But for Jews, it has been a different story. The Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, has been prohibited to Jewish worship since Israel regained control of it in 1967. The place where once the entire Jewish nation would congregate three times a year has been barren of Jews under the Jewish rule of the State of Israel.
Yet, as soon as the recommendation was made public, the Mufti of Jerusalem publicly threatened that any Jewish return to the Mount would be a provocation and would result in more violence and bloodshed.
It has long been public knowledge that the Mufti regularly incites Muslim masses to greater and harsher violence against the Jews in Israel. He is partly to blame for the outbreak of the current Intifada in September 2000, and he continues his open incitement to rebellion weekly from his pulpit atop the Mount.
It has also long been public knowledge that the Mufti has treasonous cohorts within the Israeli political establishment. Take, for instance, Meretz MK Naomi Chazan, who went on Israel Radio's English program this evening claiming that "this is not the right time" for Jews to exercise freedom of worship in the independent Jewish State. After all, the Muslims might use it as a pretext for more violence, just like they did when Ariel Sharon strode on the Mount last September.
Chazan, in one fell swoop, called into question the very Jewish sovereignty over its holiest shrine. And she went even further. She claimed that because a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount gives rise to the threat of Muslim violence, the very question was "an insane suggestion" and one that "should not have seen the light of day" in Israel "at such a sensitive time."
Naomi Chazan is an immigrant to Israel. She is American by birth. She came here at a time of great sensitivity as a Jewish immigrant returning home. Did she not realize that her very immigration to these shores was a provocation to the Arabs and a justification, according to her logic, for more Arab shedding of Jewish blood? In fact, the presence of any Jew anywhere in this Homeland is a provocation to the Arabs. One has only to look at the Palestinian National Covenant to find proof. One has only to listen to the Palestinian incitement over their official media and in their official schoolbooks to know that it is the cherished official wish of the Palestinian State-in-the-making to banish all Jews from this land.
Perhaps, Ms. Chazan feels that it is "not the right time" for more immigrants to land on these shores from the economic destruction in Argentina, the increasing anti-Semitism in France, the witch hunts in Belgium, or from Russia, or even from North America. Perhaps Ms. Chazan is questioning her own immigration to these shores. I know I am.
I have never been one to reject the idea of any Jew coming home to Israel. I have done so myself, and found great fulfillment in the move and in my presence and contribution here. I find that fulfillment despite the obvious self-loathing of fifth columnists like Naomi Chazan and her Meretz comrades, and despite the reverse racism shown inherently in Israeli policy toward Jewish issues such as the Holy Places and settlement of the Land.
I find such fulfillment in part because my very presence in Israel shows the Arabs that they cannot win. They cannot defeat the spirit of a nation that continues to attract immigrants from all over the world despite the hardships of living here, despite the lack of any real security, and despite the lower standard of living. Above all, my presence in Israel shows that the Arab anti-Semites who populate this region cannot destroy the Jewish spirit despite the best efforts of cowards like Naomi Chazan to give them aid and succor.
Now most certainly is the right time to allow Jewish worship on the Temple Mount, just as it is the right time to retake and exert control over Joseph's Tomb, and all the other parts of the Land of Israel for the Jewish nation in perpetuity. A few Arab threats, or even a few Arab bombs, will not deter the Jewish nation from its historic homecoming, despite Naomi Chazan.
Copyright 2002. All rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
