Abbas Wants Israel Off of Temple Mount

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                   

Born November 15, 1935, in Palestine, is the president of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority. He has been the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) since 11 November 2004, PNA president since 15 January 2005, and State of Palestine president since 8 May 2005. Abbas is also a member of the Fatah party and was elected chairman in 2009.  

                                                     

   Fighting did prevail on Temple Mount which started the 11 day war.  It was driven by modern-day zeal, which was using hear-say about a real-estate deal event in Jerusalem that was not accurate.  Evidently," on Monday, an apocalyptic video from Jerusalem began to circulate on social media. In the background, it showed a large fire raging on the site Muslims call al-Aqsa or al-Haram al-Sharif, and Jews call the Temple Mount. A tree was ablaze next to al-Aqsa mosque (some blamed Israeli police stun grenades, others blamed Palestinians shooting fireworks, perhaps aiming at Jewish worshippers). Below, the large plaza of the Western Wall was full with young Jewish Israelis, identified with the religious Zionist right, celebrating “Jerusalem Day”  which (marked the occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967)." to the Muslims, but a very happy day to the Jews of regaining their capital which they had marked officially the capital in 1980.  

Abu Mazen AKA Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinians Authority (PA), is saying that he wants Israel off of the Temple Mount, which is in Jerusalem.  Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and has been ever since the days of King David who ruled from1010 to 970 BCE, about 3,331 years ago.  Jerusalem as always been Israel or Judah's capital.  

The Jordanian Authority over the Temple Mount is the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf  which is an Islamic religious trust (sometimes called an "Islamic Religious Endowments" organization) best known for controlling and managing the current Islamic edifices on and around the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.  They can thank Moshe Dayan for this allowance from the 1967 War.  

                                                          

         The New York Times photograph of Grossman with the false caption

Errors happen with people who riot over false news, and this was one of those cases.  It's happened before.  Tuvia Grossman is an American-Israeli man who was wrongly identified as a Palestinian in the caption of an Associated Press (AP) photograph of an Israeli police officer defending him from a violent Arab mob. The photograph, taken and marketed by AP during the Second Intifada in 2000, was published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other newspapers worldwide, along with the fact-twisting caption provided by AP, gave the impression that the Israeli police officer had brutally beaten a Palestinian.  On the eve of Rosh Hashana 2000, Grossman, a student from Chicago, enrolled at Yeshivas Bais Yisroel from the Israeli settlement of Neve Yaakov (a neighborhood of Jerusalem), hailed a taxi with two friends to visit the Western Wall. When the driver took a shortcut through the Arab neighborhood of Wadi al-Joz, a mob of about 40 Arabs surrounded the taxi, smashed the windows, and dragged Grossman out, whereupon they beat him. The mob kicked him repeatedly, stabbed him once in the leg, and then pounded his head with rocks. Grossman managed to run to a nearby gas station, where he collapsed, and an Israeli policeman, wielding a club protected him, threatening the mob. This was when the infamous picture was taken, by a freelance photographer who was at the gas station, of Grossman bleeding and crouched under the policeman, who is shouting and waving his club.

The Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas demanded that the Israel-Hamas ceasefire include an end to Jewish “incursions” to the al Aqsa compound on Temple Mt in Jerusalem. The demand was made in separate meetings with the foreign ministers of Jordan and Egypt, ahead of a visit to Ramallah by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who just landed in Israel Tuesday.  

                                                  

Even with such deliberately lowered expectations, the Americans are hamstrung from the start. Blinken will not be speaking to the Palestinians who apparently now have the upper hand — those belonging to or affiliated with the militant organization Hamas, based in the Gaza Strip, rather than the leaders of the Fatah movement and Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank. The U.S. regards Hamas as a terrorist organization, which means that Washington cannot negotiate with the group.

Anthony Blinken  previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under President Barack Obama.  He spotlighted the plight of Palestinians in an effort to shore up the Israel-Hamas truce.   During his tenure in the Obama administration, he helped craft U.S. policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a consulting firm.

 Blinken was born on April 16, 1962, in Yonkers, New York, to Jewish parents, Judith (Frehm) and Donald M. Blinken, the former United States Ambassador to Hungary. His maternal grandparents were Hungarian Jews. Blinken's uncle, Alan Blinken, served as the American ambassador to Belgium. His paternal grandfather, Maurice Henry Blinken, was an early backer of Israel who studied its economic viability, and his great-grandfather was the author of Yiddish literature Meir Blinken.   Blinken told the story of his stepfather, who was the only Holocaust survivor of the 900 children of his school in Poland.  Pisar found refuge in a US tank after making a break into the forest during a Nazi death march. A Democrat lawyer, he graduated Harvard and attended Columbia Law School.  

"On June 17, 2020, Blinken said Biden "would not tie military assistance to Israel to things like annexation or other decisions by the Israeli government with which we might disagree". Blinken praised the Trump administration-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates."

"On October 28, 2020, Blinken told Jewish Insider that a Biden administration plans to "undertake a strategic review" of the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia "to make sure that it is truly advancing our interests and is consistent with our values". Blinken told JI that Biden administration "will continue non-nuclear" sanctions against Iran "as a strong hedge against Iranian misbehavior in other areas". Blinken said the Trump administration helped China by "weakening American alliances, leaving a vacuum in the world for China to fill, abandoning our values and giving China a green light to trample on human rights and democracy from Xinjiang to Hong Kong"."

                                                    

What will he say about the Temple Mount and Abbas's statement of wanting Jews off the Temple Mount?  Will he have any comments?  Does he understand the connection Israel has with the Temple Mount like the knowledge that a mosque, the Mosque of Omar,  is built right over Israel's 2nd Temple?  Does he even understand the relevance of the First and Second Temples to the history of Israel?  It was King Solomon, David's son, that had the 1st Temple built. 

Does he know that the Jordanian Authority does not even allow Jews there to move their lips in prayer?  Jews are not allowed to pray anywhere near a mosque.  Ridiculous.  

 Just because Blinken is Jewish doesn't mean mean he knows Jewish history, or past problems of the Temple Mount,  though it should..  The 2nd Temple was built by returnees in 538 BCE and finished by 515  BCE from the Babylonian Exile since Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the 1st in 586 BCE in their attack, marching back most all the Jews to Babylon.  The Wailing "Western" Wall was built by King Herod, and is the only spot left for Jews to stand by and pray as something remaining of the Temple as the Jordanian Muslim Authority, given such authority by Moshe Dayan from the 1967 War deemed fit.

                                                       

     Muslim stone throwers on Temple Mount
 

It seems that Netanyahu has been facing the hardest of all his days as Prime Minister with this conundrum.  He can't allow Abbas's wish to come true, of course.  The Temple Mount position has allowed enough concessions for the Palestinians, even hurting the rights of many Jews in their desire to worship there in favor of the Muslims' religion.  

What he must do is provide better protection for all up there.  The nearby police need additional manpower.  Perhaps they all need a metal detector up there to check all pedestrians such as used in airports.  It's supposed to be a peaceful area, a place to pray, not a place to go beserk.   Abbas, teach your people to have better manners.  That's what you can do.  Quit inciting them, and then letting Hamas have a go at it.  Teach them not to pay attention to rumors, because that's all they usually are, just something what won't check out to be true.  

Resource

https://www.debka.com/mivzak/abu-mazen-demands-end-of-jewish-visits-to-temple-mount/

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-05-25/blinken-shore-up-israel-hamas-cease-fire-mideast-trip

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Abbas

https://www.wsj.com/articles/blinken-spotlights-plight-of-palestinians-in-effort-to-shore-up-israel-hamas-truce-11621943385

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvia_Grossman