No Jews Allowed: The White Houses cherished status quo for the Temple Mount
I.
This, from White House spokes-man Josh Earnest on Oct. 7:
“The US condemns in the strongest possible terms violence against Israeli and Palestinian civilians.”
Notice: There is no subject in the violence phrase. Passive voice is the refuge of those who prefer obfuscation to truth. In the last few weeks, there has been no “violence against Israeli and Palestinian civilians” — as if the violence spreading throughout Israel were some uncaused, mysterious, other worldly force.
Yes, violence has struck Israeli and Palestinian civilians; yes, it is to be condemned. Yet, earth to White House: Virtually all of the violence is wrought by Palestinians against Israeli civilians, unprovoked. The moral equivalence emanating from the White House is reprehensible.
Further from Josh Earnest at the White House:
“We continue to urge all sides to find a way back to the full restoration of the status quo at the Temple Mount in Harim al-Sharif, the location that has precipitated so much of the violence that we’ve seen there.”
Notice again: The cause of the violence is not people; it is a “location.” Earth to White House: When Israel raids the Temple Mount on a tip, and finds stockpiles of firebombs, pipe bombs and rocks, the intended users of these instruments of violence are Palestinian Arabs. Their leaders control the area. No Jews precipitated this.
Yet, an Israeli self-defense raid is loudly proclaimed by the Palestinian Authority to be a violation of the the status quo on the Temple Mount, to be an attempt by Israel to take over the Muslim holy site. The same day, Palestinian rock throwers hit the car of an Israeli, Alexander Levlovich. The rock attack caused him to lose control, crash and die.
These are the “all sides” that the White House’s Josh Earnest refers to: lethal Palestinian rock throwers; and Israeli raiders of a stockpile of weapons, ready to be used by Palestinians against Jews. These are the “all sides” urged by the White House to “find a way back to the full restoration of the status quo.”
Moral equivalence at its worst: Israel discovers pipe bombs; Palestinian murders Israeli — “all sides.”
II.
Not to mention, what is this “status quo” that Earnest refers to? It is an arrangement that would be outlawed or sneered at in the US.
It is an arrangement under which Israelis are prohibited from being on the Temple Mount. That’s it — just being there. That itself is the “violent provocation” to which the Palestinian Authority and most Muslim religious leaders around the world refer. Freedom of religion in the Muslim conception, as practiced on the Temple Mount, is the freedom to exclude. We know of no American religious house of worship that regards the mere presence of a non-believer there as a violent provocation.
We do not believe Jews should violate halachic proscriptions against stepping foot on the Temple Mount, the ancient Holy of Holies. But that’s a voluntary restraint. They should not be banned by the Wakf.
What if Israel failed to contain violent Arab protesters at the Temple Mount? There would be widespread bloodshed, then widespread condemnation of Israel for not keeping the peace at the holiest spot in the Holy Land. Yet, when Israel does try to keep the peace there, the White House has nothing to say to the perpetrators of the violence, only morally reprehensible urgings to “all sides.”
The scary thing is, we think the White House believes itself.
The PA’s Mahmoud Abbas not only believes this, but takes it one step further. He tells the UN, Sept. 30, that Israel is using “brutal force to impose its plans to undermine the Islamic and Christian sanctitites in Jerusalem.”
Just ask the decimated Arab Christian communities, exiled from Arab-Muslim controlled territories of the West Bank, who uses force to undermine sanctities in the Holy Land.
The Municipality of Jerusalem safeguards mosques. Name a single synagogue in the West Bank safeguarded by the Palestinian Authority. You can’t. That’s because there isn’t one. The PA won’t allow it. The “status quo” in Arab controlled territories of the West Bank is the same as on the Temple Mount: “No Jews allowed.”
In the US, people of good will used to be outraged by signs and policies that said, “No Negroes allowed.”
This is the status quo on the Temple Mount that Mr. Moral Equivalence at the White Houses wants “all sides” to “find a way back to the full restoration of.” No Jews allowed. Mr. Earnest, that’s what you’re saying. The scary thing is, we think you believe it.
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
