Regarding the Aqsa Mosque

Pic taken from here.

The latest incident took the world in suprise just as Israel was "renovating" a section of the Aqsa Mosque. The Question of the Aqsa mosque is not new. To be exact, Olmert's men were expecting trouble since the history of the wall (since 1929) triggered trouble. The Zionists were claiming they wanted to renovate the Haram Sharrif, a holy site for Muslims, Christians, and Jews, but they did not inform the Arabs. This is called Provocations while again the Zionists would appear as innocent and good will in face of "extremists". I will tackle the origin of the clash in this article; however, it makes me wonder: are the Zionists pleased to increase the rise of Islamic extremists to always appear as the victims? The Aqsa issue is not a religious with the Arab countries, not that I am a supporter of Arab Nationalism, but it has been an issue of National struggle. This would weaken the US satellite, despite they still got strong foot to remain for a while, and the alternative is imposed reactionary... simply a reaction to a reaction.

The History of the Aqsa Mosque

The Aqsa Mosque (means the Farthest Mosque in Arabic) is the Second oldest Muslim Mosque and the Third of importance in Islamic Religion. It is part of a greater religious entity called Al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif, as the holy honorable sanctuary if translated in English. Part of these complex intigrated buildings contains the Wailing Wall, which is assumed by the Zionists that it is part of the Prophet Solomon's temple, which is located in Eastern Part of Jereusalem, conquered by Israel after the Six Days War in 1967. The Eastern Part is being claimed by the Palestinian state. The oldest part of the Mosque is located at the Jewish section. Full History can be found on Wiki over here

The 1929 Clash

The problem with Zionism is they needed shrines to enforce their nationalistic preachings. This took place by focusing on the Wailing Wall. As I said a lot of times in this blog, there was no problems between the Jews and the non-Jews prior to the Zionist kick out of Palestinians from their homes and the importation of Jews per year.

Spreading fear between the Muslims and the Jews, the Zionists got what they wanted. According to the Memoirs of Vincent Sheean, a US journalist who lived in Palestine in 1929 and exposed the blunders of the Zionist (actually he was a Zionist sympathizer till he saw the lies of Zionism) in his article Holy Land - 1929. Taken from Walid Khalidi's compilation of articles From Conquest to Haven (Published by the Institute For Palestine Studies 1971). Sheean gave the following statements:

"The problem is not one of higher or lower standards. Any fool knows that higher standards of living are preferable to lower standards of living. Nobody could oppose Zionism if it meant simply the improvement of the conditions of like in Palestine. The opposition to Zionism, so far as I can tell - the only reasonable opposition, anyhow -- is based upon the fact that Zionism proposes to settle or colonize a country a country that is already inhabited by another people."(P.279)

"Bu I no longer tried to ignore the fact that Palestine was, by the overwelming majority of its population, an Arab country. " (P.281)

Regarding the Aqsa Mosque:

"But Zionists- most of whom, in my experience, were without religious feeling - used to visit it as I did, out of an ordinary aesthetic interest. The Moslems made no objection to such visits. In this and in other respects the Moslems of Palestine were less jealous of their holy places than Moslems elsewhere. I had never been allowed inside a great mosque in Morocco or Persia, but the Haram esh-Sherif, a far holier place to the Islamic world, was open to me or to anybody else all day long." (P. 283)

"The idea of the Wailing Wall was an ancient one, but I was never able to find out why the idea was attached to this particular segment of the wall and not to any other. The idea was, briefly, this: God has seen fit to exile His people from their Temple, and has condemned them t a long period of disaster, to be ended when the Messiah comes to restore them to their rightful place; particularly on the high holy days of the religion, the Day of Atonement and the Day of the Destruction of the Temple." (P. 284)

"Most religious Jews believed that the old stones of the wall were actually the stones of Solomon's Temple. This was not archaeologically correct; the oldest stones in the wall of the Haram were Graeco-Roman, of the period of Herod; but the original facts made no difference in religious belief. " (P.284)

"Before the nineteenth century there was no record of trouble at the Western Wall; the Moslems madeno attempt to prevent the visits of the Jews there, and a prescriptive right grew up, which was maintained under changing governments thereafter." (P. 285)

There have been two encounters afterwards between the Jews and the Arab rulers. There have been found two records, "In the first document, the Egyptian Governor of Jerusalem forbade the Jews to pave the area in front of the wall or to do anything else beyond 'make their visits in accordance with the ancient custom. In the second document the Jews were forbidden to bring into the Wailing Wall area any of the 'tools or instruments of possession,' such as chairs, screens, and the Ark (i.e., the furniture of a synagogue). The Moslem Refusal to permit innovations was learly based upon the fear that if they did so, the Jewswould soon have a synagogue at the wall of the Mosque. " (P. 285)

The entrance of Zionisn into the scene complicated issues. "The Truimph of Zionism at the end of the war (MFL notes: World War I), brought a new element into the question. The Zionist Organization was not itself religious, although it possessed a religious (minority and opposition) Right Wing. Its membership professed a wide range of belief in such matters, from agnosticism to orthodoxzy, and even included some Jews converted to Christianity; but considered as a whole it was a modern, Western, secular, political body. Still, the advantages to political Zionism of making a test case of the Wailing Wall were obvious. If the Zionists could get new rights at the Wall -- better, if they could get absolute possessiob of tge area - they could count on adherence of a large number of religious Jews who had always been cold to the movement." (P. 285)

"An attempt was made in 1919 to buy the Wailing Wall. The Zionists offered (through Sir Ronald Storrs; MFL notes: Military Governer of Jerusalem 1917-20; Civil Governer 1920-26) eighty thousand pounds; the the Arabs refused to sell" (P. 285)

"... so that the Zionist struggle was concentrated upon the Wailing Wall and the Arab resistance aligned before it. The question was no loger religious: it had become political and national as well." (P. 285)

"The struggle, fundamentally, was conceived as being for owndership. The specific question might be whether the Jews could bring chairs and a table to the place or not; whether they could blow the ram's horn (shofar) there; whether they could put up screens to seperate the women from the men; whether the Moslems had a right to walk through the place of hours of Jewish Worship;" (P.286), and since then incidents between the imported Jews via Zionists and the Moslem Arabs were triggered.

When the Moslim leaders argued that the Zionists were aiming to take over the entire Haram el-Sharrif location, the Zionists denied such a status and accused the Mufti of triggering passions. The problem is that the Mufti's speech wouldn't recieve any ears if the Palestinians didn't suddenly and gradually find themselves being kicked outside their homes.

The importance of the Wailing Wall was as follows: "But they [Zionists] ought to have possession of one hily place, the relic of the Temple (the only relic, as they somewhat loosely believed), and that the genuinely religious Jews, for the most part not Zionists, should have Zionism to thak for it." (P.287)

Zionist media through out the world broadcasted that the wall was under the possession of savages or barbarians in order to attain more sympathy and supporters.

Finally "The incidents of 1928-1929 were sure to make the Wailing Wall a crucial point in the struggle between Jew and Arab."

Post 1948

With the Arab Armies entering Palestine in 1948, the Jordanian Army made it to East Jerusalem. The suspicion goes that King Abdallah had negotiations with the Zionist leadership of the Yishuv. The areas controlled with the Jordanian Army became what would be currently the miniature of the Palestinian State with the majority of the Palestinians banished as homeless.

Post-1967

With the military blunders of Jamal Abdul Nasser, the Arabs lost within 6 days the War with Israel. The West Bank was annexed so was the Aqsa Mosque, which triggered again the issue of the Haram el Sharrif.

The Zionists remained searching for Solomon's temple. Escavations occurred, and in Ehud Barak even struck an underground tunnel.

Sharon, most hated Zionist figure, visited the Haram and all hell broke loose with the Second Intifada triggering mass death tolls with mainly the Arabs remaining there under minimum life conditions and the Jews.