(Sky News-UK) Tim Marshall - Even by the standards of the flowery rhetoric of their usual outbursts, Hamas has excelled on the subject of the closure of a wooden ramp leading from the Western Wall plaza up to what Jews call the Temple Mount. Spokesman Fawzi Barhum said this was a "violent act which amounts to a declaration of religious war on the Muslim holy places." This reaction is reminiscent of something from Monty Python. The ramp is a rickety temporary structure that is considered as both a fire hazard and in danger of collapse. It really ought to be demolished and a permanent structure built as in days of old. The ramp is used almost entirely by non-Jewish and non-Muslim tourists. Muslims use one of the other ten entrances which are currently open. Oddly enough, when the wooden ramp was first built, to replace a crumbling earthen ramp, the Muslim authorities opposed its construction. How closing the ramp amounts to a "war on the Muslim holy places" is beyond me since the decision to temporarily close the ramp in no way prevents Muslims from accessing the site. Closing a bridge which Muslims don't use hardly counts as an act of repression.
2011-12-14 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive