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Security of Jerusalem Holy Sites Threatened

[Jerusalem Post] Mike Seid - Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the UN and Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs president, has a warning for the religious faithful. "Taking the holy sites of Jerusalem which are presently protected and secure and putting them under the uncertainty of Palestinian rule or of some poorly defined special regime for the Holy Basin is to put their future in great doubt." At the planned summit in Annapolis, the fate of this special city appears to be on the table. "Jerusalem has been a part of Jewish faith and religious practice since the time of King David and King Solomon," he says. "The most widely practiced ceremonies in Judaism today, the Passover Seder and the Ne'ila prayer of Yom Kippur, close with the declaration 'Next year in Jerusalem.' The call for rebuilding Jerusalem is a part of Jewish daily prayer and of the grace after meals. Thus Jerusalem is at the heart of Jewish religious consciousness." "Christians treasure the importance of Jerusalem, but their main institutions developed elsewhere," Gold says, referring to Rome and Constantinople. "For Islam, Jerusalem has special meaning. But Jerusalem never appears in the Koran. And the proper place of pilgrimage for the haj is Mecca, with Medina being the second most holy city in Islam. Jerusalem was never the seat of the Islamic caliphate." "Only a free and democratic Israel can protect Jerusalem for all faiths," he concludes. Dr. Ikrema Sabri, former mufti of Jerusalem, says, "Islam said the city was to be under the authority of Muslims because it is a Muslim city." Despite this week's findings of First Temple remains on the Mount by the Muslim Wakf, Sabri argues, "There was never a Jewish temple on Al-Aksa and there is no proof that there was ever a temple." Similarly, Sabri maintains that the Western Wall "is not part of the Jewish temple, it is just the Western Wall of the mosque," he says. "There is not a single stone with any relation at all to the history of the Hebrews." Islamic leaders were not always so certain. The Supreme Muslim Council in 1930 wrote that the Temple Mount's "sanctity dates from earliest times. Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute."
2007-10-26 01:00:00
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