Today’s (Sunday, 25th October) BBC News Online carries a story about Israeli police arresting stone-throwing Palestinian demonstrators outside the Al-Alqsa Mosque on
So, what else is new, you might ask. What is new, and disturbing, is that the demonstration was provoked by rumours that have been circulating in the Arab communities throughout the Middle East that Jewish extremists are plotting to destroy the Dome of the Rock (the Masjid Qubbat as-Sahkrah, or Kipat Hasela[1], in Hebrew, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_of_the_Rock) and/or the Al-Aqsa Mosque itself, together known as Al-Haram al-Sharif, ‘The Noble Sanctuary’, in order to make space to rebuild the Temple, and re-instute the Temple sacrifices, which were halted when the Romans under Titus destroyed the Second Temple in 70 AD, following the First Jewish Revolt of 66-70. (See the account of Flavius Josephus [37-c.100 AD], The Jewish Wars, VI, 249-60, trans. & ed., William Whiston,
That these rumours are being stoked up by enemies of peace on the Arab side is certain. That they are not without foundation is, unfortunately, also certain. For there are indeed Jewish extremists who have been wanting to do precisely as outlined above ever since the Israelis seized
These extremists are supported by so-called ‘Christian Zionists’, such as David ben-Ariel, and Dispensationalist Evangelicals, such as Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye, all three of whom may safely be characterised as American Christian fundamentalists, well to the right of the political spectrum.
‘Google’ the term ‘Third Temple’, and this is what you will come up with: David ben-Ariel’s ’Blog (see link above); the website of the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement, http://www.templemountfaithful.org/ (‘Our goal is the building of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in our lifetime in accordance with the Word of G-d and all the Hebrew prophets and the liberation of the Temple Mount from Arab (Islamic) occupation so that it may be consecrated to the Name of G-d[2]); and http://thirdtemple.org/, a vitriolic anti-Muslim site featuring the Dutch politician Geert Wilder’s film, Fitna, which portrays the Qu’ran as a ‘fascist’ book, and all Muslims as extremists, and a piece by a Spanish journalist which reads, in part, ‘we [Europeans] killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In
The Muslims I know are neither stupid nor ignorant, they are extremely hard working, have never been in trouble with the law, and no-one could further from the description of intolerant religious extremist. On the contrary, they are as moderate as the average middle-of-the-road Anglican.
Just who is the intolerant religious extremist here? Is it someone who can work in a shop or restaurant and happily serve their customers alcohol, even though they can’t drink alcohol themselves, or is it someone who rants about all Muslims as if every single Muslim man, woman and child in Europe was a stupid, ignorant, intolerant, religiously extremist layabout and social security scrounger-cum-criminal?
This is not true of the vast majority of European Muslims, of whom it was estimated in 2006 there are 13 million, not 20 million (see: http://fra.europa.eu/fraWebsite/attachments/Manifestations_EN.pdf). On the contrary, they are more likely to be the victims of crime and ethnic and religious discrimination, as the recent BBC Panorama undercover investigation on a housing estate, Broadmead, on the outskirts of Bristol, showed (see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nfr2h/Panorama_Undercover_Hate_on_the_Doorstep/).
At a time when the Israeli Government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, is refusing to halt its settlement building in the Occupied Territories, or even to consider dismantling its controversial Security Fence (or ‘Peace Barrier’, as they prefer to call it), and at a time when the Palestinian National Authority of Mahmoud Abbas is only in control of parts of the West Bank, with Gaza being controlled by the rejectionist group Hamas, any talk of a new intifada, or Palestinian uprising, sparked by rumours of threats to the Haram al-Sharif, is – to say the least – inflammatory.
That said, what the Israeli authorities should be doing is making it abundantly clear to their own extremist factions that talk of destroying the Dome of the Rock, and building a Third Temple in its place, must remain talk, and that any moves to act upon it will not be tolerated.
[1] Alternatively, Hashtiyah, the word referring to the ‘Foundation Stone’ (Arabic: Sahkrah or Tzachra, depending on transliteration used.) This is the site of Abraham’s offer of sacrifice of his son, Isaac (Gen.22:1-14), or, in Muslim tradition, Ishmael (Qu’ran: Sura 37:101-110).
[2] Devout Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jews may not pronounce the Sacred Name of their God, the Tetragrammaton (YHWH, or Yahweh), and will not even use the word ‘God’; hence, ‘G-d’.
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