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A.P. photo/ Mohammed Abu Ghosh -- King Abdullah in suit
“Amman, Nov.11 (Petra - Jordan news agency) -- Activities of the Global
Forum for Moderation's sixth international conference titled: ‘Jerusalem:
Religion and History’ kicked off here today with wide participation of
notable Jordanian and Arab intellectuals, clerics, thinkers and politicians.”
Jordan’s Minister of Culture called the relationship of Jordan’s leadership and people with Jerusalem an historical one. The King declared Jerusalem “a red line.“ One of the topics was the “Hashemites’ effort in building the holy places in Jerusalem.” Another official reminded Arabs and Muslims of their duty of protecting “the holy city from Israeli attempts to Judaize the city and change its Arab identity.” (www.imra.org.il, 11/11.)
Expelled from Saudi Arabia by the present dynasty there, the Hashemites retained supervisory privileges over the mosque on the Temple Mount. The people of Jordan, however, do not have an historical relationship with the Mount. Early last century, there were a few Bedouin in Transjordan, when a couple of thousand followers of Emir Abdullah fled there from Saudi Arabia.
Jerusalem was not of much important to Muslims when they controlled it. A couple of times they gave or offered to give it away. When Jordan conquered it at the end of the 1940s, it meant so little to the Hashemites, that they did not visit the Temple Mount. They let trash accumulate around it, impeding access to it. The crocodile tears they shed over Jewish control of it water their effort against Israel. The mosque needs no “defense.”
Islam does not separate religion from government. Both are expansionist. Hence, the Jordanian rulers, riding on their religious duty, slide into an imperialist role seeking to take over the Old City, the whole city, the whole country, as Jordan attempted by invasions. The regime and other Arabs fabricate Israeli plots against the mosque on the Mount. These plots have been alleged for nine decades, but never materialized, because they never existed. It does not occur to the Arab masses that their agitating leaders have been raising false alarms for almost a century, against a people that conquered its enemies in six days without harming the mosque.
What about the city’s identity? The Old City, built largely by the Israelites, has acquired Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Arab characteristics. The New City was built by modern Jewry. The governments of Israel do nothing to erase the other faith’s sites, extremist hysteria by the “moderation” conference notwithstanding.
The Arabs have resumed their efforts to take over Israel, which reached its first culmination in 1947, and the conference was concentrating on Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a capital city, modern, dynamic, growing, and changing. One of the changes is a steep rise in real estate prices and yet another is an influx of Arabs fearing being left behind in the dreaded Palestinian Authority, should it get sovereignty. Hence there are efforts by foreign Arabs to build more houses for Arabs there, legally or illegally, and some Jewish efforts, mostly private, to buy or build houses there for Jews. Despite anti-Zionist paranoia about a powerful “Zionist propaganda machine,” most of the word is uninformed or misinformed about this, and condemns much of the Jews’ building, which is legal, and none of the Arabs’ building, much of which is illegal. People don’t even realize they have a double standard.
Fact is, illegal Muslim construction on the Temple Mount destroyed archeological sites on it, including many ancient Jewish archeological treasures. (There are very few Arab ones.) The Palestinian Authority leaders claim there never was a Jewish presence on the Mount that they are trying to eradicate it from. Self-contradiction is a characteristic of their imperialist efforts.
The Arabs turn many occasions, whether at the UN or an academic forum or even interfaith conferences into agitation against Israel or isolation of Jews. They misuse opportunities for reconciliation or peace. They abuse vocabulary, to post labels that deny legitimate enemy claims and assert false Arab claims, such as that the conference was “moderation.” People need to become sophisticated to recognize the Arab abuse of vocabulary as part of their drive for conquest.
For another example of Muslim Arab extremism about Jerusalem, click here
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