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Attacks on Israeli Minister's Temple Mount Visit Defy Reason

(JNS-Israel Hayom) Melanie Phillips - A Jew walked for 15 minutes on Jerusalem's Temple Mount last week, on the site that is most sacred to Judaism. He did it without fanfare or media attention, early in the morning when the compound was almost empty, and didn't pray there or say anything to stir up trouble. Yet his visit provoked claims that it was an extremist act. In any sane universe, this is simply unhinged. Ben-Gvir was fully entitled to be there. He did nothing out of the ordinary. Other Israeli Jews, including government ministers, regularly visit the site. The people actually responsible for inciting violence over the Temple Mount are the Palestinian Arabs. Since the 1920s, they have been provoking fanatical religious hysteria and the murder of Israelis with the wickedly false claim that the Jews were either storming or planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Temple Mount stands at the very center of the Jews' unique entitlement to Jerusalem and the land. That's why the Palestinians have tried to destroy the archeological evidence that has been dug up over the years. They attempt to wipe the Jews out of their own history in the land - centuries before the first Arabs or Muslims invaded it - in order to support the laughably bogus claim that the Palestinian Arabs were its indigenous people. The Biden administration condemned the Ben-Gvir visit as an "unacceptable" and "unilateral" action that "undercut the historic status quo." Not only was this untrue, but the status quo, which Israel has upheld, is itself unacceptable. The status quo prevents Jews and Christians from praying at their own holy site; it restricts non-Muslims to entry through only one of 12 gates; it forbids Jews from drinking from the water fountain in the compound because of the claim that Jews are "unclean." Just imagine if America said that the Palestinian lies and incitement have to stop, that Israel has law and history on its side and that the only aggressors in this war are the Palestinian Arabs who want to destroy the Jews' right to their country and historic identity. The main reason this war never ends is the West's support for the Palestinian cause. The writer is a columnist for The Times-UK.
2023-01-09 00:00:00
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