On October 2, Hamas organized an “Al Aqsa Is In Danger” event in the Gaza Strip. A report on the affair is a Hamas website is here: “Hamas organises grand festival in solidarity with Al-Aqsa,” Hamas, October 1, 2022:
Hamas movement organised a grand festival in the Gaza Strip this evening to express solidarity with Palestinian Jerusalemites who have been facing escalating Israeli attacks.
There have been no “escalating attacks” in Jerusalem on Palestinians; in fact, there have been no attacks at all by Israelis on Palestinians in Jerusalem. The attacks have all been on Israelis. The last attack was on August 14, when a Palestinian gunman targeted a bus carrying Jewish worshippers who had just prayed at the Western Wall, as well as people in a car park near the holy site. Eight people were wounded, two of them seriously. The gunman, aware of a massive manhunt by the Israelis, then turned himself in.
The festival named “Al-Aqsa is in Danger” was attended by officials from different Palestinian factions.
In a speech by a member of the Hamas political bureau Rawhi Mushtaha, the movement confirmed that Palestinians are prepared to defend the Al-Aqsa at any cost, noting that thousands of Gazans marched to express solidarity with the holy compound and “send a message to the entire world.”
Al-Aqsa is in real danger, and the Israeli occupation plans to divide it spatially and temporally,” Mushtaha confirmed.
This “Al Aqsa is in real danger” charge has been made for years. It is as absurd today as ever. It’s the quickest way to whip up hysteria among the Palestinian masses. In the worst case, the Israelis are charged with wanting to take over the mosque altogether. Some Palestinians, such as Hamas spokesman Rawhi Mushtaha, insist that the wicked Israelis “plan to divide it spatially and temporally,” which makes no sense. Does Mushtaha think the Israelis are planning to divide the current mosque “spatially” – that is, into a Muslim and a Jewish section? And what would it mean, anyway, to divide Al-Aqsa “temporally”? Perhaps he means that Muslim worshippers would be allowed in only at certain times, while Jewish worshippers would be allowed to treat Al-Aqsa as a synagogue, and worship in it, at other times? That’s my guess. Is there any evidence to justify either of these absurd worries? Has any Israeli suggested such possibilities for “sharing Al-Aqsa”? Of course not.
And what about the other charge the Palestinians make – that the Israelis are planning not to”divide” the mosque either “spatially or temporally,” but to raze it altogether, and in its place, to build the Third Temple? Again, no evidence exists, but none is needed; the Israelis, in the Palestinian view, are capable of anything. And such a charge has the desired effect; it sends credulous Palestinians into a frenzy of hate and despair.
The Israeli occupation’s banning of Palestinians from entering the Mosque and performing prayers there poses a serious danger, the senior Hamas official added.
The Israelis do not ban Palestinians from worshipping at al-Aqsa save at times of extreme tension, when in order to avoid violence, both Jewish and Muslim worshippers are banned from visiting the Temple Mount. This happens most infrequently, and there is never a time when Muslims alone are banned. When Muslims are temporarily banned from the Mount, so too are Jews. Mushtaha knows this perfectly well.
Mushtaha concluded by saluting Palestinian defenders of the Al-Aqsa and all freedom fighters from the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories, Gaza, and the West Bank.
Who is it that fails to treat Al-Aqsa Mosque with the proper respect? It’s the Palestinians who insist upon storing weapons – chiefly rocks — in what should be an exclusively religious site. They stockpile rocks and bottles and fireworks inside the mosque, and then from within the mosque, throw them at Jewish worshippers on the Temple Mount. Some of them take the rocks from inside the mosque into the Al-Aqsa compound, in order to be able to throw them more easily not just at Jewish visitors on the Mount, but also on Jews praying at the Western Wall far below. That is why the Israeli police have conducted raids to take weapons away from Muslims in the Al-Aqsa Compound. Almost invariably, and incorrectly, these raids are described in the media as being made on Al-Aqsa Mosque itself. They are not: the Israeli police seize the weapons from Muslims not inside Al-Aqsa Mosque, but standing on the Al-Aqsa Compound just outside, which is a different thing.
In fact, since coming into possession of the Old City in 1967, Israel has bent over backwards not to offend Muslim sensibilities in Jerusalem. The Israeli government would have been well within its rights to allow Jewish worshippers to say prayers on top of the Temple Mount. But it was Defense Minister Moshe Dayan who decided just after the Six-Day war ended that all Jewish prayer would be prohibited on top of the Temple Mount. Jews, furthermore, were prohibited from bringing prayer books, prayer shawls, and tefillin onto the Mount. Jews were also forbidden either to say prayers, or even to silently mouth them on the Mount. Jews were allowed to visit the Mount during only four hours a day, five days a week. Meanwhile, Muslim visitors had none of these restrictions. They may visit the Temple Mount at any time of the day or week, and pray to their heart’s content, either on the esplanade or inside Al-Aqsa Mosque.
While the Palestinians accuse Israelis of harboring plans to seize and divide (“spatially or temporally”), or to raze altogether, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, it is they who have been trying to discourage or prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount, or from praying at the Western Wall far below, by the simple expedient of throwing rocks and bottles at them. How many Jews decide not to visit the Mount, despite its being the third holiest site in Judaism, out of fear of being struck by one of these weapons? And doesn’t the use of Al Aqsa Mosque as both a storehouse for weapons, and a fortress from which those weapons may be safely flung, constitute the worst kind of desecration?
