By David Ben-Ariel
The Wakf, the militant Muslim authority that oversees Jerusalem's Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site and Islam's alleged third holiest site (following Mecca and Medina) continue to show blatant disregard for Jewish, Christian and biblical history and non-Muslim sensitivities.
Matti Friedman's AP article -- "At Temple Mount Holy Site, What Is Treasure?" -- exposes how the Wakf engaged in unsupervised and illegal gouging of the Temple Mount (the holy site of both Solomon's Temple and Zerubbabel Temple enlarged by Herod that Jesus and the apostles worshipped in), removing tons of its historically rich soil and callously dumping it in the nearby Kidron Valley (that I've walked through many times, climbing the Mount of Olives). Such atrocious acts reveal a serious lack of proper respect for archaeology and other religions and serve as an indictment against the Wakf and the Israeli government for looking the other way.
However, this serious breach of religious respect and tolerance for non-Muslims is nothing new, as a Muslim mob overran the biblical patriarch Joseph's Tomb, site of a synagogue, burnt the Torah scrolls and murdered the rabbi who supervised the site, as well as a Druse officer trying to protect it, and utterly trashed the holy place. And who can forget the Muslim terrorists holed up in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, using the baptismal font as a latrine and abusing the New Testaments there? Not to mention the daily religious discrimination upon the Temple Mount where they illegally forbid Christians and Jews from praying or reading the Bible.
These are the concrete actions of the leaders of the "Palestinian" community, documented actions that are in stark contrast to the virtues they profess to the Western media about religious tolerance and freedom of access to religious sites within "Palestine."
It's past time the Israeli government act responsibly and change the deplorable status quo upon the Temple Mount, and restore Judaism's holiest site as the Temple Mount, hosting a "a House of Prayer for all peoples" as envisioned by the Prophets.
David Ben-Ariel is a Christian-Zionist writer and author of Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall. With a focus on the Middle East and Jerusalem, his analytical articles help others improve their understanding of that troubled region. Check out the Beyond Babylon blog.
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