Daily Life

Hardline threat to al-Aqsa Mosque

By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank
From Al Jazeera
July 25, 2004

Israel’s Public Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi has said hardline Jewish groups may be planning to carry out attacks on the two most sacred Islamic shrines in occupied East Jerusalem.

Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are collectively known as al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary). Originally built in CE711 (AD711), al-Aqsa Mosque is Islam’s third holiest place, after the two Holy Mosques in Saudi Arabia.

Hanegbi said in a TV interview at the weekend that the goal of the potential attackers would be to thwart the Israeli plan for unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

But a former leader of an armed Jewish group that sought to bomb al-Aqsa Mosque in the late 1970s, told the Israeli state-run radio on Sunday the purpose of any “new action” would not to have anything to do with the “disengagement plan”.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Sunday quoted officials in the domestic intelligence service, Shin Bet, as saying there was a possibility of Jewish hardliners trying to destroy al-Aqsa Mosque by crashing a radio-controlled plane into it.

There are numerous Millenarian Jewish groups in Israel dedicated to the destruction of the mosque to facilitate the “rebuilding” of the “Third Temple” on the site.

Messianic Jews believe the destruction of the mosque and construction of the temple would expedite the appearance of a Jewish messiah, or redeemer, who would rule the world from Jerusalem and bring about the salvation of the Jewish people.

Ultimate red line

Muslim leaders in Palestine have warned of “unforeseeable consequences” and “horrible repercussions” all over the world in case “anything happened to al-Aqsa Mosque”.

“This is the ultimate red line. If Jewish terrorists embarked on such an act of sheer madness, they would trigger huge fires all over the world ... . Only God knows how the fires would be extinguished,” said Kamal al-Khatib, deputy head of Israel’s powerful Islamic Movement.

Speaking to Aljazeera.net he said an attack on al-Aqsa Mosque would be viewed as an appalling provocation by the world’s Muslim population.

“If such a thing happened, God forbid, it would galvanise the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims, and there would be a backlash and anger all over the world.”

Al-Khatib said the Islamic Movement in Israel remained vigilant against the risk of an attack on the Islamic holy places in Jerusalem.

“We send thousands of people to the Haram al-Sharif every day to make up for the barring by Israel of our people from the West Bank and Gaza Strip from accessing the mosque ... and we see to it that there are no loopholes in security arrangements,” he said.

Security pretext?

The highest-ranking Muslim cleric in East Jerusalem, Shaikh Aikrama Sabri, says Jewish extremists are capable of doing the unthinkable.

“We know quite well that they are conniving and coordinating their plans with the Israeli security establishment,” he said.

“We also know that the Israeli state uses the extremists as a supplemental tool to achieve its thinly disguised goals, including the destruction of Islam’s holy places in Jerusalem.”

But in the present contest, Sabri cautioned, Israel may be trying to gain a “foothold” inside al-Haram al-Sharif compound under the pretext of “ensuring the security of the place”.

He said after the 1994 Hebron massacre in which 29 Arab worshippers were killed by a messianic Jewish immigrant from Brooklyn, the Israeli army, in effect, took over the town’s historic Ibrahimi Mosque and gave the bulk of the holy place to Jewish settlers.

The “arrangement” then was justified by the Israelis on security grounds – to prevent a repetition of the massacre, Sabri said.

He said the Israeli authorities knew the Jewish hardliners individually, but did not take action against them for political reasons.

“Look, the police know them one by one, but the extremists have strong allies and supporters within the government, the Knesset and the security establishment, so much so that it seems as if they are the real rulers of Israel,” Sabri said.

Inspection tours?

The Israeli police currently permit religious Jews to enter al-Aqsa Mosque compound despite strong objection from the Supreme Muslim Council, which is in charge of the administration of the holy place.

Israeli officials, including security chiefs, say Jews have a right to visit the holy place they call Temple Mount just like anybody else.

However, Waqf officials, who are entrusted with the upkeep of the holy sanctuary, say trips by Zionist zealots are not simple visits, but in fact “inspection tours” aimed at drawing up destructive designs on al-Haram al-Sharif.

Their fears are hardly misplaced. On Sunday, a Jewish rabbi allied with the messianic Gush Emunim movement which advocates the expulsion and extermination of non-Jews in Israel – told the Israeli army radio, Gali Tsahal, he fully supported the destruction of al-Aqsa Mosque.

“This is more than a positive thing – this is a desirable thing, and I am looking forward to seeing these mosques reduced to ruins,” said Yehuda Tzion, who in 1980 headed the underground Jewish group that had planned to bomb al-Aqsa.

Tzion has urged the Israeli government to “send army bulldozers to the site and destroy these buildings once and for all ... and if the state is not willing to do so, let other Jews do it”.

One of the messianic Jewish groups that openly calls for the destruction of al-Aqsa is the Temple Mount Faithful, headed by Girshon Solomon.

A few years ago, he told the Israeli television, with the golden Dome of the Rock in the background – that: “it is time this pagan edifice ceased to exist”.

Such highly provocative statements go unpunished in Israel as long as they are made against non-Jews.