Arabs, Jews Fired Up Over Sacred Sites : Both Express Fears; Western Wall, Dome of Rock Side by Side

The question of access to a major site holy to both Islam and Judaism following Arab disturbances there has awakened the potentially explosive question of who has the rightful claim to it.

To Muslims, the area is known as the Haram al Sharif, the Sacred Enclosure, home to Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock--shrines so holy to Muslims that to die in their defense would earn a believer a direct trip to Heaven.

To Jews, it is the Temple Mount, site of the last Jewish Temple destroyed by the Romans more than 1,900 years ago. When Jewish worshipers pray at the adjacent Western Wall, they are expressing devotion to the Temple Mount: The Wall, all that remains of the temple, is a remnant of a retaining structure at the base of the Temple Mount plateau, located in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Restricted Access

Since a riot at the Al Aqsa mosque on April 7, Israeli police have restricted access of youths and Muslims from outside Jerusalem. Police say the measures have been taken only in response to the unrest and are not designed to restrict worship.

On Friday, police blocked roads from the West Bank into Jerusalem and turned away hundreds of young men traveling to the city. Palestinians who tried to enter the Old City were also turned away if they were either from the West Bank or Gaza Strip or were in their 20s or early 30s. About 7,000 worshiped at the Al Aqsa mosque. No trouble occurred, although Jewish protesters carrying sub-machine guns demonstrated at the Western Wall to assert their right as Jews to what they consider their land.

Despite police assurances, Muslim caretakers of the Haram al Sharif suspect that Israeli authorities are plotting a takeover of the coveted plateau on the Old City’s south side.

“Never, never have there been such restrictions,” said Sheik Mohammed Jamal, who leads prayer services at the mosque and who is a primary caretaker of the site.

Defends Demonstrations

Sheik Jamal defended Arab demonstrations within the compound as the right of Muslims “in their home to say what they please.”

“If the Israelis tried to take even one centimeter of this place from us, I would be the first to die to protect it,” he advised, raising his hand as if taking an oath.

Some religious Jews counter that it is they, not the Muslims, who have a complaint. Jewish worshipers are barred from the site in a policy dating back to 1967, when Israel captured East Jerusalem and the Old City from Jordan in the Six-Day War.

“Our leaders thought it would be too upsetting to let Jews pray there,” recalled Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who was then the chief rabbi of the army and has served as a chief rabbi of Israel.

“So what did we liberate? This is a Jewish state, and yet they have turned over the holy of holies to the Arabs!” he exclaimed. “Unbelievable!”

Goren is trying to organize a prayer session on the Temple Mount, but it is far from clear whether his followers would risk it--or the government tolerate it.

The turmoil three Fridays ago and the emotions subsequently released show why. Following prayer services marking the beginning of Ramadan, a holy month of fasting, Muslim worshipers unfurled Palestinian flags.

Police intervened and rocks flew, followed by bullets and tear gas. Some of the rocks were hurled at Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall below, injuring three and scattering the rest.

Israelis protested angrily that their prayer site had been made unsafe by the potential for protests above. Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz, a Cabinet minister, warned that “no dirty Arab will stop us from moving about freely and safely in our own land.” He later apologized for the intemperate reference to Arabs.

Strong Emotions on Both Sides

Such raw outpourings of emotion come from the strong bond between religion and nationality that exists in the Middle East, observers say. For Jews, the Muslim dominance of the Temple Mount recalls ancient defeats and exile.

“On one level, it’s humiliating for Jews to see the triumphalism symbolized by the mosque standing on what one considers his own,” said David Hartman, an Orthodox rabbi and head of the Shalom Hartman Institute, which is dedicated to religious tolerance.

“But,” he added, “we have to get away from the scarcity principle, and get away from the idea that there is limited geography for our religions.”

Sheik Jamal carried the idea of Islamic dominance a step further. Brushing aside notions that the police could actually keep Muslims from praying, or even protesting, by barring them from the mosque, he said, “To us, all of Jerusalem is a mosque.”

Haram al Sharif is the place where Muslims believe that the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven on his horse. The natural stone platform from where he ascended is encased in the gold-topped Dome of the Rock, one of the primary places of Muslim pilgrimage. Many Jews believe that Al Aqsa mosque was built over the altar of the Jewish Temple.

Muslim suspicions of a Jewish plot to take over the park-like complex have been fed in recent years by an increase in Jewish demands for access to the mount and by efforts of Jewish extremists to blow up the Dome of the Rock.

Even archeological digs are viewed with extreme skepticism. Israeli researchers once opened a tunnel beneath the compound, but Muslims sealed it up for fear that the Jews were trying to conquer the place from below.

The imam is, in any case, sure that Allah will eventually take care of the question himself. “Allah will clean the land,” Jamal vowed.

‘The Gate to Heaven’

Rabbi Goren is equally confident that God is on his side. “To us, the Temple Mount is the gate to Heaven,” he said. “Why else have we come here other than to return to the Temple Mount?”

While Goren claims to be willing to settle for access only to a remote part of the large compound and pray under open skies, Arabs are likely to suspect ulterior motives. In the recent past, apparently small steps to establish a Jewish presence in predominantly Arab places have resulted in Jewish expansion and deep Arab resentment.

About 20 years ago, a group led by Rabbi Moshe Levinger set up residence on property near the West Bank city of Hebron, a center of Muslim fundamentalism that is also the site of the tomb of Abraham, the patriarch revered by Jews and Muslims alike.

Spawned Settlement

Levinger’s brash act became the seed for the settlement of Kiryat Arba and another step in support of the biblical claim to the West Bank that is now a part of official government policy.

There is a small minority of Israelis who believe that the solution to the question of access to the Temple Mount is the expulsion of the Muslims.

“The question is, who is the owner and who is the guest? You can make a compromise on anything but religion,” mused Rabbi Nachman Kahane, who runs an institute dedicated to the revival of the temple in place of the Muslim shrines.

“I expect that the temple will be established on the Temple Mount in my lifetime. The only question is: How long will I live?” he said, half in jest. “Changing the ‘mosque’ to ‘Moscowitz’ is not that easy.”

Brother of Militant

Kahane, brother of Rabbi Meir Kahane, a militant right-wing nationalist, has set up a small synagogue in the midst of an Arab neighborhood in the Old City, just down the street from Sheik Jamal’s office near Al Aqsa.

Kahane moved into an old synagogue that had been occupied by two Arab families for many years after Jews fled the neighborhood following clashes 50 years ago.

The return to the synagogue seven years ago coincided with efforts of right-wing Israelis to expand the presence of Jews in the Old City, which for several decades has been dominated by Muslim Arabs. Ariel Sharon, current industry minister and a controversial former defense minister, owns a house on the same street as the synagogue. Arab attackers have on several occasions hurled firebombs at Sharon’s home; they consider the new tenants the vanguard of an effort to outflank Arabs on the approach to the mosque complex.

At his synagogue, Kahane keeps computerized lists of potential volunteers to eventually serve as priests at the temple according to the ancient tradition. For them, he offers a course in Advanced Sacrificial Studies.

In a museum in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, Kahane also maintains replicas of vessels once used during temple rituals. A videotape explains that “it is only a matter of time before the goal is achieved.”

Safe Jewish access to the Western Wall is not enough, Kahane added, because the wall is but the remains of the temple destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. “The Western Wall is a symbol of destruction,” he explained. “The temple was the center of our national life.”

Kahane, a native of Brooklyn, believes that the founding of Israel 40 years ago was not just one of a series of national movements that sprang up in the wake of World War II or a secular means of finding a refuge for persecuted Jews, but rather a millennial moment in Jewish sacred history.

“It was no mere political event. It was a great religious event,” he said.

Source of Frustration

That Israel has not cleared the Temple Mount of the Muslim shrines is a source of frustration to Kahane, although understandable to him in practical terms. “We are not ready to take on 800 million Muslims,” he said. “We have to be careful. Our dream is like a small bird. If we hold onto it too tightly, it will suffocate. If too loosely, it will fly away.”

In the same breath, Kahane says that a way must be found for Muslim and Jew to live together. “My best boyhood friend in Brooklyn was an Italian,” he said.

While insisting that he has no trouble with Arabs in his neighborhood, he nonetheless carries a pistol on his belt.

WHERE FAITS COLLIDE--The Temple Mount, located within the walled Old City of Jerusalem, contains sites holy to both Judaism and Islam. The Muslims, who call the place Haram al Sharif, worship at Al Aqsa mosque and revere the Dome of the Rock as the site from where the Prophet Mohammed ascended to Heaven. To the Jews, the Western Wall--all that remains of the Second Temple--is their holiest place. Elsewhere in the Old City are locations such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which make Jerusalem also central to the Christian faith.