Jerusalem Third Temple: Efforts to Destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque Has Picked Up Precipitously in Recent Weeks

• Jerusalem Third Temple: Efforts to Destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque Has Picked Up Precipitously in Recent Weeks
  by Whitney Webb, https://www.mintpressnews.com/, 3 July 2019
  How the Third Temple Movement in Israel Rebranded Theocracy as “Civil Rights”
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  The Temple Activist movement is now more mainstream than ever before and its effort to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam, has advanced with great rapidity since the year began and has picked up precipitously in recent weeks.
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  JERUSALEM — In a troubling trend that continues to be overlooked by international media, the Temple Activist movement that seeks to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and replace it with a Third Temple continues to advance its agenda. The movement’s forward progress is largely thanks to its successful efforts in recent years to rebrand as a “civil rights” movement — securing support from secular and religious Zionists alike — as well as to growing levels of support in Israel’s executive and legislative branches of government.
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  As was detailed in Part I of this series, the Temple Activist movement is now more mainstream than ever before and its effort to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam, has advanced with great rapidity since the year began and has picked up precipitously in recent weeks. Yet this new face of the Temple Activist movement — one that claims that its quest is to wrest control of the holy site from Jordanian and Palestinian custody in the name of “equal rights” for Israeli Jews — obfuscates the troubling origins of this once-fringe yet now normalized campaign.
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  Netanyahu’s dance
  In addition to its increasingly strong hold on Israeli legislatures, the Temple Activist movement’s reach stretches all the way to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu, given his role as prime minister, has long avoided any explicit endorsements of Temple Activism, though his actions over his decades-long political career offer enough insight to conclude that he is, at the very least, supportive of the movement and some of its objectives.
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  Though Netanyahu has been relatively mum on the subject of the Third Temple specifically, his practice of remaining silent after prominent members of his government and political party promote Temple Activism has not escaped the notice of Israeli media, which has repeatedly pointed out that the claims of government officials close to Netanyahu qualify as incitement under Israeli law, a punishable offense. Such silence has been taken by some Netanyahu critics as tacit support for Temple Activists, as has Netanyahu’s recent appearances at events where Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock have been edited out of the Jerusalem skyline, despite the compound’s iconic status.
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  In addition to funding Netanyahu, Abramowitz has also donated to Yisrael Katz and Gilad Erdan — current Minister of Foreign Affairs and current MInister of Strategic Affairs, Internal Security and Information, respectively — both of whom support upending the current status quo on the Temple Mount. Palestinian academic and journalist Ramzy Baroud told MintPress that Gilad Erdan is “the main person advocating for this [Temple Activist] movement within Israel’s government and within Israeli politics.”
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  Another key financier of Netanyahu — U.S. casino magnate Sheldon Adelson — also appears to be supportive of Temple Activism. For instance, Israel Hayom — the Israeli newspaper that Adelson funds — has published numerous articles supportive of Temple Activism, including front-page stories that call for the destruction of Al-Aqsa mosque. Furthermore, Adelson has grown increasingly close to Israeli politician Naftali Bennett, who has increasingly pushed for increased Israeli control over the Temple Mount in recent years. Adelson even allegedly favoredBennett over Netanyahu for the position of prime minister at one point.
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  Bennett, who until recently was Education Minister, spent his tenure at that ministry inserting Temple Activist educational material into mandatory school curriculums, some of which were developed by the Temple Institute as part of a contract with the Bennett-led Education Ministry. In addition, Bennett — after failing to secure enough seats in Israel’s elections this past April — is mulling joining forces with Moshe Feiglin, one of the most pro-Third Temple Israeli politicians of all.
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  Beyond his close association with donors and politicians who support Temple Activism, Netanyahu’s relationship with prominent religious leaders have led to speculation that he supports the construction of a Third Temple on the Temple Mount. During a meeting in 1990with Rabbi Mencahem Schneerson — then leader of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, an international Orthodox Jewish organization that has gained global prominence and also invited controversy — Netanyahu asked Schneerson, often referred to simply as “the Rebbe,” for advice on both personal and political matters.
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  Schneerson, who up until his death was a strong advocate for the religious messianic belief that physical actions could speed up the fulfillment of end-times prophecy and the coming of the Messiah, advised Netanyahu that he “do something to hasten his [the Messiah’s] coming.” Netanyahu responded, “We’re doing, We’re doing…,” at which the Rebbe interrupted him, saying “Apparently, it’s not enough,” urging him to do more still, and eventually garnering a “Yes” from Netanyahu. After that meeting, Schneerson stated that Netanyahu would later “hand his keys over to Moshiach [the Messiah],” suggesting that Netanyahu’s political career would culminate in the building of a Third Temple, a prerequisite for the appearance of the Messiah per Schneerson’s teachings.
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  Given that Schneerson heavily promoted the construction of a Third Temple during his lifetime and frequently received Third Temple models from devotees as offerings and gifts, this exchange has contributed to speculation that Netanyahu supports the same vein of religious messianism and vision propounded by Temple Activists.
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  However, leaked audio of a private meeting between Netanyahu and other Likud Party members provided evidence that Netanyahu does not personally approve of constructing a Third Temple, but turns a blind eye to those that do within his ruling coalition and among his donors purely out of political expediency. In that leaked audio, recorded in 2015, the prime minister stated that if Israel wanted to destroy Al-Aqsa “it would not require a great effort… but it goes against everything we stand for.”
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  Yet, in the years since that meeting took place, the prime minister has made some moves that have suggested that he may no longer think that destroying Al-Aqsa is “against everything we stand for,” especially given that Temple Activism is much more mainstream now than it was in 2015. Such claims of possession and right have increased following the beginning of the Trump administration in the United States, which — as the next installment of this series will show — also contains numerous figures who are committed to building a Third Temple on the Temple Mount, albeit for different reasons.
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  Yet, as the next installment of this series will show, none of this would be possible without strong support from the United States government, where powerful politicians and individuals – particularly within the Trump administration – share the vision of the Temple Activists, although many of them, being Christian Zionists, do so for radically different reasons. The combination of strong support for using political force as a driver of eschatology — among certain groups, whether of Christians or Jews — has increasingly become a common denominator between U.S. and Israeli politics in recent years, one that has colored the foreign policy of both countries.
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