FOURTH AXIS

Mechanisms for Implementing

Local Laws and International

Conventions on the Protection

of Islamic and Christian

Holy Sites in Palestine

Fifth Session

Chairman :

Dr. Izzat Jeradat,

Secretary General of the General Islamic

Conference of Bayt Al Maqdis

Speakers :

1. Mr. Ziyad Al Khasawaneh

2. Dr. Taj Eddine Al Husseini

3. Mr. Chawqi At-Tabeeb

 Role of Arab Lawyers in Upholding Legal Texts

Guaranteeing the Protection of Islamic

and Christian Holy Sites in Palestine

By : Mr. Ziyad Al-Khasawneh(*)

Excellencies and eminencies,

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatu Allah taala wa barakatuh,

The decision of the Jordanian Bar Association to maintain its headquarters in Al Quds was no stranger to its inherent objective of protecting the holy city. This decision was taken in full conscience of the Zionists’ future designs to judaise the city.

While the subsequent acts of harassment sought to strip this office of its legitimacy, this same Association consolidated its decision with another one banning all interaction with the courts of the Zionist entity, and provided additional financial and logistical support for the lawyers.

If the truth is to be told, the West Bank lawyers, and those of Al Quds in particular, enjoy the same full rights as their counterparts at the headquarters of the Amman-based Association. This has consolidated interaction and conferred on lawyers in Al Quds a special status which is to confront judaisation schemes and objectives.

Since the occupation of Palestine and its capital Al Quds, no statement by the Arab Bar Association was devoid of emphasis on the Arab identity of the holy city.

Excellencies and eminencies,

All professional unions of Jordan have maintained their offices in Al Quds. Since its creation more than fifty years ago, the Jordanian Bar association has maintained two branches in Amman and Al Quds.

Despite the decision in 1987 to annul the annexation of Palestine to Jordan, the Bar Association, represented by all its members, considered and still considers that this decision was unconstitutional, and has therefore maintained constant contact with its office in Jordan.

As a founding member of the Union of Arab Lawyers, the Jordanian Bar Association has always endeavoured to play an efficient role in the promotion of the Palestinian cause with its focal point, Al Quds Al Sharif, and its Christian sanctities.

Thus, and in view of the central position that Al Quds holds, the decisions and recommendations of the Association often contain articles that underscore the status and Arab identity of the holy city. Several specialised symposia, addressing the dangers threatening the holy city, have been held in the fringe of the association’s conferences and permanent bureaux meetings, held twice every year in different Arab capitals. International laws have not clearly laid down the rules of the preservation of religious sites within the framework of the Geneva Convention which considered these sites as cultural assets that must be protected.

If we recall the international campaign and the outrage that followed the attack on the Bamiyan Buddhas of Afghanistan, we will realise that the acts of aggression committed by Israeli occupation forces against Al Quds were far from receiving the same attention. This constitutes grounds for us to actively move in various spheres in order to publicise the almost daily Israeli actions aimed at judaising the city and obliterating its landmarks.

We are standing at a crossroads where the choice of direction has become a true dilemma. Neither the Arab nor the Islamic nations has the plans and action mechanisms necessary for fending off these dangers ; at the same time the Organisation of the Islamic Conference seems incapable of taking any practical measures towards implementing its resolutions on Al Quds.

Today, we are witnessing, on a daily basis, zealous judaisation operations in the whole city, taking all kinds of forms and channels, and affecting Islamic and Christian holy sites, so much so that the plans of the Zionist entity to demolish Al Aqsa Mosque have become no more than a mundane piece of news.

From this pulpit, I call upon our Conference to include in its recommendations and final declaration an invitation to the Arab Bar Association to discharge its legal duties and to set up a team of legal experts that would draw up the texts requesting the Arab and Islamic nations to preserve the constants of their governmental political decisions pertaining to the endeavour to liberate the Palestinian territories in their entirety and grant Al Quds the priority status it deserves in the face of the dangers threatening them as is manifest in the current raging conflict about renouncing Al Quds and the right of return. Here, we cannot but remember the late Yasser Arafat who had all his life refused to even entertain the idea of renouncing an iota of Al Quds. It is therefore crucial that this conference issue a resolution to the effect that renouncing Al Quds and the refugees’ right of return is a historical crime being committed against the Arab and Islamic nations.

Appended to this paper are the statements of political leaders and rabbis of the Zionist entity about their schemes to judaise the city and lay claim to it as an integral part of their religious beliefs and political doctrines.

I believe that the legal texts capable of consecrating the Arab identity of Al Quds are not that different from historical ones. The holy city is now governed by the rule of force and not by the force of law, and the future of Palestine and the holy city will forever remain the source of conflict in Palestine.

 Statements of some Zionist political

leaders and rabbis on the issue :

Twenty six years ago, an American biologist named James Jennings, currently living in Chicago and author of several biological studies in Jordan, Egypt and Palestine, said : “Many Israeli Zionists prefer to proceed step by step with the plan. If they have not blown up the mosque yet, it is because they wish to be seen as moderates... Some Israeli leaders are testing the political waters about rebuilding the temple next to the mosque. If they achieve this, they may later remove the whole Haram Al Sharif. It is political power play”.

1- A long time ago, the Zionist Jewish leader Theodore Herzl said : “If one day we recover Jerusalem and I am still able to do anything when we do so, my first action will be to cleanse it thoroughly. I will remove everything that is not holy and burn the monuments that are centuries old.”

 2- The Israeli leader Ben Gurion said : “Without spiritual supremacy, our people would not have survived for two thousand years of Diaspora. Israel is meaningless without Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is meaningless without the Temple”. After the Jewish occupation of Al Quds in 1967, David Ben Gurion declared : “My people, standing at the threshold of the Third Temple cannot observe patience in the same way its forefathers could.”

3- Former Israeli prime-minister Menachim Begin said : “I hope that the Temple will be rebuilt in the very near future and in the lifetime of this generation”. At the memorial service of Yekotail Adam, an Israeli soldier killed in the Lebanon War of 1982, Menachim Begin said : “I went to Lebanon to bring cedar wood to build the Temple”.

4- Dr. Zerach Warhaftig, Minister of Religious Affairs in 1967, declared at a conference organised to examine the status of the Temple and attended by hundreds of rabbis from the whole world said : “No one doubts that the ultimate goal is to rebuild the Temple, but the time is not yet ripe. When the time comes, an earthquake should destroy Al Aqsa Mosque and then the Temple will be rebuilt on its ruins”.

5- On 9 August 1969, Jews commemorated the destruction of the Temple and organised a huge celebration close to the Buraq gate at which the chief rabbi of Israel said : “We can only continue to mourn the continuity of the destruction of the Temple and the existence of the Muslims’ mosque on the land of our Temple. Our joy will only be fulfilled when this mosque is razed to the ground and the Temple rises in its place”.

6- Describing the invasion of Jerusalem in 1967, the former prime-minister Yitzhak Rabin wrote in his memoirs : “Our patience was running out... We could not waste this historical chance. The closer we got to the Wailing Wall, the higher the passions ran... The Wailing Wall which distinguishes Israel... I had always dreamt of being a partner...not only in establishing the State of Israel, but in the reclaiming of Jerusalem and the Wailing Wall and their return to Jewish control... Now that this dream has come true, I wonder in awe: how did this come to be mine. I had never thought I could reach such heights in my life”.

7- In its edition of October 1998, the Washington Jewish Week newspaper quoted the former Jewish Defence minister Moshe Dayan as having said to the former prime minister Golda Meir  on the second day of the October 1973 war : “Maybe we are missing the third house”, referring to the Third Temple.

8- Ehud Barak, former prime minister and chairman of the Labour party, stated at an interview for the Israeli television aired on the evening of Friday 29/12/2000 that he had “No intention of signing a document stipulating the transfer of the holy precincts that I consider the core of our cause, to the Palestinians”. Barak also declared before the two chief rabbis Yisrael Meir Lau and Eliyahu Bakshi Doron that he did not ‘Intend to hand over authority over Al Haram to any foreign party’. On 26/7/2000, Radio Israel announced on the news bulletin that prime-minister Ehud Barak had told President Yasser Arafat at the Camp David II summit that : “The Temple of Solomon is located under the holy precincts, and therefore Israel will not relinquish sovereignty over this site to the Palestinians”. On 29/9/2000, the Jerusalem Post quoted a number of declarations made by Ehud Barak on Jerusalem. In one declaration, he is quoted as saying “No Israeli prime minister will ever sign a document or an agreement whereby authority over Temple Mount (Al Haram mount) to the Palestinians or to any Islamic entity”.  The Yehodiot Ahornot newspaper quoted on 10/8/1999 a high ranking official in Barak’s government as saying : “We have long delayed control over Temple Mount. Temple Mount is not in our hands”. What he means by Temple Mount is the blessed Al Aqsa. On 11/8/1999, the Union newspaper quoted Ehud Barak as saying : “The opening of the gate -by the Islamic Waqf- is not legal. It was a unilateral move that will not be easily admitted. I am happy about the sound reaction of the police”. The Israeli police had prevented Islamic Waqf Administration from carrying this out. Moshe Bilde, minister of education in Barak’s government, had declared before a Jewish gathering on the occasion of a conference held on 17/9/1998 “I invite you all to continue spreading the values of the Temple and heritage and the Jewish culture among the Israeli youth and at all stages of education... The Temple is the beating heart and soul of the Jewish people”.

N.B. :  After the recent Taba negotiations (2000), a Palestinian negotiator who preferred to remain anonymous said : ‘The government of Barak emphasises that there is no final settlement about Al Haram Al Sharif unless permission is given for building the Temple on its esplanades. In this vein, Sheikh Raed Salah says : “I would like to quote the words of a high ranking Palestinian official who reported a Palestinian negotiator’s quote of a minister in Ehud Barak’s government : ‘Do not expect a final settlement for the issue of Jerusalem, unless you allow the building of the Temple in the esplanade of Al Aqsa”.

9- The former Israeli minister of justice, Yossi Belin, who urged at a conference he attended alongside Palestinians, for halting what he described as violence, and for searching for a co-existence-based solution. Previously, he had insisted during an interview with the London newspaper Al Hayat on 19/8/2000, on calling Al Haram Al Sharif “Temple Mount” which he considered the holiest of all holy places for the Jews and more sacred than the Wailing Wall, and therefore unrestricted access to it should be granted.

10- The former mayor of Al Quds, Ehud Olmert, who refuses to recognise Al Haram as an Islamic site, was quoted by the Haaretz newspaper as saying : “Al Haram is not an Islamic site... Only one part of it is related to Islam. The holy precinct is a Jewish site and its name is an indication of that : Temple Mount - Bayt Al Maqdis, the Jewish sanctity”.

11- On 29/12/1996, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s former prime minister, presented a gift to the head of the Greek Church, Bishop Maximus Sallom, which was a miniature model of the old city of Al Quds where stood a virtual model of the Temple instead of Al Aqsa Mosque. The London newspaper Al Hayat reported on 7/3/1997 that President Hosni Mubarak confronted Netanyahu when the latter visited Cairo on 5/3/1997, with plans and architectural drawings secretly prepared by Israel for the building of the Third Temple. Quoting informed sources, the newspaper wrote that : “When confronted with these drawings and plans, Netanyahu did not deny Israel’s plans to rebuild the Temple of Solomon on the site of Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock”. Netanyahu’s cabinet also announced that the Jews had never been, at any time, banned from performing their prayers at Al Aqsa Mosque. This last statement coincided with the decision to build the new colony of Abu Ghnaim and resume the excavations under Al Aqsa Mosque started at the beginning of occupation in 1967. In fact, everything had been set for the rebuilding of the Temple during the term of Benjamin Netanyahu. Jewish offices were set up to collect contributions, and they collected twice the amount needed to build the temple. The excess amounts were injected into the building of new colonies on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Egyptian Jew Yusuf Barokh donated the 24 carat gold Chanukah that would be placed at the entrance of the Temple the building stones of which were brought from the Negev desert.

12- The new Israeli President Moshe Katsav : The Centre for Contemporary Studies wrote in an editorial published under the title “Jerusalem in Hebrew Press” : “The newly elected  President of Israel, Moshe Katsav, swore  allegiance to the state of Israel and the protection of its sanctities. He visited the Wailing Wall and stressed the status of Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jews. He pointed out that he would engage in his activities immediately after the days of mourning observed over the destruction of the Temple”.

13- The government of Ariel Sharon and the building of the Temple : Any observer of developments can perceive Sharon’s government’s new policy towards Al Aqsa, clearly backed for the first time -in addition to the Right wing- by the poles of the moderates, left wing moderates and the Zionist Left wing in the Hebrew State. The representatives of the Right wing and religious parties, accounting for the majority of Sharon’s cabinet- are vying with each other in urging Sharon to take a (bold) decision allowing the Jews to visit and pray in Al Aqsa Mosque which they claim to be the most sacred site for Jews having been built on the ruins of the second temple.

The government of Sharon Acknowledges Operation Genesis : On the eve of the first meetings in mid-May 2001 of the new American envoy to the Middle East, William Burns, separately with the Palestinian President Arafat and the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, to explore the possibilities of implementing the recommendations of the Mitchell Committee, Israeli sources announced that the plan of building a synagogue in the esplanade of Al Aqsa Mosque  had moved into the implementation phase and would be adopted by the Municipal Procedural Organisation Committee in occupied Al Quds under the code name of Brecht’s Key or Neo Genesis. This announcement was seen by Muslim scholars in Palestine as highly dangerous and capable of causing the whole region to implode.

The Yehodiot Ahronot newspaper wrote that Israel was going to present the scheme in the following few days for adoption by the Municipal Procedural Organisation Committee. The newspaper added that the plan was drawn up by Gideon, the planning architect of the so-called Jewish Quarter in the old City and was dubbed Brecht’s Key or the Genesis Plan. The plan presented to Sharon stated that a group of Temple lovers led by Professor Halle Vice and Rabbi Yisrael Ariel and the president of the Temple Institute requested that the plan be presented along with proposals for its implementation in compliance with the desire of Israel’s Chief Rabbi to obtain the Muslims’ agreement to allow Jews to pray in Al Aqsa Mosque and build the synagogue.

The same prime minister discussed on 7 April 2001 with some of his cabinet ministers -Uzi Landua and Iluahu Sossa- the idea of building the alleged temple where Al Aqsa Mosque stands now. The Hebrew Radio Station reported on its internet website that Sharon was going to hold a special meeting with the two ministers on the issue of Temple Mount, as the Israelis call Al Haram Al Sharif. Other sources mentioned that the Israeli Minister of Internal Security, Uzi Landua (Likud party) intended to request during the meetings that stringent measures be taken to prevent the restoration works carried out inside Al Haram Al Sharif and grant access to Jews to the holy precincts. The station pointed out that the Minister of Jerusalem Affairs in the Israeli government, Ilyahu Sossa (extreme left wing), was expected to present a special scheme to enable Jews to infiltrate the holy precincts. During Sharon’s visit to Turkey, he declared at a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart on 8/8/2001 that “Al Quds is an undivided unit. It is the eternal capital of Israel, and houses Temple Mount, the most sacred site for the Jewish people”. Sharon also said at the special press conference he held on Wednesday, 27 September 2001 that : “This (referring to the esplanade of Haram Al Sharif), is the holiest place for the Jews. We do not have a Makkah or a Madinah, nor do we have a Vatican. We have one single Temple of Solomon and we will not allow anyone to decide when or how we can enter it”.

On 21 January 2002, Sharon announced that he intended to allow Jews and Christians to access Al Aqsa Mosque in the same way Muslims do. He added that the site was not Al Aqsa Mosque but Temple Mount, and Jews and Christians should be able to perform their rites of worship there. These words were uttered during his meeting with his special advisers whom he informed, according to Haaretz, of his intention to take a measure that would allow non-Muslims to gain access to “Temple Mount” at the earliest possible opportunity.

According to the Zionist radio station, the Zionist secret services, Shin Bet, would soon recommend that the Prime Minister take this measure.

In the last week of February 2003, the criminal Ariel Sharon announced that the battle for Al Quds had started, referring to Zionist control of the blessed Al Aqsa Mosque. This same messaged underlined the declaration of the Zionist Commissioner of Police in Al Quds, made during a press conference, that Al Aqsa Mosque was going to be opened to the Jews on the eve of the American attack on Iraq.

The Israeli Minister of Infrastructures, Avidor Liebermann, went as far as to ask Muslims to thank Israel for allowing them to pray in Al Aqsa Mosque. In a statement made to the Israeli Hebrew radio station on 3/7/2001, Lieberman said: ‘Muslims should have a better understanding of the rules of the game. This place (Al Aqsa) belongs to the Jews and we allow them to pray in a place where we know they should not even set foot”. He goes on to say : “The State of Israel is the state of the Jewish people and it was created so that Jews from all over the world can be free to perform their rites in their places  of worship, and the most important of these places is this site”. The Likud minister of internal defence declared at the conclusion of a meeting held by the Police Commissioner : “Israel cannot prevent Jews forever from accessing Al Aqsa Mosque and praying there as this is a natural right”. The terrorist Gideon Izra, Minister of Public Security said : “The decision to allow non-Muslims to access the esplanades of Haram is eminent”, referring to the arrangements being made to this end.

Similarly, Bejamin Ben-Eliezer, Israeli minister of National Infrastructures and one of the leaders of the labour party, said : “The Government of Israel must act with wisdom on everything relating to Al Aqsa Mosque. It should also ensure that Arabs and Muslims understand that the status quo in the mosque is a situation that cannot be maintained eternally”. Ben-Eliezer added in another declaration to the Israeli television on 25/7/2001 that Jews were subjected to blatant racial discrimination in everything related to praying in Al Aqsa Mosque! Ben-Eliezer claims that the issue of Jews praying in Al Aqsa should have been settled in 1967. Halfway through the Camp David II negotiations which were to address the request of Palestinians to fly their flag over Islamic holy sites, a well-known rabbi said to his students : “On this occasion, we are not mourning the destruction of the Temple two thousand years ago, but we are also lamenting its destruction today”, referring to the anniversary of the temple destruction being commemorated in those days.

14- The Israeli Left Wing and the alleged Temple : The leaders of the Israeli left wing- those who portray themselves to Arabs as champions of peace- cast doubts about the right of Muslims to Al Aqsa Mosque. The poet and author,  AB Yehoshua, president of the Union of Israeli Authors, one of the theoreticians of the left wing in Israel and also a leader of the peace movement now, took the initiative of creating a league of Jewish thinkers, literate people, journalists, retired generals, artists and academics, to demand that the government halt all activities of the Islamic Waqf Administration inside Al Aqsa Mosque on the grounds that these operations endanger Jewish vestiges in the area which theoretically holds the remnants of the destroyed Temple. The interesting part is that all those who responded to the call of AB Yehoshua were prominent leftist thinkers such as the poet Haim Guri. The League asked Sharon to spare no effort in stopping the so-called sabotage activities of the Islamic movement within the green belt led by Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Islamic Waqf Administration in the city. The League pointed out the existence of a Zionist consensus in favour of all actions to preserve the Jewish character of monuments by preventing Muslims from taking any measures that may impact negatively on the character, despite the fact that many Jewish historians are dubious about the existence of the Temple in this site.

15- Advocate Gershon Solomon, leader of the Custodians of Temple Mount says : “Nobody can conceive of the life of Jews without the Temple. There must be a temple. No one, not the Arabs, can prevent us from that because it is the will of God and of history”. He considers that the rites performed by Jews at the Wailing Wall, pasting scraps of paper onto this wall, are a pathetic substitute.

16- Israel’s Chief Rabbi bans negotiations about the holy precincts and is studying a number of proposals to build a synagogue. The Israeli Chief Rabbinical Council had ruled that Israel’s mere disposition to engage in negotiations about Haram is a sin, and he emphasised the unconditional legal prohibition to hand over Al Haram to foreigners, whether in the framework of sovereignty or ownership, direct or indirect. Sovereignty over this site is for Israel and the mere fact of debating it is a sin. Researching the right of ownership of Jews over Mount Temple is a desecration in the eyes of God. A member of the Chief Rabbinical Council (Shaer Kohen) is quoted in the Maariv newspaper of 15/1/2001 as saying : “There are grave consequences for those who commit such a sin. These are matters that cannot be absolved or can redemption be prayed for until the Day of Redemption”.

The Hebrew Maariv newspaper published a news item on 21/1/2002 under the title “A Synagogue Must be Built in Al Aqsa Mosque”. The article quoted the Rabbi of Haifa, Shaer Yeshuf Kohen, as calling for building a synagogue in Al Aqsa Mosque following a recommendation of the Shin Bet, to allow Jews to enter Al Haram Al Sharif. Quoting Rabbi Kohen again during his visit to Poland, the Maariv wrote : “It is a possibility, and even a duty, to build a synagogue in the holy precincts on condition that access thereto be conducted according to religious rules’, pointing out that there were places in Al Haram Al Sharif where all Jews are allowed”.

17- Rabbi Zalman Melamed, Chief Rabbi of Israeli Settlements, stated before the conference of Rabbis in Al Quds that : “Israel has no value without the holy precincts, and it is a mistake to think that we pray for the safety of the Wailing Wall and not for that of the Holy Sanctuary”.

18- Rabbi Abraham Shapira, who served a few years ago as Israel’s Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi, and is considered today the authority in religious expounding for the Zionist religious movement to which belong settlers, declared in the presence of many members of Barak’s cabinet : “They need to know that they cannot stay in this place forever. This is the holiest of holy places for us. No one can make peace with the government that represents the Jewish people while insisting on occupying the natural site of the Temple”. Speaking loudly at the inauguration of a religious school in East Al Quds, Shapira said : “There is nothing by the name of Al Aqsa Mosque. This is a lie fabricated by the Arabs who ended up believing it. It is regrettable that some of us have believed this lie”. Then he added : “There is no room for confusion here. Temple Mount (Al Aqsa Mosque) belongs to the Jews and the Jewish community wherever it may be. It is unacceptable on the part of a government that represents the Jewish People, to make any kind of concession in this regard”. Shapira expressed the objective of the Jews and their religious arguments on Al Aqsa Mosque when he said : “Any settlement agreement should guarantee for us, as the legitimate owners of the land, not only the possibility to perform our religious rites in Al Aqsa Mosque, but to build Jewish religious facilities within the walls of this mosque”. Loudly applauded by the audience, Rabbi Shapira resumed his impassioned speech saying : “They dread the reaction of Arabs and Muslims in case the Jews were allowed to conduct their religious rites in the esplanade of Al Aqsa Mosque. But we say that Arabs and Muslims can all go to hell. If they don’t like our rites, they can go to Saudi Arabia, and there they can have all the religious sites they want’.

19- Rabbi Isaac Levi, president of the Mefdal party affirmed more than once that the State of Israel cannot renounce Al Aqsa Mosque and that it was serious in every action it took to pave the way for enabling Jews to take total control of the Mosque. He added that the religious community in Israel would not bear to see a settlement that does not allow Jews to perform their religious rites in Al Aqsa. In the same vein, the leader of the right wing Mefdal party called, on 21 January 2002, for allowing Jews, with immediate effect, to enter Haram Al Sharif, saying : “We cannot bear to see everyone allowed access except for us Jews”.

20- Rabbi McGoover said : “I don’t have the slightest doubt that the golden dome mosque built around the same rock over which King Solomon erected the Hebrew Temple in ancient times... will be destroyed to make room for the new temple of Jerusalem which will be built in all its splendour”.

21- Yisrael Zidon, one of the founders of the Amona Group and prominent activists for the demolition of Al Aqsa Mosque over the heads of the devout Muslims during the Friday prayer, says : “Ultimately, there will be no alternative to a sabotage action to destroy Al Aqsa Mosque and close this case”.

22- Yehuda Etzion, a prominent figure of the radical Hay Vicam Movement, said during the Politika programme aired by the Israeli television on 18/7/2001 : “The government must destroy Al Aqsa Mosque, and put an end to the desecration of the site by Muslims for hundreds of years”. Etzion, next to whom sat the Israeli minister of Communications, added : ‘No one should delude themselves. Muslims cannot accept that the situation continue as it is. If the Muslims do not refrain from desecrating the site, then we have to move. I think that many Jews are thinking of doing something if the government does not take an historic and brave decision to demolish Al Aqsa Mosque”.  Minister Revelin did not comment but patted Etzion on the shoulder approving of his words. Etzion also said : “The issue of the control over Temple Mount will settle the issue of ownership of the land either for the descendants of Isaac or those of Ishmael”.

23- In its edition of 29/12/2000, the Israeli Maariv newspaper quoted rabbi Yisrael Ariel from the Temple Institute Movement which benefits from the direct financing of the Israeli government for Temple research, as saying in all impudence : “The government and the army of Israel must endeavour to remove Islamic mosques from the esplanade of the holy precinct... the Islamic mosques are no more than heaps of stones that should be cleared away... that is the operation... and that is what’s going to happen”.

24- Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, spiritual leader of Shass says : “The holy precinct is ours”. Rabbi Yusuf had already blasphemed against God when he said that Allah regretted having created the Arabs, and described them as snakes, unclean and ants. Lately, he declared that the return of Jesus will have as goal to kill Arabs and send them to hell. All the Jews have to do now, he claims, is to demolish Al Aqsa Mosque and start building the Temple, with no fear of the Arabs and Muslims’ reaction, because supposedly Jesus will take care of them.

25- Israel’s former Chief Rabbi and rabbi of the Israeli army, Shlomo Goren, was the first to have called for rebuilding the Temple. When the Jews occupied Al Haram Al Sharif in 1967, Goren blew the trumpet in celebration of victory and announced the launch of rebuilding the Temple. He wrote a book on the subject and tried many times to enter Al Haram esplanades and blow the trumpet there. This rabbi had called upon Al Quds’ military Chief in 1967 to demolish Al Aqsa Mosque under cover of the war operations.

26- Rabbi Mordecai Illyahu said : “We witness foxes walking in the Temple. The books say that all strangers who enter it should be killed. Arabs walk there and desecrate it. Our elders said that star worshippers -non-Jewish- should not be allowed to enter the holy place. Therefore, the officials must put a stop to this situation and have no regard for what the intruders will say about them”.

27- Rabbi Yosuf Ilbaum said : “The Jewish presence on Temple Mount is what will convince the world that the Jews are serious about building the Temple”, before adding : “Without praying at the Temple and performing our rites we are half Jews. Many of our psalms contain rules and rituals related to the Temple, and unless we apply them, Judaism will remain flawed. Without the true Temple, the Jews, as a sacred people, cannot know what sanctity means... Since the Temple came under our control, we have done nothing to exploit this opportunity. It is our most sacred place, yet we have done nothing”.

28- The declarations Y. Jats, Rabbi of the Buraq (Wailing) Wall in 1968, when he talked to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz saying : “The timing of the building of the Temple is not very far... Yehova, with our help, will demolish the mosques in the holy sanctuary”.

29- The London Observer of July 1999 (p.56) wrote : “Those who believe in the rebuilding of the temple are ready, if they have to, to fight the Muslims who control the mosque, and to destroy the holy sites in order to build the Third Temple. Some of them demand that the mosque be dismantled, stone by stone, and transferred elsewhere. Yehuda Etzion says : “All the stones of the mosque must be numbered and moved to Makkah because that is the natural location for it. Right now, it is the wrong building in the wrong place”. Julian Burger asked : “When will the flames engulf this sacred monster ?”

Jewish archaeologist Joseph Serge said : “We will build the Third Temple on the land of Al Aqsa Mosque which Israel can cause to crack using modern techniques”.

30- British Zionist Lord Melchett says : “The day the Temple is rebuilt is drawing very near, and I will dedicate the rest of my life to building a great temple where Al Aqsa Mosque stands”.

A critical report was issued on the dangers besieging Al Aqsa Mosque when Iraq is attacked : the Jerusalemite powers warned against the intentions of the Zionist government towards Al Aqsa Mosque. The Zionists plan to exploit the American invasion of Iraq to lay claim to Al Aqsa Mosque and judaise it. The scheme involves taking control of the gates of Al Haram and the houses surrounding it. The Palestinian institutions in Al Quds warned against the design of Zionist occupation forces to impose a new status in Al Aqsa Mosque on the eve of the attack on Iraq. Observers inside the holy city reported that all indicators and statements of Zionist officials point to the intention of the Zionist government to impose a new situation within Al Aqsa Mosque in the first hours of the American onslaught on Iraq, and take control of it. The observers added that the measures taken by Zionist occupation forces in Al Quds and the surroundings of Al Aqsa Mosque clearly indicate that theses forces have hatched an evil plot to desecrate the mosque and impose the Israeli presence inside it in the same way they did in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.

Observers warned that Zionist occupation forces had indeed started implementing their plans for the judaisation of Al Aqsa Mosque, and that a dangerous plan would be carried out by the Occupation forces simultaneously with the American invasion of Iraq. The Zionist plan involves the following:

At the exact moment of the American attack on Iraq and as the world follows this attack, units of the Israeli army would take control of the gates of Al Aqsa Mosque and the houses overlooking these gates, evacuate all the inhabitants and transform the houses into barracks for the Zionist army.

These were various quotes revealing the existence of a religious, national, governmental, political and popular consensus in the Jewish society, reflecting the Israel’s unwavering determination to build the alleged Temple at the time they see appropriate and at the expense of the holy sites of Muslims, and Al Aqsa Mosque in particular. But the important question remains : Are these words and testimonies just wishful thinking ? Or are there initiatives and practical steps taken towards their translation into a reality ?

(*) Deputy Secretary General of the Arab Bar Association.