Temple Mount Textual Analysis

How Ir Amim (Terrestrial Jerusalem)'s Daniel Seidemann and Americans for Peace Now's Lara Friedman twist things around in their Status quo on the Temple Mount? from last October 17th.

Recent developments in Jerusalem pose a threat to the stability of the city and to the region...[Jewish] activists challenged the Israeli-imposed ban on Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount...

No, not the Women of the Wall.  But really, really dangerous Jews:-

...the growing power of an emboldened group of Israeli activists focused on the Temple Mount are today coalescing into concrete initiatives that aspire to alter the status quo at the site for the first time since 1967. 

Actually, it has been the Arabs who having been consistentally altering the status quo with building mosques and prayer platofrms and detsroying and obliterating Jewish historical artifacts.

A bit of history:

Israel captured the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif on June 7, 1967, at the height of the 1967 War. Arriving on the scene, legendary Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan spotted Israeli flags flying over the Mount and swiftly ordered them removed, reportedly stating: We don't need a holy war.

He didn't convince the Arab Muslims and co-religionists of that.  They drummed up a religious war at every opportunity.

The arrangement was

...control of all but one of the gates to the Mount -- [is] in the hands of Islamic authorities, known as the Waqf. This same understanding led Israeli courts from the outset to interpret Israel's first post-1967 war piece of legislation, the Law for the Protection of Holy Sites, as making the exercise of religious freedoms subordinate to considerations like public safety and security. All Israeli governments, backed by the court, have subsequently prohibited Jewish prayer on the Mount...

Any other field of social activity so treated would be well supported by the two but not the Temple Mount. Too Jewish, I guess.

And then they mention, obliquely, me and friends who founded El Har Hashem in 1971, after the short-lived Ariel, to be followed by The Temple Mount Faithful:-

A few Jewish activists challenged the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif status quo from the start. They aspired to turn the esplanade into a site of Jewish worship, often belittling or denying the Muslim attachments to the site, and with some among them speaking openly of their desire to erase the mosques at the site and replace them with the third Jewish temple. They launched perennially unsuccessful appeals to the court demanding the right to pray on the Mount. Over time, they made inroads into mainstream Israeli society...

They do note a Islamic negative:

Their cause was aided by the phenomenon in the Arab and Muslims worlds of "Temple Mount denial." Former Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat denied any Jewish connection to the Mount. Others portray Jews as usurpers on the Mount, with no genuine attachments. Muslim extremists regularly claim that Israel is seeking to destroy al-Haram al-Sharif. The result is a vicious cycle, with the discourse ceded to extremes on both sides.

And who else is "extreme"?

the Israeli government has contributed to the movement's efforts -- evidenced by the ministry of education's August 2012 announcement that 30,000 Israeli pupils had recently visited the Mount as part of its controversial "National Heritage Project," something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

They claim to perceive an

...emboldened activism [that] comes in tandem with the emergence, for the first time, of a clear and serious political agenda: to force a change in the status quo on the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif. The agenda has two prongs: legislation that would compel the government to permit Jewish prayer at the site, security concerns notwithstanding, and the promotion of a joint (or split) Jewish-Muslim control of the site, modeled on the Tomb of the Patriarchs, known to Palestinians as the Ibrahimi Mosque, in Hebron.

And, further, they know

There is ample historical evidence to show that the eruption of violence in Jerusalem is sparked by threats, real or imagined, to sacred space.

But, even democratic legislation is wrong for

Tinkering with the status quo on the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif -- a site that is the focus of Muslim fears and longing around the world -- would clearly fall into this category. 

And we have a new political category:

...a neo-Biblical zone of exclusionary Jewish hegemony in and around the Old City. Together, these trends threaten to transform a complicated but solvable national-political conflict into an intractable religious war.

And we are responsible for something we are not responsible for

In post-Mubarak Egypt, thousands of demonstrators gathered in Cairo under the banner: "The liberation of Cairo requires the liberation of Jerusalem."...A debate is raging within the Arab world over whether Muslims should visit al-Haram al-Sharif while it is under occupation. Jordanian officials, including King Abdullah, have suggested, offering compelling reasons, that Israeli actions related to the site are sowing regional instability.

And they nail it with Jewish religious literature (the devil quoting?)

Accordingly, it is wise to recall the Talmudic aphorism: "Jerusalem was destroyed because it was ruled by [an overly rigorous application of] the rule of Torah."

And today, Druze MK Ayoub Kara said

"The natural right of the Jewish people in its land as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, was granted to the Jews only on the basis of historical connection. By allowing Arabs to throw Jewish heritage on to the garbage heap and to disperse it as ash in all directions, will eventually be thrown itself into the dustbin of history and will be cast about in all directions."

And it is Jews like Friedman and Seidmann who assist in that crime.

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