Temple Mount Trouble - Todd Strandberg - http://www.raptureready.com/rap16.html
Tensions over Jerusalem's Temple Mount have been rapidly building in the past several weeks. What started out as a minor disagreement over access to religious sites in the Old City, has now reached the point of becoming a major conflict between the Arabs and Jews.
The bloodshed started with the attempted assassination of Jewish activist, Yehuda Glick, 48, who led efforts to allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. Glick was shot multiple times by Palestinian, Moataz Hijazi. He was quickly declared a martyr after he was killed by Israeli police. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that he died, "While defending his people's rights and the holiness of sanctuaries (Temple Mount)."
Despite the fact that all the acts of murder have been committed by Palestinians, Israel is seen as primarily responsible for maintaining the peace. After one outbreak of violence, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry came over to lecture Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the need for Israel to take action to restore calm.
The conflict reached a demonic level of madness with a brazen assault on a Jerusalem synagogue. In that attack, four rabbis were brutally murdered as they prayed, and one policeman lost his life. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the synagogue attack, but his statement also urged Israel to "halt its provocations."
It's becoming increasingly difficult to understand what Palestinians see as a provocation. Their concerns over the Temple Mount appear more like the raging rants of paranoid mad men. Last week, they accused Israel of allowing Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount to become "contaminated." In another message they said the Al-Aqsa mosque was in danger of being destroyed by "extremist settlers." The Palestinians also fear that Israel plans to declare sovereignty over the Temple Mount.
The Temple Mount area is currently under Islamic control. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel seized control of East Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount. As a gesture of goodwill, Israeli General Moshe Dyan decided to allow the Islamic Waqf trust, to continue running the site.
For a long time the mindset of most Israelis has been that the Temple Mount is off limits to them. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef had even set forth a prohibition on Jews entering the Temple Mount based on the idea that the Temple area was "ritually impure as a result of contact with the dead (for which there is no possibility of purification in our time.")
In recent years, many Jews are starting to question the restrictions placed on them to access the Temple Mount. The problem with the impurity of the Temple Mount can be dealt with by using biblical remedies (like the Ashes of the Red Heifer). There is no remedy in getting the Arabs to share access to the Temple area.
All efforts at appeasement have been futile. The Palestine Liberation Organization is so rabidly opposed to Jewish access to the mount, they have gone to the ridiculous length of declaring that the Jews have no historical connection to the Temple Mount, and it is "null and void" to use the term.
Another factor that is changing the Israeli view about the Temple Mount is the realization that the Al-Aqsa Mosque may not be outside of the sanctified area. Chief Rabbi Ramat Gan, one of the leading rabbis of the religious Zionist movement, recently said, "They say we want the Al-Aqsa (Mosque). Who wants the Al-Aqsa? It's outside of the Temple Mount. It's very possible that it will remain even when the Temple is rebuilt!"
Satan will most likely do everything in his power to hinder the Jews from rebuilding the Temple. He has been using the Palestinians as a proxy to oppose Jewish interests on the mount. His fate is directly tied to this plot of land. Once the go ahead is given for the building of the Tribulation Temple, a countdown clock to his doom will be set into motion.
End-time prophecy tells us that the Tribulation will start with the Antichrist signing a peace agreement between Israel and her Arab neighbors, one that will validate rights for Jews to worship at a rebuilt Temple. Unless the devil can come up with some delaying tactic, we may be very near to the Tribulation hour.
"And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate" (Daniel 9:27).
Tensions over Jerusalem's Temple Mount have been rapidly building in the past several weeks. What started out as a minor disagreement over access to religious sites in the Old City, has now reached the point of becoming a major conflict between the Arabs and Jews.
The bloodshed started with the attempted assassination of Jewish activist, Yehuda Glick, 48, who led efforts to allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. Glick was shot multiple times by Palestinian, Moataz Hijazi. He was quickly declared a martyr after he was killed by Israeli police. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that he died, "While defending his people's rights and the holiness of sanctuaries (Temple Mount)."
Despite the fact that all the acts of murder have been committed by Palestinians, Israel is seen as primarily responsible for maintaining the peace. After one outbreak of violence, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry came over to lecture Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the need for Israel to take action to restore calm.
The conflict reached a demonic level of madness with a brazen assault on a Jerusalem synagogue. In that attack, four rabbis were brutally murdered as they prayed, and one policeman lost his life. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the synagogue attack, but his statement also urged Israel to "halt its provocations."
It's becoming increasingly difficult to understand what Palestinians see as a provocation. Their concerns over the Temple Mount appear more like the raging rants of paranoid mad men. Last week, they accused Israel of allowing Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount to become "contaminated." In another message they said the Al-Aqsa mosque was in danger of being destroyed by "extremist settlers." The Palestinians also fear that Israel plans to declare sovereignty over the Temple Mount.
The Temple Mount area is currently under Islamic control. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel seized control of East Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount. As a gesture of goodwill, Israeli General Moshe Dyan decided to allow the Islamic Waqf trust, to continue running the site.
For a long time the mindset of most Israelis has been that the Temple Mount is off limits to them. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef had even set forth a prohibition on Jews entering the Temple Mount based on the idea that the Temple area was "ritually impure as a result of contact with the dead (for which there is no possibility of purification in our time.")
In recent years, many Jews are starting to question the restrictions placed on them to access the Temple Mount. The problem with the impurity of the Temple Mount can be dealt with by using biblical remedies (like the Ashes of the Red Heifer). There is no remedy in getting the Arabs to share access to the Temple area.
All efforts at appeasement have been futile. The Palestine Liberation Organization is so rabidly opposed to Jewish access to the mount, they have gone to the ridiculous length of declaring that the Jews have no historical connection to the Temple Mount, and it is "null and void" to use the term.
Another factor that is changing the Israeli view about the Temple Mount is the realization that the Al-Aqsa Mosque may not be outside of the sanctified area. Chief Rabbi Ramat Gan, one of the leading rabbis of the religious Zionist movement, recently said, "They say we want the Al-Aqsa (Mosque). Who wants the Al-Aqsa? It's outside of the Temple Mount. It's very possible that it will remain even when the Temple is rebuilt!"
Satan will most likely do everything in his power to hinder the Jews from rebuilding the Temple. He has been using the Palestinians as a proxy to oppose Jewish interests on the mount. His fate is directly tied to this plot of land. Once the go ahead is given for the building of the Tribulation Temple, a countdown clock to his doom will be set into motion.
End-time prophecy tells us that the Tribulation will start with the Antichrist signing a peace agreement between Israel and her Arab neighbors, one that will validate rights for Jews to worship at a rebuilt Temple. Unless the devil can come up with some delaying tactic, we may be very near to the Tribulation hour.
"And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate" (Daniel 9:27).
Hamas head says Netanyahu 'playing with fire' on Temple Mount, bears responsibility for Jerusalem violence - http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-gang-plotted-major-attack-at-jerusalem-soccer-stadium/
The lack of a solution to the Palestinian issue will lead to an open conflict in the Middle East a bloodbath Hamas's political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal alleged, adding that the violent terror attacks in Jerusalem were a reaction to "Israeli aggression."
Israeli stubbornness, combined with the international impotence in solving the Palestinian issue with a just solution, enabling the Palestinian people their self determination, will lead to chaos in the region, not just in the Palestinian arena, but an open conflict. We warn against keeping the Palestinian issue with no solution and stripping the Palestinian people of hope, Mashaal said in an interview with Sky News Thursday.
The Qatar based Hamas leader, whose terror group openly calls for the destruction of Israel, and which fired some 4,500 rockets and other projectiles at Israel during the summer's war, blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the recent violence in Jerusalem, in which a spate of Palestinian terror attacks have killed nearly a dozen Israelis since mid-October. He accused Netanyahu of "playing with fire" and turning a "national fight" into a "religious fight" for allowing Knesset members and "extremists" to access the Temple Mount.
Under current arrangements at the site, the holiest in Judaism and third most-sacred in Islam, non-Muslim visitors are allowed but Jewish prayer is forbidden.
Just last month, the Shin Bet security service said members of a Hamas terror ring in the West Bank, run from the organization's headquarters in Turkey, sought to carry out an array of major attacks, including on Jerusalem's main soccer stadium and its light rail line.
Mashaal said the spike in violence was a "reaction" to Israeli actions, adding that the massacre at Jerusalem's Har Nof synagogue on November 18 - "one of the rare occasions when a synagogue was targeted" - was caused by "extreme anger" at the situation on the Temple Mount, which houses the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
Four worshipers at prayer and a Druze policeman who tried to stop the attack were hacked and shot to death at the synagogue by two cousins from East Jerusalem's Jabel Mukaber, in the deadliest terror attack in years.
The Hamas leader said Netanyahu bore responsibility for the actions of the terrorists and "for them not having hope on the horizon for a just settlement of the Palestinian cause."
Praising what seems to be a lack of leadership of such terrorists - whom Israel has labeled "lone-wolf" attackers - Mashaal said that "when the public anger reaches its limit, it explodes on its own, and expresses itself in ways that surprises everyone."
He refrained from directly criticizing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who condemned the terror attack at the synagogue, but said the security coordination between the Israeli security establishment and PA forces in the West Bank was unacceptable.
He added that the path of negotiations with Israel, pursued by Abbas, was proven as "useless" and a failure. The PA president, who "has positions which satisfies western and American standards," has received nothing in return, Mashaal charged, before concluding that the "Israeli occupation as it is, like all occupations in history, won't withdraw from occupied lands, except under pressure, they do not withdraw voluntarily."
"The Israeli behavior is giving us this clear message," Mashaal continued.
Hamas outrightly rejects Israel's right to exist and has refused to renounce terrorism. Its charter also rejects any negotiated agreements, calling them "vain endeavors," and adds that the only solution is jihad.
Since violently ousting Abbas's PA from Gaza in 2007, Hamas has diverted resources there to manufacture rockets and dig cross-border tunnels into Israel, emplacing its war machine in the heart of Gaza's residential areas. It has fought three rounds of conflict with Israel, the latest being this summer's 50-day war.
Taking a more conciliatory tone toward the PA, the Hamas leader said in the Sky News interview that his group was committed to the reconciliation process with Abbas, and was not pursuing "sole power."
"Hamas wants to be a partner with its people, powers and personalities, to create a promising Palestinian future," he said.
While Mashaal lashed out at the international community for not doing more to solve the conflict, he welcomed the recent decisions by some European parliaments to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state, albeit symbolically.
"The question is what [is] Palestinian position required from Hamas or from Fatah or from the other Palestinian factions that will satisfy the international world to help us achieve our goals? We showed every flexibility required to reach a solution when the Palestinian powers all agreed to a resolution based on the 1967 border. The West rejected it and the Israelis rejected it and there are parties that conspired against it. What does the international community want?"
Mashaal said that the 50-day war fought over the summer between Israel, Hamas and other Gaza-based terror groups, is what led to "changes in the Western positions" on the Palestinian issue and the spate of recognitions in European parliaments.
Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8 to stop Hamas and other groups' indiscriminate rocket fire on Israeli cities and to destroy the terror tunnels that infiltrate into Israeli territory.
During the operation, Hamas rejected a number of ceasefire proposals and violated a number of those that were agreed to.
Israel lost 66 soldiers and six civilians, and a Thai agricultural worker, in the month-long conflict. while the Palestinian death toll surpassed 2,100, according to Hamas officials in Gaza. Israel said half of the Gaza dead were gunmen and blamed Hamas for all civilian deaths because it operated against Israel from residential areas, placing Gazans in harm's way.
US-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority ended in late April after Abbas signed a unity pact with Hamas. Netanyahu has refused to continue negotiations with a government that rests on the support of a terror group.
The Palestinians are now headed to the UN Security Council to present a draft calling for a an Israeli pullout to the 1967 lines, within the time frame of two years.
The Priceless Treasures on the Temple Mount - Ted Belman - http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/16083#.VIHew5t0wUe
Jerusalem is sacred to Jews and has been for over 3000 years. According to the Tanach, (Hebrew Bible) King Solomon built the First Temple (aka Solomon's Temple) there around 960 BCE according to the specifications in the Torah. He intended it as a permanent resting place for the Ark of the Covenant which contained the Ten Commandments.
Upon completion, he invited Jews and non-Jews to pray and sacrifice there and urged God to pay particular heed to their prayers by saying: "Thus all the peoples of the earth will know Your name and revere You, as does Your people Israel; and they will recognize that Your name is attached to this House that I have built" (I Kings 8:43).
And there it stood for 500 glorious years until the Babylonians conquered the city, sent the Jews into exile and destroyed the Temple in 586 BCE. Seventy years later, as Jeremiah had prophesied, Jews returned from exile and rebuilt the Temple (Second Temple).
During the first century B.C.E., Herod, the Roman appointed head of Judea, made substantial modifications to the Second Temple. He built a huge plateau (600' x 700') around it which necessitated the erection of enormous walls (Herodian Walls). It is to the remnant of these walls, otherwise known as the Kotel, that the Jews pray.
In 70 CE, the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, tore down much of the walls, massacred hundreds of thousands of Jews and exiled many more.
Since then Jews have lamented the destruction every year on Tisha B'Av, repeated in their prayers, "next year in Jerusalem" and prayed three times a day for the Temple's restoration while facing the Temple Mount from wherever they are.
The 1947 UN Partition Plan denied Israel the Old City preferring to make it a Corpus Separatum (Latin for "separated body") due to its shared religious importance.
After Israel declared its independence in 1948, Jordan and other Arab countries attacked Israel.
The Armistice Agreement signed in 1949 formalized an armistice line where the fighting stopped leaving Jordan in possession of all land east of the line including the Old City in Jerusalem. This agreement obligated Jordan to enable "free access to the holy sites and cultural institutions and use of the cemeteries on the Mount of Olives." Nevertheless, Jordan barred Israelis from entering the Old City and other holy sites.
Jordan systematically destroyed the Jewish Quarter and its ancient synagogues and used gravestones from the Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives to build latrines for Jordanian army barracks.
In 1950 Jordan formerly annexed these territories but such annexation was only recognized by Britain, Pakistan and Iraq. All Arabs living there became Jordanian citizens.
Jordan spent no money on Jerusalem and totally ignored it. And so it remained until 1967 when Israel in a defensive war conquered Jerusalem and all lands claimed by Jordan west of the Jordan River. These lands became known as the 'West Bank' to some but not to the Jews who saw them as Judea and Samaria from biblical times.
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, (JCPA), recently published The Israeli Relinquishment of the Temple Mount as part of a series of articles explaining the "Al-Aksa is in danger" libel.
From it one learns that the legendary Moshe Dayan, Israel's Minister of Defense, who was in charge of these conquered lands at that time but had no religious attachment to the Temple Mount or grasp of its major centrality relative to the Kotel, announced "We did not come to conquer the sacred sites of others or to restrict their religious rights, but rather to ensure the integrity of the city and to live in it with others in fraternity."
Prime Minister Levi Eshkol Eshkol, for his part, announced to the chief rabbis of Israel that they would be responsible for arrangements in the vicinity of the Western Wall, and promised the religious leaders of the Christian and Muslim communities that they would continue to determine the arrangements at the places holy to them: namely, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Temple Mount.
"Dayan decided to leave the mount and its management in the hands of the Muslim Wakf, while at the same time insisting that Jews would be able to visit it (but not pray at it!) without restriction. Dayan thought, and years later even committed the thought to writing, that since for Muslims the mount is a "Muslim prayer mosque" while for Jews it is no more than "a historical site of commemoration of the past...one should not hinder the Arabs from behaving there as they now do."(8) The Israeli defense minister believed that Islam must be allowed to express its religious sovereignty - as opposed to national sovereignty - over the mount; that the Arab-Israeli conflict must be kept on the territorial-national level; and that the potential for a conflict between the Jewish religion and the Muslim religion must be removed. In granting Jews the right to visit the mount, Dayan sought to placate the Jewish demands for worship and sovereignty there. In giving religious sovereignty over the mount to the Muslims, he believed he was defusing the site as a center of Palestinian nationalism.(9)"
This arrangement became known as the Status Quo.
JCPA published an article by Nadav Shragai, in Nov 2014, titled The "Status Quo" on the Temple Mount.
"The basic elements of the status quo he (Dayan) devised included:
"The Waqf, as an arm of the Jordanian Ministry of Sacred Properties, would continue to manage the site and be responsible for arrangements and for religious and civil affairs there.
"Jews would not be permitted to pray on the Temple Mount, but they would be able to visit it. (This right of freedom of access to the Mount was also eventually anchored within the context of the Protection of Holy Places Law.)
"Israel, by means of its police force, would assume responsibility for security in the sacred compound, both within the site itself and regarding the wall and gates surrounding it.
"Israeli sovereignty and law would be applied to the Temple Mount as to the other parts of Jerusalem, to which Israeli law was applied after the Six-Day War. (This stipulation was approved more than once by the Israeli High Court of Justice.)"
This status quo changed over time due to Arab threats of violence. This article concludes by saying, "The old status quo on the Temple Mount no longer exists. It has changed fundamentally in major ways that greatly strengthen the status of the Muslim side on the Mount and greatly weaken the status of the Jewish side there. At the same time, one of the main elements of the old status quo, the one that prohibits Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, has been zealously maintained."
Now when Jordan demands that the "Status Quo" be maintained and Prime Minister Netanyahu swears to do so, they are referring to the current status quo and not the original one.
The JCPA article, first referred to above, continued:
"According to the Protection of Holy Places Law (1967), the religious affairs minister is indeed authorized to exercise his power and lay down regulations for Jewish and Muslim prayer on the mount; but those who have held this post have avoided doing so, conforming with the governmental decree. The Supreme Court as well, to which Jews have appealed numerous times to change this policy and allow Jews to pray at their holiest of places, has backed the government's policy for considerations of "maintaining order and public security. The court has determined that the right to pray is not enforceable without regulations, and that implementing the right without such regulations would pose a grave danger to public peace.(10)"
"In its ruling in the case of The Temple Mount Faithful(11) v. Tzahi Hanegbi (the internal security minister at the time),(12) the court clarified that, 'every Jew has the right to ascend the Temple Mount, to pray on it, and to commune with his Creator. That is part of the freedom of religious worship; that is part of the freedom of expression. At the same time, this right, like other basic rights, is not an absolute right, and in a place at which the likelihood of damage to the public peace and even to human life is almost certain - this can justify limiting the freedom of religious worship and also limiting the freedom of expression'".
But Jordan is also involved. Art 9 of the Peace Treaty between Jordan and Israel signed in 1994 included:
"2. In this regard, in accordance with the Washington Declaration, Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines.
"3. The Parties will act together to promote interfaith relations among the three monotheistic religions, with the aim of working towards religious understanding, moral commitment, freedom of religious worship, and tolerance and peace."
In practice, freedom of religious worship on the Temple Mount is denied only to Jews. King Abdullah makes a point of screaming for the protection of Al-Aksa Mosque in order to placate the Palestinians living in Jordan and Judea and Samaria. He announced "Jordan will continue to confront, through all available means, Israeli unilateral policies and measures in Jerusalem and preserve its Muslim and Christian holy sites, until peace is restored to the land of peace," and that he will oppose any Israeli attempt to change the "status quo" regarding holy sites in Jerusalem.
Pure grandstanding. PM Netanyahu has sworn to uphold the status quo.
Israel could pass regulations with respect to praying on the Temple Mount in which event Jews could pray there. But she is loath to do so for the same reasons that Dayan turned the keys over to the Waqf; fear of making this a religious dispute rather than a territorial dispute.
But the truth of the matter is, it is a religious dispute even if Israel maintains the Status Quo.
Daniel pipes in his article, The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem, enlarged on the attachment of Jews to Jerusalem and then asks "Where does Jerusalem fit in Islam and Muslim history? "
"It is not the place to which they pray, is not once mentioned by name in prayers, and it is connected to no mundane events in Muhammad's life. The city never served as capital of a sovereign Muslim state, and it never became a cultural or scholarly center. Little of political import by Muslims was initiated there."
In contrast, Jerusalem or Zion appears in the Torah, 823 times and in the Koran, not once.
Pipes posits that Jerusalem now looms so large in Muslim consciences "because of politics. An historical survey shows that the stature of the city, and the emotions surrounding it, inevitably rises for Muslims when Jerusalem has political significance. Conversely, when the utility of Jerusalem expires, so does its status and the passions about it. This pattern first emerged during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad in the early seventh century. Since then, it has been repeated on five occasions: in the late seventh century, in the twelfth-century Counter-crusade, in the thirteenth-century Crusades, during the era of British rule (1917-48), and since Israel took the city in 1967. The consistency that emerges in such a long period provides an important perspective on the current confrontation."
What motivates the Arabs is not their fundamental attachment to Jerusalem or the Temple Mount but their desire to prevent Jews from exercising sovereignty over both. Similarly they are not motivated to create a 22nd Arab state, Palestine, but to destroy the one Jewish state, Israel. In order to achieve their goals, they create false narratives which they fortify with propaganda, lies and threats of violence.
Not mentioned in this rundown is the Arab destruction and disregard of the ancient remains that would advance our knowledge of the temple periods.
During the Rabin government, at the time the Oslo Accords were signed, Manfred R Lehmann wrote:
Palestinians Destroy Remnants of the First and Second Temples. I can do no better but to quote a major part of the article.
"[T]he Waqf has now been found to have perpetrated extensive vandalism and destruction and has wrought terrible destruction on the Mount of important archaeological remains. All this came out when a vigilant Jewish group, 'The Temple Faithful', brought suit against the Waqf in Israel's Supreme Court. Watching ancient property being tragically and wantonly destroyed, the Temple Faithful first brought suit in 1986, but the decision was only handed down a few months ago".
"The verdict came out in favor of the Jewish claimants, the Waqf was found to have violated the Antiquities Law of 1978 and the Planning and Building Law of 1965 by building over archaeological remains and covering them with dirt and by planting olive trees, whose roots would damage any archaeological remains below. The verdict listed 35 violations involving irreversible destruction of important archaeological remains. For example, the Waqf had destroyed the remains of a wall belonging to the Temple built of huge hewn stones, which were part of the foundation of the eastern wall of the Second Temple. Other stones thought to be part of the First and Second Temples were covered with dirt, where structures were built or trees planted on top. All these remains had more sanctity than even the Kotel (the Wall).
'Defying Jewish concerns with impunity, the Waqf went right ahead with further desecration and destruction of ancient Jewish remains on the Temple Mount, even while the Supreme Court considered the case."
"The Court found that this destruction resulted in irreversible damage to historic sites of the greatest importance to Jews and Jewish history. The total indifference of the Israeli government to these horrendous losses is shown by the fact that the Court was advised that 'for political reasons' its verdict cannot be implemented and that no one wanted to force the Waqf to abide by the law because of the 'sensitive religious and political nature of the case and the need to preserve public order.'"
"The case also brought out that the Israeli government never even carried out a survey of the Temple Mount, which would have yielded a scientific "inventory" of all the remains from the First and Second Temples. It would also have helped fix the exact location of the Temple, which is still being argued by scholars."
"Very few have heard of the lawsuit and the favorable verdict and the cowardly and weak response from the Israeli government. Surely national religious and historical Jewish interests should have outweighed the groundless argument of the 'the need for preserve public order' How about preserving Jewish pride and vital links with the Temple Mount? A terrible hole has now been torn into the fabric of the continuity of Jewish presence in Jerusalem and the anticipation of the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple. Long ago the American Biblical Archaeological Society urged the Israel antiquities authority to carry out exactly such a survey -- but the request was ignored."
"The neglect of the Temple Mount and its Jewish remains by the Rabin government is nothing short of a major scandal."
A few years later in 1999, Hershel Shanks and Suzanne F. Singer wrote, Digging at Temple Mount Verges on the Unholy
"Without the required authorization from the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Waqf--the Islamic Religious Council in charge of the Old City's Islamic sites, including the Temple Mount--has been illegally excavating and hauling off truckloads of earth and unceremoniously dumping the precious cargo into the Kidron Valley. The excavated dirt is carted off at night to avoid attention.
"The excavation is being carried out underneath the Temple Mount in an underground vault, known as 'Solomon's Stables,' in which a mosque is also located.
"In a protest published last week in the Hebrew daily Haaretz, archaeologist Ronny Reich, who is directing the most important excavation in Jerusalem, bemoaned what we might have learned from the Waqf excavation had it been carried out properly".
"What about all the pottery and coins we could have discovered," he asked, "some still sealed in datable foundation trenches?" Several people claim that the dumped material is laced with architectural fragments as well as pottery shards.
"Another prominent Jerusalem archaeologist, Gabriel Barkay, says his students saw remains from both the First and Second Temple periods in the excavated and dumped material.
"Unfortunately, this is not the first time the Waqf has destroyed ancient archaeological features on the Temple Mount. In the 1980s, an unauthorized trench dug by the Waqf to relocate utilities uncovered an ancient wall thought by an archaeologist who briefly saw it to be from the time of King Herod and Jesus. It was probably a wall of one of the courts of the Second Temple, Herod's Temple. The wall was six feet thick, and more than 16 feet of it was exposed, but the entire wall was quickly removed and the area covered before Israeli archaeological authorities could study it."
What may be priceless archaeological treasures from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem are being destroyed, and the government is standing by helplessly.
Jordan sends letter warning Israel over Temple Mount - http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Amman-reportedly-sends-letter-admonishing-Jerusalem-against-extremism-on-Temple-Mount-383300
The Jordanian government sent an official letter to Israel warning against making any changes to the status quo in Jerusalem.
The letter called on the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to carry out its duty to prevent "attacks" by "the herds of extremists and settlers" on al-Aksa Mosque, a Jordanian newspaper reported on Monday.
This message accompanied parallel contacts Jordan made with the US administration on the same subject, according to a report in Al-Arab Al-Yawm.
Meanwhile, King Abdullah of Jordan returned home on Sunday from Egypt after discussing the issue with its president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The talks dealt mainly with international and regional efforts to combat terrorism, The Jordan Times reported.
The two leaders also discussed reviving peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis in order to achieve a two-state solution.
The Jordanian king raised the issue of Jerusalem and briefed Sisi on his country's efforts to "defend" the holy sites there and counter Israeli acts of "targeting" al-Aksa Mosque, said the report.
A Jordanian MP said in a discussion regarding parliament's moment of silence and reading verses from the Koran for the two Palestinian terrorists who murdered five Israelis and injured others in an attack at a Jerusalem synagogue: "Our people in Palestine expect us to support them, and to recite Koranic verses for the souls of their martyrs," the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported.
"This is the very least we can do for the sake of those heroes, who defend the honor of the Arab nation," said MP Khalil Attieh in an interview on Jordanian Roya TV that aired last week.
"By Allah, it is an honor to incite against the Jews. It is a great accomplishment to provoke and incense them."
"Hating the Jews is a great honor for me and it makes me walk with my head high, because they are worthy of hatred," said the Jordanian MP.
Another MP, Bassam al-Manaseer, chairman of the Arab and International Affairs Parliamentary Committee, asked, "Are we going to call the French who fought the Nazi occupation 'terrorists'? If so, we are all terrorists."
Manaseer added, "If what we did in parliament is considered incitement, just because we stood by the Palestinian people, then we welcome the policy of incitement.
I thank brother Khalil Attieh for his heroic position.
That is the very least that he can do for our people in Palestine."
The moderator raised the issue of comments made by the Israeli ambassador to Jordan, Daniel Navo, criticizing the Jordanian parliament.
The show moderator said to the parliamentarians, "The [Israeli] ambassador said that you use anti-Israel sentiment as a means to serve your own personal interests."
Attieh responded harshly, "Indeed, I make use of the hatred of the Jews, as all Arabs should, because the Jews respect neither treaties nor human beings. They respect nothing."
"That accursed ambassador did me a great honor by saying that I hate the Jews. Yes, I hate the Jews. I hate the Jews. I hate the Jews," he exclaimed, according to MEMRI.
"They kill our people. They prevent worshipers from entering al-Aksa Mosque. They destroy homes and seize control over everything," Attieh said, adding: "This is the least we could have done. Thank God that we got them mad."
"Parliament should debate the statements of [the Israeli ambassador], that pig, the descendant of apes and pigs, who tried to drive a wedge between the parliament and the king," he continued.
"We should hold a debate, and if the government refuses to expel the Israeli ambassador, we should hand in our vote of no confidence in the government."
Separately, in front of parliament on Sunday, Jordanian activists protested against signing a gas deal with Israel, The Jordan Times reported. The protesters also submitted a petition to lawmakers.
"We are here to say no to buying gas from the enemy. We reject that the government buys gas from the occupation and supports its economy," Hisham al-Bustani, a representative of the Jordanian Coordination Committee against Importing Gas from Israel, told The Jordan Times at the protest.
Jordan and Israel intend to finalize a 15-year gas deal worth $15 billion.
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