JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Four days before Jerusalem Day 2022, a Jerusalem District Court has effectively nullified the 1967 conquest of Temple Mount and handed it back to the Muslim aggressors, who will gleefully continue to take control of the holy site.
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The story starts however immediately after the Six Day War, a war in which Motta Gur made the historic proclamation that “Temple Mount is in our hands”. On the day of conquest, the paratroop unit responsible for Temple Mount victoriously fastened the Israeli flag onto a pole topped with an Islamic crescent.
Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, watching the scene through binoculars from Mount Scopus, urgently radioed Gur and demanded: Do you want to set the Middle East on fire? Gur told Arik Achmon, his intelligence officer, to remove the flag. But Achmon couldn’t bear the notion of lowering the Israeli flag, and so he instructed one of his men to do it instead.
Shortly after the war, Dayan met with officials of the Muslim Wakf, who governed the holy site, and formally returned the Mount to their control. While Israeli soldiers would determine security and stand at the gates, the Wakf would determine who prayed at the site, an arrangement that would effectively bar non-Muslim prayer. The Temple Mount was no longer in Gur’s hands.
An unplanned victory ended in a spontaneous concession. No cabinet meeting authorized Dayan’s move. The defense minister simply took advantage of his popularity within the Israeli public to manage Israel’s most sensitive religious problem—an arrangement that has persisted ever since.
In ceding the right of Jews to pray on the Mount, Dayan’s intention was to minimize bloodshed and prevent the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from becoming a holy war. He was supported by most of Israel’s religious establishment, which was keen on preventing Jews from trespassing on the Holy of Holies—the area of the ancient Temple which only the high priest was permitted to enter, and then only on Yom Kippur, and whose precise location was no longer known.
However the major effective result of Dayan’s move was to refuel Palestinian nationalist aspirations. What was an act of incredible largesse on the part of a nation which had waited 2000 years to return to its holiest site was viewed by Muslims as the act of an uncertain and weak establishment, unsure of its rights to any holy sites – and even to the entire holy land. The indigenous Arabs of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, who had expected to be evicted from their homes like their 1948 counterparts, now had both a foothold in Israel and a reason to renew their challenge for political independence. No other act could have fashioned from nothing a Palestinian nation with a cause, a national focal point and a religious symbol.
Dayan may in the short term have prevented a jihad to redeem the Temple Mount, hardly the most central holy site to Islam and not mentioned even once in the Quran. However in the long run Temple Mount would become the putative reason for almost all Palestinian aggression and terrorist activity. The recent Guardian of the Walls campaign was instigated by Hamas claiming it is the defender of Al-Aqsa and Jerusalem.
Had Israel established absolute sovereignty in 1967, allowing true freedom of worship for all religions, it could have prevented the current fiasco in which the mere threat of aggression by Muslims leads an Israeli judge to prohibit any Jewish prayer, in contradiction of Israel’s most basic laws on freedom of religion. Judge Einat Abman-Muller’s act was merely the coup de grace, the final capitulation of Israel to Muslim aggression. However it is certainly not the final act of the aggressor and will only whet his appetite for further bullying, threatening and intimidation. Sunday’s flag parade through Damascus Gate is the next clashing point as Hamas seeks to further intimidate a weak, Arab-supported government into more concessions. Temple Mount is now definitely not in Israel’s hands, but the controversy over the parade raises the question whether the Old City of Jerusalem is still controlled by Israel.or will be the next victim of Muslim aggression.
Perfect analysis of what transpired. It is completely wrong not to let Jews pray on Temple mount. Israel and all the western nations, give freedom of religion and prayer at any site holy to that group. I we are scared why do we have a right to prayer at the Meoras Ha’machpeila?? or why do we have a right to live in Eretz Yisroel at all?? It will inflame the Arabs.
We have to fight now to get this overturned, and allow Jewish prayer there. The Arabs can control the dome as it is a Muslim Temple, but not the open ground. It is one of the worsts wrongs not to let a Jew pray there.
So sad
the Zionists experiment is failing every day.
Let’s not cry over spilled milk or milk that Moshe Dayan spilled but what do we do now is what we must ask ourselves !
Who wrote this?
Only Muslims have rights. This is why they are the founders of terrorism in the 20th century. No Jews allowed on any land that they take over. Because the Jews are guilty of apartheid. Can you believe this. They lie worse than the Nazis and all that you haters sing along. This will all end very soon hopefully
and so, yom yerushalayim is coming up. that got me thinking.
judea is for the jews, arabia is for the arabs, sounds about right?
Moshe Dayan was a brilliant tactician, but not a good strategist. He and his goverment failed to learn from how ww2 was won. You have to hit the enemy until he is no longer a threat. That was never an objective. That was a mistake and now is too late. Let’s wait for Moshiach to sort this out.
From a Torah prospective the site should stay in Muslim hands.
The Muslims or the Romans did not take it away from us. Hashem did. As we say in Musaf every Yom Tov: Umip’Nei Chatoeinu golini meartzinie.
As of today we have no biblical claim to the Goyim to have a Jewish state or to go to the Har Habyis. Our claim and prayer is only and only to Hashem he should send us Moshicah immediately.
And then and only then we will get back Eretz Yisroel (not Israel) and the holy sites.
There is so much Zionism/idolatry in this post that it’s almost hard to know where to start.
For example:
“…a nation which had waited 2000 years to return to its holiest site…”
We have not “returned”. G-d’s nation, Klal Yisrael, is still waiting for Mashiach to return us all to that site. At this point, however, it is only the Zionists who have invaded that site (and the other portions of Eretz Yisrael).
As well:
The Zionist general was right in taking down their flag to prevent inflaming the Middle East. The Zionist who didn’t want to take it down was displaying his preference for the idolatry of Nationalism/Zionism over, liHavdil elef alfei havdalos, the Torah.
Israel does not bar Muslim prayer at Jewish holy sites. But how would you feel if a group of Muslims came to the Korea or Miron and did a fully-fledged prayer service?