Terrorists in 1929 Jerusalem Against Jews Praying at the Wall-The Start of Terrorism on Temple Mount

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                     

The Women's Sector of the Wall, in about 1888  

The recent riots on the Temple Mount where Arabs were stabbing Jews is reminiscent of the 1929 riots on the Temple Mount that occurred in late August from the 23rd to the 29th  back then.  In 1929, there had been  long-running arguments between Muslim and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
                                         

                             

Police ready to stop rioting on Temple Mount

This year it had been over Jews' praying near the Mosque, a mosque that is covering the 2nd Temple of Solomon.

 Jews regard the wall as a holy site.  This is because it is a remnant of the ancient wall that once was around the 2nd Temple of Solomon.  It was King Herod who had rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem on a magnificent scale in later years of his period which ended in 4 BCE, making this the 3rd rebuilding.   The Muslims said they also had deep religious attachments to the wall. They are claiming that the was is part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque which is near the Golden domed mosque, a silver domed one and this is where Mohammad tied his horse, Buraq before he made his night ride to heaven.
                                                                       

Al-Aqsa Mosque, also known as Al-Aqsa and Bayt al-Muqaddas, is the third holiest site in Islam and is located in the Old City of Jerusalem.

 "The mosque was originally a small prayer house built by the Rashiduncaliph Umar, but was rebuilt and expanded by the Umayyad caliphAbd al-Malik and finished by his son al-Walid in 705 CE. After an earthquake in 746, the mosque was completely destroyed and rebuilt by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur in 754, and again rebuilt by his successor al-Mahdi in 780. Another earthquake destroyed most of al-Aqsa in 1033, but two years later the Fatimid caliph Ali az-Zahir built another mosque which has stood to the present day."                                                                           

The riots were the occasion of Arabs attacking Jews and then destroying the Jewish property.  133 Jews were killed by Arab and 339 others were injured.  110 Arabs were killed and 232 were injured, mostly by the British police who were trying to suppress the riots.  Jews had to flee and leave Jerusalem because of the attacks.

 At the time of the mandate,  the wall was placed under Muslim jurisdiction, but Jews tried to pray there.  Violent confrontations occurred when Arab mobs, provoked by Jews who were praying, attacked  two Jewish quarters in Jerusalem and killed Jews.
                                                                             

The Western Wall, or Wailing Wall, as Jews first called it, is part of the wall that surrounded King Herod's Temple which is still standing in the Old City of Jerusalem.  It has nothing to do with Islam.  Herod, King of Judea who got the kingship from Romans, lived from 73 BCE to 4 BCE, way before Muhammad was born in 570 and died in 632 CE.  That's almost 700 years before his time.                                              

Burq, Mohammad's night ride to heaven was on this horse

The only connection Muslims have to the Temple Mount is that Mohammad had a dream where he said he flew on his flying horse to the "farthest mosque, and his followers believe that would have been the 2nd Temple of the Jews.  The Romans were occupying Judea and built a Roman temple over the destroyed 2nd Temple.  Then when Islam was created, Calif Omar built a mosque over the Roman temple in about 638. A century later in about 738, Caliph Abd al-Malik built a beautiful golden domed  mosque over the first one since he said it was a temporary structure.   .  It's also called the Dome of the Rock.  It sits right in the middle of the Temple area (al-Harim ash-Sherif) in Jerusalem.  
                                                                             

1967 Dancing at the Wall in Joy

Jews praying at the Wall

Since Jews are not allowed to even stand nearby and pray, the only place they are allowed to pray at without being accosted is the Western Wall.  In 1967, Israel won a war against them started by Egypt and Syria.  They won in this huge battle in 6 days.  By doing so, they gained the land Jordan had taken illegally in 1948 which was supposed to go to the Jews.  By being so greedy and joining Israel's other enemies, they lost land their grandfather had helped himself to. East  Jerusalem  and its Old City was thus freed from Jordan and is now incorporated into Israel.  For the first time again, Jews could pray at the Western Wall.  

Terrorism started in Palestine with Arabs attacking Jews.  This was just the beginning.  Now terrorism is hitting Europe and the United States and by who?  Muslim extremists who interpret their religion as allowing murder against people not of their own particular beliefs.  
                                                                        
Whereas wars in other parts of the world are usually fought over land with the exception of Ireland who has had their own battles and terrorist acts between Catholics and Protestants, these are religious acts of terrorism.  ISIS has combined religion with taking land in creating a Caliphate for themselves.  
                                                                        

Israelis praying at the wall today

At any rate, the Brits read the situation carelessly and this is what they concluded:   London sent the first of many royal investigative commissions, the (Walter) Shaw Commission, to Palestine. The commission concludes that the main source of tension is the creation of a landless class of discontented Arabs along with widespread Arab fear that continued Jewish immigration will result in a Jewish dominated Palestine.   Instead of dealing with the Commission’s report, the British decide to send another commission of inquiry to Palestine.They had already told the Jews that Palestine would be the Jewish Homeland back in 1917.                                                                  

There had always been Arabs-not in any great number-but Arabs living on the land who did not own any land.  There had only been a few landowners.  The many empires that had been dominating the land made it hard to be a landowner.  Arab mostly were nomadic people.  They lived in tents.  Just ask the great author of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, about who was living in Palestine.  He took a trip to the Holy Land and Egypt, the Crimea, Greece and other points of interest from Brooklyn, New on February 1, 1867 and saw the land before the Russian Jews did, when they made aliyah to Palestine in the 1880's.  Pages 186 and 203 are good examples of what the land looked like.  His camp was attacked by them, very dark-skinned Bedouins with inky black beards, tall, and muscular.  By the time Israel was created on May 14, 1948, Israel had a population of 650,000 Jews.  
                                                                         

The land situation of obtaining their ancient land was thought to be settled on January 1919:  That's when Chaim Weizmann pledged that the Jewish community would cooperate with the Arabs in the economic development of Palestine.  
                                                                        

 In return, Faisal of Syria – the leading Arab personality of the time — recognized the Balfour Declaration of 1917.   He consented to Jewish immigration so long as the rights of Palestinian Arabs were  protected and Arab demands for the independence of Greater Syria are recognized.  Faisal had conditioned his acceptance of the Balfour Declaration on the fulfillment of British wartime promises of independence to the Arabs.  These were not kept. 

He had no power except had helped the Brits, just like the Jews did, win WWI.  He supposedly had the respect of the Arabs as a leader.  He had wanted land, too, and wanted to be a king since he missed the chance to be king in Saudi Arabia.  The Brits also promised him land for this. 
                                                                         

   

 His nemisis, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was the Sherif of Jerusalem,  the big fish in the little pond. He was the main instigator of terrorism against Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the 1920s.  He didn't want to lose his position.   Arabs have always fought each other for power and they weren't about to allow a Jew or Jews to live on their land, let alone claim it as theirs.  They were oblivious to past history that it had been Jewish land before any Muslim had ever existed.  For the last 400 years it was the holdings of the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim Empire.  

Terrorism to a people is a horrible thing.  No one gets used to it.  It should never happen.  No religion should welcome it.  
Update: 4:30pm 5/10/15
Reference:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots
http://www.coldwarstudies.com/2012/11/30/palestine-israel-timeline-1917-1929/
Myths and Facts, a concise recordof the Arab-Israeli conflict by Drs Mitchell G. Bard, JOel Himelfarb, p17-19