The antisemitic opposition to Jews on the Temple Mount

(JNS) — It is clear that opposition to the ability of Jews to peacefully pray on the holiest site in Judaism and the site of the first two Jewish Temples, namely the Temple Mount, is prompted by the virulent antisemitism of the Palestinian Authority and the Kingdom of Jordan. Their opposition is based upon the antisemitic view that there is no Jewish connection to the site.

The previous uniform Muslim view of the Temple Mount was expressed in 1925 by the Supreme Muslim Council in their published guide to the Temple Mount for tourists. It said the site’s “identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute. This too is the spot, according to the universal belief, on which ‘David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.’” The guide further states that Muslim rule over the Temple Mount began in 637 CE, the “year the Caliph Omar occupied Jerusalem.” In 1925, it seems, Muslim leaders understood that the Jews were the indigenous people of the Land of Israel and that the Temple Mount is Jewish.

Today, Jordan and the P.A. falsely claim that not just the Al-Aqsa Mosque, but the entire Temple Mount and the Western Wall are holy to Muslims and only Muslims. This claim is compounded by the antisemitic canard that the Temple Mount is not holy to Jews, enunciated in notorious fashion by P.A. chairman Yasser Arafat on July 17, 2000 at the Camp David Summit.

Arafat shocked President Bill Clinton when he denied that the Jewish Temples were ever on the Temple Mount. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Danny Ayalon, who was present, recounted that Clinton was furious and devastated. He yelled at Arafat: “Well, let me tell you something, Mr. chairman: When my messiah Jesus Christ walked on the Temple Mount, he didn’t see any mosques. He didn’t see Al-Aqsa. He didn’t see the Dome of the Rock. He saw only the Jewish Temple.”

The Muslim Waqf on the Temple Mount has spent considerable time desecrating the Jewish holy site in attempt to destroy artifacts establishing the Jewish connection to the site. Yisrael Medad wrote: “The Waqf Islamic religious trust has altered times of entry and prohibited Shabbat visits for Jews. … The Waqf created new holiday periods, planted tree orchards, paved over new pathways, built outdoor prayer platforms and constructed three new mosques on the Temple Mount.”

In an article in the Sept. 2021 issue of Commentary, Rabbi Meir Soloveitchik wrote: “The hard truth is that in the past 54 years since the miraculous moment when Jews returned to ancient Jerusalem, the sacred city has itself been rebuilt—but the destruction of the remnants of the Temple has gotten worse. The Waqf has destroyed much archeological evidence of the Temple that once was there, and many Palestinian leaders have denied that the Temple stood there in the first place.”

Tayseer al-Tamimi, former chief justice of the P.A. Religious Court, said: “The blessed Aqsa Mosque is Islamic and belongs to Muslims alone … and the Jews have no right to it … or the right to pray in any part of it.” He added that the “Al-Aqsa Mosque includes all its courtyards … and specifically its Western Wall.”

P.A. Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud al-Habbash has also asserted that Al-Aqsa “will not be shared with anyone, and no one besides Muslims will pray in it.” In Dec. 2021, Habbash stated that the Western Wall is “an authentic part of Al-Aqsa Mosque only.”

Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh gave his full support to attacks on Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall. At a parliamentary session, he said: “I congratulate all Palestinians and all Jordanian Islamic Waqf workers who stand as tall as a turret, and those who throw stones at pro-Zionists [worshippers at the Western Wall] who defile the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

Just a few years ago, Jordan asked UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee to reclassify the Western Wall as a Muslim site.

In the Talmud, the destruction of the Second Temple that we just mourned on Tish B’Av is blamed on the actions of Rabbi Zechariah Ben Avkulas. He was criticized for not speaking up when he witnessed a man named Bar Kamtza being thrown out of a party. In revenge for his humiliation, Bar Kamtza went to the Roman emperor and told him the Jews would not accept the emperor’s sheep as a sacrifice. Then, Bar Kamtza put a blemish on the sacrifice to make it unacceptable according to the Torah.

The rabbis wanted to allow the sacrifice to proceed in order to avoid angering the emperor, which they believed was acceptable because a Torah prohibition can be violated to save a life and the Temple. They rightly feared that the emperor would murder Jews and destroy the Temple if they did not permit the sacrifice.

However, this time Zechariah Ben Avkulas spoke up. He opposed the sacrifice and prevailed. As a result, the emperor was incensed, which led him to destroy the Second Temple, murdering many Jews and ending all sacrifices.

Many rabbis, including some who spoke up this past week, hold that since all Jews today are considered ritually impure, they are not allowed to go up to the Temple Mount because it may violate the holiness of the site. But they fail to take into consideration that the Israeli government’s agreement with this view since 1967 has led to a far greater desecration of the Temple Mount.

Furthermore, Maimonides, the great codifier of Jewish law, whose picture is displayed in the U.S. House of Representatives, apparently did not believe it was forbidden to go up to the Temple Mount and pray there, since he did so on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan with his father, brother and Rabbi Yaphet.

Rabbi Berel Wein famously said that God showed which rabbis were correct about whether Zionism would be successful by the many miracles that led to Israel’s establishment and survival. God’s hand is also apparent in regard to the Mount.

The most famous ascension to the Mount since 1967 was that of then-Likud leader Ariel Sharon. He visited the site on Sept. 28, 2000, to show his opposition to then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s offer to give up sovereignty over the Temple Mount to the P.A. Within six months of the visit, in March 2001, Sharon became prime minister. His friend, journalist Uri Dan, wrote that it was Sharon’s visit to the Mount that catapulted him to head of government.

It is astonishing that, in this day, it is considered legitimate to oppose the freedom of the Jewish people to peacefully pray at the holiest Jewish site. Israeli ministers are right to try to end that discrimination and the U.S. should stop opposing Jewish prayer in order to appease the antisemitism of the P.A. and Jordan.