Senior Israeli Security Minister: We Will Redeem the Temple Mount, Make It Ours
- Senior Israeli Security Minister: We Will Redeem the Temple Mount, Make It Ours
by , https://www.richardsilverstein.com/
NOTE: This is an expanded version of an article published earlier this week by Middle East Eye.
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The headline blasted off the pages of Israel HaYom: Israel’s Public Security Minister, Gilad Erdan, boasted: “Freedom of worship on the Temple Mount? It can happen in the next few years, a decade at most.” The explicit meaning is clear to all Israelis: Erdan plans to topple the decades-old compact between Israel and the Jordanian Waqf to offer the most extreme Israeli settlers, who seek to rebuild the Temple, total and free access to Haram al Sharif.
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Given that it is the third holiest site in Islam, and that the Jordanian government is its guardian, offering full access to settlers will cause an immediate rupture with the Muslim world. It will threaten to resume the deadly riots which brought tens of thousands of Palestinians to the Haram when Israel installed intrusive surveillance equipment at the compound entrances.
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Erdan is banking on Israel’s budding bromance with the Sunni world, led by the House of Saud and its allies, deflecting any potential conflict with the Muslim world. Given how close these relations have become and the military-intelligence collaboration against their mutual enemy, Iran, the Saudis seem more than willing to abandon Palestinians. And with such abandonment comes a retreat from previous Muslim commitments to defend the Haram from Israeli encroachment or desecration.
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The Israeli government has made a cold, hard calculation that eventually it will get away with whatever it wishes at the holy site. Its Saudi-Sunni allies will protect it from any charges of religious violations. Palestinians will be outraged by Israeli assaults on the sovereignty of the enclave? They will be left to their own devices–just as Israel wants it.
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Then Erdan shockingly bares his true intent, to rebuild the Temple and restore it to its former glory—at the expense of the Muslim holy places:
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The fact that Jews can now pray on the Temple Mount does not mean that full redemption has arrived. Because this is dependent on powers beyond me, I cannot predict when this will happen. But it must be an objective realized in the coming years, a decade at most.
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However, we must also take into consideration the reality of the Middle East, which will always remain complicated. Though I respect the peace treaty with Jordan, it’s not possible to reconcile with a terrible historical injustice which was done.
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In other words, that day can only come when the Temple itself is rebuilt. Clearly, an objective he is endorsing wholeheartedly, though implicitly, since it is such an incendiary topic.
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Another senior Likud figure also exploited the Temple Mount for his own publicity campaign. Avi Dichter was Shin Bet chief during the second Intifada and responsible for the murders of Palestinian worshippers after Ariel Sharon’s provocative tour of the holy site. He too gave his own interview to Israel HaYom in which he offered groundless claims inciting fear and hatred of Palestinians.
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