there will be instances perhaps tomorrow of bombs going off (in our midst). But they have blue identity cards with yellow numbers and they are allowed to roam freely among us” said Landau alluding to Israel’s two-million strong Arab minority.
However Netanyahu seemed to have reacted characteristically blithely to such warnings as Israeli provocations continued unabated. Fresh laws have been issued to stiffen punishments for stone thrower and protester. This coincided with a sweeping wave of arrests targeting children and boys especially in East Jerusalem.
More provocative visits
Meanwhile two additional right-wing leaders decided to pour oil on fire this week by intruding into the Haram courts escorted by heavily armed soldiers and Talmudic fanatics eager to see the beautiful Islamic shrines reduced to ruin.
The first is Knesset member Moshe Feiglin a messianic (not Christian) member of the Likud who has declared rather defiantly that “we will work to change reality here.” Normally remarks as such are understood to underscore Jewish determination to demolish or take over the mosque. Messianic Jews backed by influential religious and right-wing political parties in Israel advocate the so-called rebuilding of the Solomon’s Temple which most including Israeli archaeological authorities are convinced is not located in any place near or in the vicinity of the Haram al-Sharif.
Messianic millenarian Jews such as Feiglin believe that the destruction of the main Islamic holy places in Jerusalem especially the Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock would trigger violence and bloodshed on such a huge scale that the Jewish Messiah or Redeemer would appear heralding the beginning of the messianic age whereby the Jewish Messiah would rule the entire world from Jerusalem.
The second unwanted visitor was Shuli Mualem also an extremist who arrived at the Mosque esplanade under tight police protection.
The provocative “visits” by Jewish fanatics occurred while the Israeli security apparatus continued to restrict the entry of Muslims to their holy place.
Netanyahu seemed more or less acquiescing to the ongoing provocations despite increasingly angry reactions from several Muslim states.
King Abdullah of Jordan apparently in reaction to growing domestic indignation at the Israeli provocations in Jerusalem issued a strongly-worded statement denouncing Israel.
However an Israeli cabinet minister reacted to the royal statement from Amman reminding the Jordanian monarch of “what happened in the 1967 war.”
The right-wing Israeli political establishment believes Arab states such as Jordan and Egypt are too weak to challenge Israel over “developments” at the Haram el-Sharif being thoroughly preoccupied with their domestic problems including an increasingly daring Islamist insurgency in Egypt as well as the prospects of Jordan facing Isis-like violence given its propinquity to violence-ravaged Syria and Iraq as well as its direct involvement in the American-led campaign against Sunni Islamists in both countries.
None the less some Israeli intellectuals and commentators don’t think that Israel should be duped by the low-profile reactions from Amman and Cairo.
This week several speakers commemorating the 19th anniversary of former Israeli Prime Minister Isaac Rabin’s assassination lambasted the Israeli government for “taking Israel further away from peace.”
However it is important to point out that the voices of peace in Israel today assuming they are indeed genuine voices of peace are very few even rare in a country that continues to drift rather dangerously toward religious fascism.
Khalid Amayreh is a veteran journalist and political commentator based in occupied Palestine
