“This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s Temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; … Many peoples will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob.'” (Isaiah 2:1–3)
In its latest bout of warmongering against Israel, Hamas launched a rally in Gaza City on Friday shouting for the “defense” of the al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, while Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas urged for a ban of Jews from the holy mountain.
“This is our sacred place, al-Aqsa is ours, this Noble Sanctuary (the Temple Mount) is ours … they have no right to go there and desecrate it,” said Abbas of the Jews, stating that Jews should be stopped from entering the Temple Mount “by any means.” (Times of Israel)
Palestinians burned the Israeli flag on Friday in response to incitement by Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas against a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount.
At a conference on Friday in Ramallah, Abbas equated al-Aqsa with Jerusalem, asserting Palestinian claim over the city for his desired future state of Palestine.
“Jerusalem is the jewel in the crown and it is the eternal capital of the Palestinian state. Without it, there will not be a state,” he said. “It is important for the Palestinians to be united in order to protect Jerusalem.”
On Saturday, Abbas called Jews visiting the Mount a “herd of cattle.”
In response, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Abbas was trying to ignite a holy war.
“Behind the suit and the pleasantries aimed at the international community, he is raising the level of incitement against Israel and the Jews and is calling for a religious war,” Lieberman said.
“Abbas has effectively joined the frontlines of extremist Islamist organizations, such as the Islamic State and the Nusra Front, who sanctify religious war,” he said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
Abbas’ comments come days after Jerusalem police forces encountered Arab youth on the Mount. They had built barricades at the al-Aqsa mosque and slept overnight on the Mount, ready to attack police and Jewish visitors with stones, fireworks and Molotov cocktails the next day. (YNet)
Prior to admitting the day’s first Jewish visitors for Sukkot, police cleared the barricade and locked the mosque, shielding themselves from a heavy rain of fireworks and rocks being launched over the barrier.
“This is organized thuggery, designed to turn the Temple Mount into the hottest battleground between Israel and the Arab world, and to undermine Israel’s control of the holy city,” writes David Weinberg of Israel HaYom.
“Unfortunately, the Israel Police are under orders to avoid escalation almost at any cost; and as such, have become serial capitulators to the Muslim muggers and the many radical Islamic forces that are encouraging, funding and defending the brutes on the Mount,” he writes.
In expectation that Friday, the Muslim “day of rest,” would be fraught with Muslim riots, Jerusalem District Police Chief Yossi Pariente issued a 50-and-above age limit for Muslim visitors on Thursday.
Tourists visit the Temple Mount where the First and Second Temples were located in Jerusalem. Currently, the Dome of the Rock occupies the spot where the ancient Temple once stood.
Meanwhile, from Doha, Qatar, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal continued to incite Muslims in Israel to lay claim to the site.
“We call on all our people inside the country to hurry up to al-Aqsa to defend it,” he said Thursday.
The Palestinians are working toward demanding that the United Nations Security Council remove Israel’s rights in the disputed territories of Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Jerusalem. The goal is to “evict” Israel by November 2016—the same month the US elects its next president.
The Agence France-Presse printed a draft of this resolution in early October, which requires the “full withdrawal of Israel, the occupying power, from all of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, as rapidly as possible and to be fully completed within a specified time frame, not to exceed November 2016.”
On Friday, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, said his government wants the 15-member UN Security Council to vote on the resolution before the end of the year.
On Thursday, Palestinian officials said they already have seven confirmed “yes” votes of the nine they need.
Failing success at the Security Council, Mansour said Palestinians would join additional treaties and conventions and the International Criminal Court (ICC) to “create legal facts on the ground that we exist as a state.”
Jewish people gather for prayer at the Western (Wailing) Wall which is located in the Old City of Jerusalem at the foot of the western side of the Temple Mount, also called Mount Moriah.
Mount Moriah was the place on which King Solomon erected God’s first “permanent” dwelling place on Earth. Later, it was expanded by King Herod before it was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70 under Emperor Titus.
At present, the Mount houses the black-capped al-Aqsa mosque and the more prominent, golden Dome of the Rock, which Muslims claim is the site from which Muhammad rode to Heaven on a winged donkey.
While non-Muslims can visit the Temple Mount, they are forbidden to pray there. Non-Muslims gain access to the Mount via one gate, compared to multiple gates for Muslim visitors.
In 1967, Israel liberated the Mount, which had been under Jordanian rule since the war for Israel’s independence ended in 1949.
While Israel reclaimed legal sovereignty over the site, it granted administrative privileges to the Islamic Waqf.
In January of this year, the Waqf ignored the overwhelming and undeniable historic evidence of the Jewish presence on the Temple Mount and printed a pamphlet claiming that there was no Jewish connection to the Mount and that King Solomon was a Muslim. (Israel National News)
“Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” (Luke 21:24)
