By LAURENCE BECKER
(The writer is a Jerusalem attorney.)
(October 4) Jerusalem Post

The festival of Succot is one of the three festivals in the Jewish calendar during which Jews made their pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Temple, standing in all its majesty on Har Habayit, the Temple Mount.

At this time, our thoughts go back to when the entire world trembled with emotion on that summer's day in June 1967, when General Motta Gur declared with tremendous emotional excitement : "The Temple Mount is in our hands." Har Habayit, the single most holy place to the Jewish people all over the world, the site of the Holy of Holies, the very hub of Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, had finally returned to Jewish hands.

Yet, in one sweeping stroke just a few short days later, Moshe Dayan ceremoniously handed over the keys of the Mount to the Wakf, the supreme Moslem Council. Dayan, a man so steeped in Jewish history and archeology, did not possess the religious feeling and understanding to appreciate the extreme importance and the spiritual position of the Mount as the very core of Israel.

The 30 or so years since that tragic mistake have seen the gradual but constant erosion of Jewish influence and presence on the Temple Mount. Now the Jew is classified by the Wakf (and so treated by the police) as a "tourist" on the Mount. Permission for him to enter the area is subject to the whim and fancy of the Wakf. He has set times when he may go up (usually only two hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon). During the month of Ramadan this is reduced to one hour per day.

The IDF, within the framework of its educational program, organizes guided tours for soldiers on the Mount. There is a total prohibition, enforced rigidly by our Jewish police, of any reference by the guide to Jewish history, or indeed to any connection whatsoever with anything Jewish. The soldiers are fed with stories of Mohammed and Islam, and receive no information whatsoever of its rich Jewish history. It is as if the Temple had never existed.

Forbidden, too, is the carrying of any book or text of Jewish character.

On one of my weekly visits to the Mount (after ritual immersion), while awaiting "permission" from the police to enter, a man arrived at the barrier in front of the Mograbi Gate carrying what looked like a Jewish Bible.

It was difficult to discern from the man's features whether he was Jewish or not. The policeman stopped him abruptly and told him it was forbidden to take a bible onto the Mount. "But this one has the New Testament in it," said the man. "Oh, that's OK, then you can take it," was the response.

If you happen to be a religious Jew wearing a kippa on your head, the situation is infinitely worse. Not only are you checked for security reasons and to see whether you are carrying any "offensive religious weapons," but you also have to identify yourself, be registered in the ledger, checked through to the main police office on their computer and, if all is clear you will wait (often for 30-40 minutes in the blazing afternoon sun), until the Mount area is judenrein, for there must never be more than two religious Jews on the Mount at the same time.

When, finally, a policeman is found willing to accompany you, and you enter, a Wakf official attaches himself to you. He will walk two or three meters away from you, watching your lips all the time. Heaven forbid that they may quiver in silent prayer.

The feeling of religious emotion when you finally enter the Temple Mount has no parallel. Here the Temple stood in its glory; hither Jews from all over ancient Palestine would pilgrimage three times a year; here, the very heart of the Jewish people.

The emotions soon turn to sadness upon seeing the site used for football, picnics, and cheap tourism and upon the realization that another people has become the masters of this jewel.

Here you can stand atop the real kotel, not the later Herodian wall some 30 meters to the west, which now serves as the focus of Jewish prayers. Here your feet tread upon "paving" stones, stones stolen from destroyed Jewish houses and bearing the carved-out slots for the mezuza.

Everything Jewish is camouflaged, newly laid walkways cover Jewish history, newly planted olive groves disguise Jewish relics. Solomon's Stables (covering the entire southeast corner of the Mount) is totally out of bounds for Jews, which has allowed the Moslems to excavate the vast underground mosque opened last year.

City building regulations are trampled underfoot, the "status quo" is brazenly flouted as the Moslems do as they please in the area.

We are witnessing the rape of our heritage.