When Visiting the Temple Mount, Whatever You Do, Don’t Move Your Lips…
(Unless You’re a Muslim…)
Those Muslims are just so darn tolerant and peaceful…
By Amihai Zippor – InfoIsrael.net
(IHC News, 02 January 2008) In response to a written query by MKs Uri Ariel and Aryeh Eldad (National Union-NRP) to Public Security Minister Avi Dichter on whether Jews may pray in an “overt” manner on the Temple Mount, Dichter wrote that even if Jews move their lips on Judaism’s holiest site they may be arrested.
Moving ones lips is an expression and sign of Jewish prayer.
“It is not possible to arrest a person for ‘conversing’ with his maker. However it is possible to carry out an arrest for expressions of outward and demonstrative signs [of prayer],” Dichter replied.
Dichter added the rational is based on the order that bans Jews from praying at the site, “in light of serious concerns that this will serve as a provocation, resulting in disorder, with a near certain likelihood of subsequent bloodshed.”
The current strict guidelines for banning non-Islamic prayer on the mount have been in place since 2003 when it was reopened to non-Muslims after a two-year period when non-Muslims were not allowed to enter it.
The issue of group and individual prayer on the Temple Mount dates back to a 1976 Supreme Court ruling that sided with a government decision. As opposed to individual prayer, group prayer is considered provocative to Muslims.
MKs Ariel and Eldad sought the current government’s definition of the law to avert future problems with the Waqf (Islamic caretakers) on the site and to exercise their universal freedom to pray wherever they feel, especially in their own land.
However, the fight to pray on the Temple Mount has been extremely trying in recent years.
A 2005 WorldNetDaily report describing a tour on the Mount with a number of Christian archeologists said, prior to their ascent they were “warned in advance not to bring Bibles and once on the Mount, not to whisper or make bowing movements for fear the Waqf might think a non-Muslim is praying in the area.”
The article quoted Likud MK Moshe Feiglin as explaining the dire consequences of such banishment.
“We gave away our sovereignty to the holiest place of the Jewish people. I can pray in Manhattan, Damascus, Cairo, but I cannot pray in my holiest place because of an Israeli decision. … I think it’s a disgrace that represents more than anything the deepest conflict that Israel deals with – not peace, not security or the Palestinians.”
He explained the conflict as an internal Jewish one saying it is “between the Jews and themselves over what is going to be their national identity for the coming generations.”
Feiglin added, “This identity is represented more than anything else by the Temple Mount.”
2 January, 2008 at 4:35 pm
To every Jew and Israeli that might be reading this…
That this the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. What are you people – stupid? That is your site. It was your site before Mohammed was born, or a stain on the mattress. Why in God’s name, would you allow that to become a place you cannot pray?
People fight and die for Israel to exist, and for what? So you can give away the good parts?
If you keep making idiotic decisions like that, then the rights (and access) need to be taken away from you and put in more sane hands.