The same absurd yet lethal claims that Abbas makes now, the Mufti of Jerusalem made in 1928.
The Western Wall is the extension of the al-Aqsa Mosque, not a Jewish holy site.
The Jews are planning to gain control of the Temple Mount, raze the mosque there and rebuild the Temple. In response, local Arabs wield knives and kill innocent Jews.
Sound familiar?
The scene is 1928 in Jerusalem.
Nothing has changed, at least from the perspective of the Palestinian leadership. The scene repeats itself almost nine decades later.
Names are different. Political realities are different. But Arab denial of Jewish religious rights is the same.
The Arab violence against Jews in 1928 continued into 1929, together with Arab harassment of Jews for praying at the Western Wall.
Especially alarming is this element of sameness: Violence begets more violence. One week before Tisha b’Av in 1929, Jews were told not to pray at the Wall that day. Jews prayed there anyway. Two days later, Arabs ripped up hundreds of Jewish prayer books at the Wall — then, one week later, came the infamous Arab pogrom in Hebron.
Who was the main instigator of all this? The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini.
He is the Arab leader who successfully demanded of the British Mandate authorities that it recognize the plaza of the Western Wall as a Muslim holy site (while allowing donkeys loaded with manure to pass through the crowd of Jewish worshippers there), to ban all chairs for elderly Jewish worshippers there, to beat Jews who wished to pray with a mechitza there — in short, to exploit the Western Wall as the Palestinian tool for opposing Jewish immigation to the Land of Israel.
It’s the same tactic today: Manufacture fictitious Jewish designs on the Temple Mount; generate violence in response; and make unfounded claims, such as Muslim holiness (and xenophobic exclusivity) to the Western Wall.
Even the term used in 1928 is the same as today, the “status quo,” although, back then, this connoted not only Arab control of the Dome of the Rock but limits on Jewish ritual prayer at the Wall.
Don’t be fooled in 2015 by Arab claims that Israel is trying to alter the “status quo” on the Temple Mount. The tactic goes back decades. The good news here is the words of the chief rabbi of Jerusalem in 1928: “This will pass. This will not help them. We will achieve our goals. Not through narrow alleyways and not with bowed heads will we enter this place, but through boulevards and with a proud bearing.”
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
