by Prof. Aryeh Eldad
A day after an attempt
was made on the life of activist Yehuda Glick, I was sitting in the
Jerusalem District Court. A few months earlier, on a date set long ahead
of time, I had submitted a petition under the Freedom of Information
Law in the name of Professors for a Strong Israel.
Jerusalem, as we know,
has multiple authorities, not only judges. A number of them are
responsible for issues related to the Temple Mount. The municipality
must concern itself with building permits and ensuring that the planning
and construction laws are enforced; the Israel Antiquities Authority is
supposed to oversee what many, including the High Court of Justice,
have defined as "the most important antiquities site in Israel"; and the
police are supposed to enforce public order and public security.
Between 1995 and 2001,
the Temple Mount -- under the tightly closed eyes of the authorities --
was the site of one of the worst instances of antiquities vandalism in
the country. The Muslim Wakf took over the huge underground spaces (4
dunams, or 43,000 square feet) known as King Solomon's Stables, and
turned them into the biggest mosque in Israel. They employed enormous
bulldozers to dig on the Temple Mount, and were careful to eradicate any
trace of Jewish history. They cleared out hundreds of trucks' worth of
debris from the holiest place to the Jewish people, including many
archaeological finds that were thrown on the trash heap.
When the extent of the
destruction was discovered by citizens whose eyes -- unlike those of the
authorities -- were open, the State Comptroller's Committee charged the
comptroller with investigating and reporting on the matter. When the
report was submitted, government representatives sought to have it
classified because its publication could damage foreign relations (U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry could discover that Israel had given up
sovereignty over the Temple Mount) and expose the police's approach of
sitting with their hands folded or running away when a police station on
the mount was set on fire.
The full report is
being kept secret from the people, or at least from those who are too
lazy to Google "State Comptroller's Secret Report on the Temple Mount"
and read it all. At any rate, the various authorities swore that they
learned lessons from it, and are now supervising, monitoring and
enforcing. There is no more damage, no more destruction, no more illegal
building taking place.
Since I, and many like
me, visit the Temple Mount from time to time, I've seen that the
situation is just getting worse. The destruction continues. The Arabs
have dubbed the entire mount "Al-Aqsa mosque" and do whatever they like
there. They build, wreck and riot, and the government in effect is
giving up all its sovereignty on the mount and not enforcing the law. I
know that the Arabs see the Jewish forgoing of sovereignty over the
holiest place to the Jewish people as a sign that we are not truly bound
to the land of Israel, and can be ousted like the Crusaders.
A few months ago, I
approached those same authorities and asked them: How many investigative
visits have you held? How many construction applications have you
received? And how many of those have you approved? What have you done
with the criminals? The authorities replied quickly that they did not
want to answer because everything was extremely sensitive and a matter
of "national security." I hope that the court will limit the cynical use
of this expression. Parroting the "sensitivity" of the Temple Mount
gives coverage to every despicable act that dismantles our sovereignty
and attacks the Jews' right to pray on the Temple Mount, giving a prize
to the rioters.
Senior police officials
have already determined that Yehuda Glick is "the most dangerous person
on the Temple Mount," and the police have ignored the Arab rioters,
agitators, and rabble-rousers. The latest Arab terrorist just pulled the
trigger. The police are trying to "contain" the Arab violence, a policy
that more than anything shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the
forces at work in the Jewish-Arab conflict.
Only if we make it
clear to ourselves and the rest of the world that this is the holiest
place to the Jewish people and we will not give it up from fear of Arab
terrorism do we have a chance to win. You don't contain terrorism -- you
fight it until it is defeated. Our giving up the Temple Mount is the
strongest incentive for the Islamic terrorism working against us. The
Temple Mount isn't the problem. It's the solution.
Prof. Aryeh Eldad
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=10435
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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