In a bid to bring about the “end-time,” a fundamentalist Israeli doomsday cult laid a “symbolic” cornerstone for the Jewish Third Temple on Sunday.
The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement put the stone in place after winning approval from Israel's Supreme Court to carry out the ceremony at one of the gates of the Old City, near the ruins of what the Jews call Second Temple.
The court denied the group permission to lay the 4.5 ton stone at the site itself, which is also home to the third holiest place in Islam. The group therefore carried out the ceremony in a parking lot before picking up the stone and carting it off.
Observers had predicted bloodshed as the result of yet another fundamentalist assault on the Al Aqsa mosque compound and its Muslim custodians, who have been in charge of the disputed site for centuries.
Nevertheless, police reports as of the Sunday morning said the ceremony took place with a minimum of conflict.
MILLENNIAL AMBITIONS
Sunday’s ceremony was only the latest manifestation of some Jewish fundamentalists’ desire to prompt the arrival of the “end-time,” marking the end of the world as we know it.
According to the Temple Mount Faithful’s website analysis of world affairs, “the Faithful want to take the cornerstone with them and to bring a new prophetic end-time call to the people of Israel and all the world that it is time to rebuild the Temple as the G–d of Israel expects of us…This will be the end of the time of the destruction of the Temple, Jerusalem and the land and people of Israel.
“It will also be the beginning of the time of G–d's judgement on all the enemies of Israel who for thousands of years and again in our time are trying to continue the destruction and to again destroy the great dream and desire of the G–d and people of Israel to rebuild the house of G–d on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and to destroy G–d's prophetic end-time re-creation of the people and land of Israel and their eternal capital, Jerusalem,” adds the group’s article.
Sunday was chosen for the ceremony because the date, known as Tisha B’Av, is considered the anniversary of the destruction of the Second Temple.
In a self-fulfilling prophecy connected to the bloody “tribulations” the doomsday cult expects to accompany the so-called “end-time,” Israeli forces, continuing their 34-year occupation of Jerusalem, prepared for clashes with Palestinians on Sunday.
Prior to the event, Muslim leaders called on Palestinians to defend the Al Aqsa mosque compound, from which the Prophet Mohammad is believed to have begun a journey to Heaven.
For its part, the Palestinian Authority warned of the repercussions of Wednesday's court decision, calling on Palestinians to demonstrate en masse to "defend the mosque compound."
The Islamic Hamas movement called on Palestinians to mobilize Sunday and be ready to die to stop the laying of the symbolic stone.
"We call on the Palestinian people and their political groupings to gather very early tomorrow (Sunday) at the Al Aqsa mosque compound to stop the laying of the first stone of the said temple," Hamas said in a statement sent to AFP in Beirut.
LATEST IN DECADES OF ASSAULTS ON AL AQSA
Sunday’s ceremony was in some ways business as usual for the Muslim community, which has grown accustomed to Temple Mount Faithful assaults approximately every six months.
“Jewish authorities have encouraged assaults on the Islamic shrine, as well as on the Palestinians who with only stones are attempting to defend it. In the past 23 years, Jewish militants (often led by rabbis) have made more than 100 assaults on Haram Al Sharif. In no instance has any Israeli prime minister or the chief Sephardic rabbi or the chief Ashkenazi rabbi criticized these assaults, according to Grace Halsell, writing in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
The doomsday cult, meanwhile, was not satisfied with the opportunity to lay the stone in a parking lot, and prior to the event noted that more strife was on the way.
"In not permitting us to enter the Temple Mount, the authorities prolong the tragedy of the Jewish people," the group's leader Gershom Salomon said after the court ruling Wednesday, cited by the Israeli press.
The Jerusalem Post newspaper reported that dozens of supporters of the outlawed Kach terrorist movement attempted to break through police barriers Sunday night and enter the holy mosque.
Most Israelis do not back the Temple Mount Faithful, whose demonstrations usually consist of several dozen people.
"A majority of the Orthodox people don't support this group," a Jewish seminary student said after witnessing a recent Temple Mount attempt to lay the cornerstone. "You can't walk on the holy place of the Temple Mount. Only after the Messiah comes can the Temple be built."
But despite its small numbers, the group has proved remarkably successful at provoking violence.
In the 1980s, a Jewish extremist connected with the group, Yehuda Etzion, was convicted of plotting to blow up Al Aqsa mosque.
In October 1990, Israeli forces killed 18 Muslims and wounded 150 others when worshippers gathered to protect Al Aqsa from a similar Temple Mount attempt to lay the cornerstone.
Halsell reported that “eyewitness accounts, reports from four Palestinian and Jewish human rights groups, as well as three videotapes, reveal that…Israeli police initiated the conflict and then shot Palestinians in cold blood.”
The UN considers the Geneva Convention to be applicable to Israel's occupation of all of the territories occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem. Claiming it has full authority over these territories, the Israeli government has rejected all efforts to oversee their administration of the conquered land.
The Temple Mount consider Israeli’s claims to sovereignty over the Al Aqsa mosque compound as insufficient as long as they are denied permission to build the temple.
The group’s website asserts that “continuing Arab violence and desecration of the Temple Mount and the giving in to them by the government of Israel is an act of evil against G–d and His Word.” – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
