The Temple Mount is the Heart of the Matter

There is a strategic Palestinian Arab plan. The pulling on Al Aqsa can lead to an unraveling of the whole Zionist enterprise. We ignore it at our peril.

Matan Peleg and Douglas Altabef, INN

In Jewish tradition, the Temple Mount, Har Habayit, is uniquely holy, special and significant.

Not only the site of the site of the First and Second Temples, the Mount, Mount Moriah, is considered to be the site of where Abraham sacrificed Isaac, Jacob dreamed of the ladder ascending to heaven, and in some interpretations, the site of Gan Eden itself.

Al Aqsa occupies a corner of the Mount, part of the Herodian extension, not considered to be of any significant stature by Jews, and frankly, a place of zero interest to us
And while our political leaders are eager to mute its significance, our adversaries have correctly perceived its importance. In true supersecessionist fashion, they have raised the Temple Mount as an existential issue in the form of mythical threats to the Al Aqsa mosque.

Al Aqsa occupies a corner of the Mount, part of the Herodian extension of the plateau, not considered to be of any significant stature by Jews, and frankly, a place of zero interest to us.

However, employing the classic meme of bogeyman-like threats to it, anti-Israel forces from within and from without Israel, have found in Al Aqsa, the all-encompassing grievance and the great rallying cry for attacking Israel and any Jew that happens to be in it.

Once again the Arabs have hauled out the Big Lie, the threats to Al Aqsa, and the accusations of Judaizing the Temple Mount, which in turn reflect the Great Projection: their own deep-seated desire to throw us off the Mount,

Throwing Jews off the Mount by screaming about what we are supposedly doing to them (which of course is what they clearly want to do to us) is part of the crucial battle for the control of Jerusalem, and by extension all of Israel.

Our enemies rightfully appreciate that if we surrender on that which is most important to us, we will eventually surrender on everything else.

This is no mere turf war disagreement, nor a dispute about a modus vivendus for shared sacred space. Rather, the Temple Mount is for our adversaries the symbol of religious sovereignty, and by extension political sovereignty.

Never ones to use nuance or subtlety or even to be dissuaded by the facts, our adversaries have been admirably “on message:” Jews are trying to destroy Al Aqsa, Jews are trying to rid us of their connection to the Mount, Jews are trying to Judaize Jerusalem starting right here on the Temple Mount.

The hope and the expectation is that the world will rally to their cause, and that their insistence, backed by horrific violence, will intimidate Israelis into placating them by ceding Jewish rights and the time immemorial Jewish connection to the Mount.

But in this fight, we cannot cede the field, We cannot surrender. We must see the fight for what it has become, the distillation of all grievance, of all effort to defeat us.

The one thing that we must concede is their basic assumption that the control of the Temple Mount is tantamount to the spiritual control of Jerusalem, and by extension all of Israel.

The concept of the “status quo” has become a cruel absurdity, since the new “status quo” that Palestinians are seeking to convince the world is just and proper has Jews hounded off the Temple Mount.

In their new status quo the entire Mount is Al Aqsa, and per force there is no room for Jews anywhere there in holy Muslim space.

Having chased us off the Temple Mount, the drumbeats will inevitably start about the Kotel, the Western Wall, which of course supports their holy Al Aqsa. You can count on it.

Like the proverbial loose thread on a cheap polyester suit, the pulling on Al Aqsa will ultimately lead to an unraveling of the whole Zionist enterprise.

Make no mistake. This is the Palestinian strategic plan. The biggest mistake we can make is to ignore, to diminish it or deny it.

What we need now is clear eyed leadership that understands that the Temple Mount has become the crucible in which the future of Jerusalem and Israel will be shaped.

We must not shirk our history and we cannot endanger our future. We must rise to the challenge.

Matan Peleg is CEO of Im Tirtzu and Douglas Altabef is an Executive Board Member of Im Tirtzu

November 25, 2014 | 9 Comments »

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9 Comments / 9 Comments

  1. @ bernard ross:
    Rivlin is an israeli political cesspool byproduct. Nekudah. He never was anything but that.
    It is us, the Jewish people that is affected, deeply affected. Perhaps genetically.
    We simply sidle up to the worst possible trash and keep that as leaders. Not only in Israel…
    Solution.
    First of all recognize that we have a terrible collective problem.
    With help from experts device a Corrective Action plan.

  2. yamit82 Said:

    Abbas’ official Palestinian Authority TV has presented four Palestinian terrorist murderers as “Martyrs.”

    most normal people would use this as the opportunity to punish them as they deserve….Put a blockade around them and let them kill each other. At least use this as the reason NOT to hold any more talks with them.
    BB is too busy trying to make a grand relationship with the obese gulf potentates.

  3. the phoenix Said:

    Hopefully people are waking up from this deep slumber

    Rivlin is starting to sound like a clone parrot of Peres. Amir tells it like it is and Rivlin just started his job and is already trying to pull the wool over the peoples eyes, as if they are stupid.

  4. @ the phoenix:

    PMW Bulletin Nov. 25, 2014
    PA TV misrepresents murderers of rabbis in Jerusalem synagogue and streets as victims of Israeli attacks

    Terrorist attacks with cars were “accidents”
    http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=13238

    To the Palestinian public, Abbas’ official Palestinian Authority TV has presented four Palestinian terrorist murderers as “Martyrs.” Israel’s shooting of these terrorists – either during their attacks on Israeli
    civilians or while trying to apprehend them later – was described by PA TV as “Israel’s attacks against our people.” PA TV avoided mentioning the terror attacks altogether, and referred to recent attacks in which terrorists deliberately ran people over as “accidents” and “incidents.” Completely ignoring the fact that two terrorists armed with guns, knives and axes murdered five people in an attack against worshippers in a Jerusalem
    synagogue, PA TV included their deaths in the list of”Israeli attacks.” The fact that the terrorists were killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli Security Forces that arrived at the synagogue was not mentioned.

    PA TV described them as victims:

    [Official PA TV, Nov. 18, 2014]

  5. bernard ross Said:

    One cannot help but wonder if the Jews are worthy of what was placed into their hands.

    “And when they came into the nations, whither they came, they profaned My Holy Name, in that the nations said concerning them: These are the people of the L-rd and they are driven forth from the land! But I had pity for My Holy Name which the House of Israel profaned among the nations whither they came. Therefore say unto the House of Israel: Thus saith the L-rd, G-d: I do this not for your sake O House of Israel, but for My Holy Name… And I will sanctify My great Name which hath been profaned among the nations which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the nations shall know that I am the L-rd, saith the L-rd, G-d, WHEN I SHALL BE SANCTIFIED THROUGH YOU BEFORE THEIR EYES. For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries and will bring you into your own land.” (Ezekiel 36)

  6. What is clear to me is that the Jews cannot unify on anything and the muslims show no disunity on everything. The muslims dont have to do a lot of talmudic thought to come to their one conclusion: “Jews out!”. One cannot help but wonder if the Jews are worthy of what was placed into their hands.

  7. The point is apartheid is intolerable.

    Arabs will not be satisfied with any thing less than the Jews being expelled from Jerusalem.

    After Har Nof, any one who thinks they want to share the city with the hated infidel dhimmi Jews is dreaming.

    For that reason dividing the city is absurd. It will not be easy to terminate the apartheid status quo on the Temple Mount – but neither was Jim Crow in the American South.

    The battle for Israel’s soul has been joined.

  8. The israeli unJewish political aggregate must be placed on a stern warning to reverse course back to making of Temple Mount our most central Jewish Icon.
    There can be no tolerance to islamic filth taking over in any fashion.
    In an indirect message to islam, Dayan must be publicly downgraded post mortem for having betrayed our Jewish rights.