A Clever Ruse by Arab Leaders to Stop their Civil War!
February 6, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
The last time I was in Casablanca, Morocco, it
was still French Morocco and trouble was brewing for an Arab uprising to gain independence. As I read the Jerusalem Post article, which follows, I remembered the now famous quote from the old movie “Casablanca,” when “Sam,” the pianist, was told by “Rick” to “Play it Again, Sam.” The Arab leaders are now attempting to “Play it Again, Yesser” on the Temple Mount.
Ir onically, another Arab uprising, an intifada, is threatened in Israel, supposedly because of some Jewish work
on the Temple Mount. It is all a ploy, a ruse, to get Hamas and Fatah to stop fighting each other, and to fight Israel. It is a replay of the old Yesser Arafat real life movie of 2000, when he united the Palestinian factions in an intifada because the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stepped on the Temple Mount. So, at the present time the Arab leaders are crying out, “Play it Again, Hamas, Iran, and Syria” – Let’s make up and fight Israel instead of each other.
Having gone to military technical schools with Islamic believers, trained some of them myself, and worked among them, I can assure you that the oft associated references to Persian cunning and Arab craftiness are not merely misguided phrases. To apply such characteristics to all Muslims would be wrong, but to tell you that their leaders, like some of ours, have naturally acquired these traits in order to rise to the top of the heap in the Arab and Persian worlds
.
Hamas, Syria, and Iran are desperate to stop this Civil War between Hamas and Fatah, and will use any issue available to turn the ire of the two combatants against Israel, rather than against each other.
Begin Jerusalem Post Article
Islamic heads call for violence over work by Temple Mount
Etgar Lefkovits, THE JERUSALEM POST
February 6, 2007
In a new showdown, Islamic leaders on Tuesday called for a new wave of violence against Israel over a contested Israeli archeological excavation near the Temple Mount.
The threats came as Israeli archeologists pressed ahead with a three-week-old salvage excavation in the archeological garden outside the Temple Mount ahead of the planned construction of a new bridge
to the Mughrabi Gate.
“The danger in Jerusalem has increased.
It is high time for the intifada of the Islamic people,” the fiery leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel Raed Salah told reporters near the holy site on Tuesday.
“The continued Israeli aggression on Al Aksa Mosque and Jerusalem require all Palestinians to unite and remember that our battle is with the occupation,” said Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.
The bridge, which is being built under the auspices of Israel’s Antiquities Authority, will replace the temporary bridge which has been constructed on the section of the Western Wall allocated for women’s prayer after the original stone ramp leading up to the Mughrabi Gate was removed, having been deemed unsafe by city engineers.
Israeli officials repeatedly emphasized Tuesday that the work underway at the site was outside the confines of the Temple Mount, and posed no danger to the mosque at the site.
“The construction of the bridge, located in its entirety outside the Temple Mount, has no impact on the Mount itself and certainly poses no danger to it,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office said.
“There is nothing on earth that can cause damage to the walls of the Temple Mount, and certainly not to any structures inside,” said Dr. Gideon Avni, the director of excavations and surveys at the Israeli Antiquities Authority.
He noted however that there was no cooperation with Islamic officials at the site over the issue.
According to decades-old regulation in place at the Temple Mount, Israel maintains overall security control at the site, while the Wakf, or Islamic Trust, is charged with day- to-day administration of the ancient compound.
By law, Israel is required to carry out a ‘salvage excavation’ before any construction goes ahead in the country. More than half a dozen such excavations are underway in the Old City of Jerusalem at present.
The decision over “when and how” to carry out the work near the Temple Mount has been going on for two years now, the Antiquities Authority archeologist said.
Jerusalem Police chief Ilan Franco said Tuesday that the work would take eight months to complete.
He added that 2000 police were deployed in and around the Old City on Tuesday to maintain law and order.
“It is clear to anyone who stands here that all the work is taking place outside the compound of the Temple Mount,” Franco said in a briefing at the Western Wall plaza, where dozens of journalists had gathered to watch the work.
In low-level skirmishes, dozens of Arab teens pelted police with stones in various locations throughout east Jerusalem.
There were no injuries or damage rep
orted.
11 suspects were arrested by police for taking part in the violence, Jerusalem Police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.
Earlier Tuesday, police had barred non-Muslims from entering the Temple Mount and restricted Muslim entry to the holy site to men over the age of 45 in a largely successful effort to ward off violence at the compound for the day.
The new bridge, which has received a green light from both the city’s planning committee and the blessing of the rabbi of the Western Wall, is slated to tower above the archaeological garden adjacent to the Western Wall, and will be supported by as many as eight pylons in the archeological garden.
The garden, located outside the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount, has been deemed one of the most significant archeological parks in Israel and the world.
The original stone ramp, which was built after the Six Day War in 1967, and served as the point of entry for non-Muslim visitors entering the Temple Mount, was badly damaged during an earthquake that rattled that region three years ago and by inclement wintry weather.
After being deemed unsafe by city engineers, the strategically-placed ramp was removed and a new temporary bridge was built next to it, which has cut off the allocated space for women’ s prayer at the We
stern Wall by more than one-third.
The Antiquities Authority was at pains Tuesday to explain why it decided not to support the existing ramp as some Israeli archeologists had proposed, or to use the existing route in building the new bridge.
The Temple Mount, which is Judaism’s holiest and Islam’s third holiest site, has been the scene of violence in the past, which later spilled out across the country.
Israel’s opening of the Western Wall tunnels in 1996 was followed by a wave of Palestinian violence that killed 80 people, while Ariel Sharon’s 2000 visit to the Temple Mount as opposition leader was followed by the latest round of Palestinian violence that has continued for over six years.
Israeli efforts to downplay the dig near the bitterly contested holy site — known as the tinderbox of the Middle East — fell on deaf ears in the Arab public, with Arab media playing up the heated rhetoric of Islamic officials blasting the work.
MK Talab El-Sana (United Arab List) warned on Tuesday that the excavations are likely to ignite a third intifada, which will include protests and conflict throughout the Arab and Muslim world.
“The Israeli government is again provoking the Muslim world and the Palestinian people, and is not hesitating to ignite the region on behalf of irresponsible decisions,” El-Sana said.
The latest controversy comes as an ancient wooden pulpit destroyed four decades ago by a deranged Australian tourist hoping to hasten the coming of the Messiah was restored in the El Aksa Mosque, and as Jordan presses ahead with plans to build a fifth minaret at the site.
Last decade, Wakf officials built the largest mosque in Israel in an underground architectural support of the Temple Mount known as the Solomon’s Stables.
The construction of the mosque, which was carried out without any archeological supervision, was later called an “unprecedented archeological crime” by Israel’s top archeological body.
End Jerusalem Post Article
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