by Nadav Shragai
"Al-Aqsa is in danger" is trundled out to fire up religious terrorism when national motivation is waving. Meanwhile, Israel allows the incredible concession it made in 1967 to be taken for granted.
Some 20 years after the October 2020 riots on the Temple Mount, and the unforgettable remarks by then-leader of the Ra'am party MK Abd al-Malik Dahamsha that he would "be willing to be the first shahid to defend Al-Aqsa," both branches of the Islamic Movement in Israel – the legal Southern Branch and the outlawed Northern one – are making similar statements now.
Everything is coordinated: The ideological line is that of the Muslim Brotherhood. The operation on the ground and the incitement is handled by Hamas, the Islamic Movement, and some Arabs in east Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority, as usual, is along for the ride. This is the same axis that was active during the metal detector crisis. This is the same axis that kicked in during the last scuffle around Damascus Gate. It's the same axis now. The goal is to move the conflict onto religious lines after the nationalist issue turned out to be insufficient grounds for a conflagration. The way to do this is through the same old lie, "Al-Aqsa is in danger."
Sometimes this is a delusional claim that Israel is planning to demolish the mosques on the Temple Mount. Sometimes it's a basely claim that Israel is supposedly planning to tinker with the status-quo on the Mount, when the truth is completely the opposite: the Muslims are the ones who are upsetting the Temple Mount status quo, in a major way.
But these stories have long since ceased to be propaganda and incitement along. They have become surrogates for terrorism and catalysts for terrorist attacks, rioting, and now a semi-uprising whose purpose is to weaken Israel's hold on and sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.
The new equation Hamas is trying to construct is one in which Israel gives up in Jerusalem in exchange for quiet, both in the city itself and in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip. This formula, whether it's about the Temple Mount or the Sheikh Jarrah-Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood, or about construction in the Har Homa neighborhood, should be put down with a strong hand. Hamas sees any concession in Jerusalem, or at all, as weakness and encouragement to step up the rioting, terrorism, and sedition even more.
The public in east Jerusalem, Arab Israelis, and the Arabs in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza are well-versed in leveraging the fictions about "Al-Asqa being in danger" – and the defense that is supposedly needed – for the sake of passing political and national purposes. The father of the libel and religious terrorism in Israel was the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini. His successor is Sheikh Raed Salah, currently in prison as he deserves. Salah's allies and students are the ones who are lighting up Jerusalem and the Temple Mount now.
The "Al-Aqsa is in danger" coalition, which in recent years has spawned terrorism, as well, includes the Islamic Movement in Israel, some Arab MKs, the Palestinian Authority and its spokespeople, all branches of the PLO, the Fatah, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, as well as members of the bloc identified with the moderate Arab world in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Gulf states, and Indonesia. For years, members of this coalition have been trying to out-do one another in incitement and radicalism, because merely touching on the issue gives them bona fides in the eyes of their respective publics and circles.
The discourse that radical Islam manages to drag the world, as well as us, into focuses almost entirely on the Temple Mount's holy status for Muslims. No one reminds the world about the enormous, incredible concession of the Mount that Israel has already made, back in 1967. No one mentions that the state of the Jewish people, which recaptured the holiest place in Judaism in 1967, then placed it in the hands of a competing religion, Islam, for which it is only the third-holiest site, doing massive harm to the rights of the Jews there.
For some reason, this fact, which is the hardest thing to accept, has become something to be taken for granted, but it shouldn't be. There is no example of another concession like this one in interfaith relations anywhere in the world, but Israel plays it down as if it never happened.
Nadav Shragai
Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-lie-that-is-setting-jerusalem-alight/
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