[Ha'aretz] Yehuda Ben Meir - It's become very clear that the clash over the construction work near the Mugrabi Gate is part of a broader campaign for the control of Jerusalem. After all, this construction work has no connection to the Al-Aqsa Mosque nor any effect on it. In the view of those Arab leaders mobilizing the war and the incitement against the construction, Israel has no sovereignty in Jerusalem's Old City and has no right to carry out any sort of construction work in the Temple Mount environs. At the root of this war is the intensifying effort by the Palestinians to deny any link or rights of the Jewish people to the Temple Mount or to Jerusalem, and thus to undermine not only our right to sovereignty in Jerusalem, but also Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. The writer, a former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.
2007-02-23 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive