LETTER FROM JERUSALEM: TISHA B'AV AT THE TEMPLE MOUNT
By Arlynn Nellhaus

The latest crisis in Israel was inspired by the arrival of Tisha b'Av, a solemn holiday in the Jewish calendar. It recognizes the destruction of the First and Second Temples. It also marks a string of other catastrophes, such as the Expulsion from Spain.

This holy day, the Ninth of the month of Av, has been observed for 2,500 years. Jews sit on the ground and pray at the Western Wall, the retaining wall of the Temple Mount, the holiest place in Judaism.

Despite the fact that Israel conquered the Temple Mount from illegal Jordanian (except to Britain and Pakistan) occupation in 1967, the Islamic Wakf (governing body) continues to control the Temple Mount.

Moslems call it Haram al-Sharif. It is the third holiest place in Islam based on the belief that Mohammed' s horse carried him from the site to visit Allah.

But the Koran never mentions Jerusalem. The verse about this trip simply refers to "the farthest temple."

No historical evidence exists that Mohammed ever was in Jerusalem. Yet Jerusalem was perceived by him to be holy -- precisely because it is holy to Jews.

Yet after the Temple Mount came into in Israel's hands, Moshe Dayan simply handed the keys back to the Wakf, no questions asked.

Undoubtedly to Arabs' astonishment, he asked for nothing in return for this unprecedented generosity to people who had made war, not even an agreement that the grounds would be open to Jews and Jewish worship.

As a result, since last summer, the Wakf won't allow a Jew's feet to sully the place.

Jews are excluded from their own holiest site, location of the Second Temple destroyed by the Romans -- even though the Temple Mount, theoretically, is under Israeli sovereignty.

And, if Christians on the Temple Mount just might be suspected of praying, the Wakf's guards unceremoniously hustle them out, too. To Christians, the Temple Mount has holiness, for Jesus was here.

So, that's what freedom of religion looks like today in Islamic-controlled, Palestinian-administered, Israeli areas of the Holy Land.

A couple times a year, especially on Tisha b'Av, a small group, the Temple Faithful, tries to enter the Temple Mount. What they do -- without calling it that -- is street theater. Each year on that day, the Temple Faithful try to enter the Temple Mount.

Every year, the Israeli Supreme Court, concerned about Islamic feelings, forbids the demonstration. Israeli police carry out the order, and bar the group's entry to the Temple Mount.

This year the group wanted to have a symbolic cornerstone laying for the Third Temple, which, of course, would be located on the Temple Mount.

Again this year, the Supreme Court ruled that the Temple Faithful could not enter the Temple Mount. The police again announced they would enforce the ruling.

They would allow the ceremony only outside of the Old City which itself surrounds the Temple Mount.

Despite these court rulings -- and the prevention of the Temple Faithful from approaching the Mount by Israeli police -- this year, Palestinian Moslems acted hysterically.

The call went out that Moslems everywhere should come to "defend" the Haram al-Sharif against the Jews.

Israeli Arab Knesset members called for Moslems to come "protect the Al Aksa Mosque with your bodies."

On a normal Sunday, there might be as many as 1,000 persons at noon Moslem prayers. This Sunday, more than 3,500 showed up.

Meanwhile, the Temple Faithful -- a "fearful Jewish army" of some 40 people -- brought a 4.5-ton cornerstone, and had their symbolic ceremony in a parking lot across the street from the Dung Gate entrance to the Old City.

Once finished, they were allowed to enter the Old City and approach the slope to the Temple Mount. "Approach" is as much as they did.

The Temple Faithful had ended their performance, and were preparing to return the cornerstone to the street corner near the American Consulate East, where it normally sits, when violence descended from Palestinians on the Temple Mount.

Only the most fertile imagination could see the Temple Faithful as any threat to the Moslems at worship.

But the Palestinian stone-throwers above certainly disrupted Jewish prayers. Crowds of religiously observant Jews praying at the Western Wall were sitting ducks for huge rocks and stones dropped on their heads from the Temple Mount.

Incited by their leaders -- and what red-blooded Palestinian teenager, with hormones raging and dreams of being a martyr enjoying all those virgins reserved for him in heaven, could resist the temptation -- the stone-throwing started.

Most of the projecticles fell on Israeli women, worshipping below.

And so, Israeli police, out of patience in consideration of "Moslem feelings" were now forced to consider protecting Jewish lives. To stop the barrage, they rushed the Temple Mount.

With great restraint by the police, the outcome was, according to Ma'ariv, 19 Policemen and 60 Palestinains were injured. The BBC said 30 Palestinians injured.

Note, the police were unarmed. They had batons and stun grenades only. This was significant. I saw them armed with large plastic shields. This is the first time I can remember them with shields. Israeli police look so different from those in Europe and even Seattle, whose every inch is protected and look like monsters out of "Star Wars."

Nevertheless, the Palestine Authority announced victory -- that Israel was prevented from conquering Haram al-Sharif.

No fatalities - except for the Palestinian attempt to create a major incident.

BBC News radio, reporting the incident, never mentioned that this was a Jewish holiday, an important and solemn fast day, yet stressed the importance of Haram al-Sharif to Moslems.

For Jews, the Temple Mount was described merely as "a holy" site - not what it is -- the "Holy of Holies" for Jews.

How could BBC reporters not know what day it was in Israel? Don't they even read the Jerusalem Post while drinking morning coffee, or get dressed to Israel Radio's English news? After some Israelis complained to BBC-TV, they inserted mention that this was a Jewish holiday.

Or was the omission deliberate -- as was the BBC's stress on the site's holy importance to Moslems but not to Jews?

The Voice of America at first called the stone throwers, showering Jewish worshipers with rocks, "protesters." Is that why the police rushed onto the Mount?

A Sky News reporter stated, "I have to say, the Palestinians initiated this violence." He "had" to say? He "had" to make that admission? He couldn't have found some way to blame Israel? Maybe he'll try harder next time.

In fact, the Temple Mount violence was totally gratuitous. It was another Arafat-inspired attempt to put Israel in a bad light. It failed, despite nonsensical Arab pronouncements afterwards.

For example, Amr Mousa, secretary-general of the Arab League, called the event "serious and shows the extent of (Israeli) bad intentions." Hanan Ashrawi, that perpetual spinner of fantasies, now spokesperson for the Arab League, declared in all her self-righteousness, "This is an act of supreme provocation." She added, This is an "absolutely typical Israeli maneuver...They provoke the Palestinians and then they try to blame them."

To some of the foreign media, the event recalled Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in September, which they still blame for causing the current 10-month conflict.

When will the international media do their homework? Sharon's visit was not the cause of the violence. It was the excuse -- for which Arafat must have chortled with glee.

And this Arab strategy was not secret. During the Camp David negotiations from which Arafat high-tailed it, Abu Ali Mustafa, a member of the Palestinian Authority, wrote in a Palestinian newspaper of ongoing preparations for violent confrontations "to create new facts on the grounds."

December, at a symposium of Arab journalists in Gaza, the Palestinian Minister of Communications said that the Palestinian Authority began preparations for the current intifada -- on Arafat's request -- immediately after he walked out of Camp David II, several months before Sharon's visit.

This isn't classified information. It has been disseminated widely. But for some reason it is not reported by the international media.

They must think, "But, hey, why rely on the facts (which might make the Palestinians look bad), when Sharon makes such a convenient whipping boy?"

Once more, I can hear the Danes and French clucking their tongues at the Israelis, "So inconsiderate. How could they?" The European Union will call for international observers. Yasser Arafat will say the Palestinians need protection.

Stay tuned for the next rumor.

Arlynn Nellhaus is a former Denver Post reporter now based in Jerusalem, and the author of Into the Heart of Jerusalem, and a freqent contributor to The Idler.