The Zionist attempt

The reaction to this invasion came in the midst of the US bombing

The invasion by extremist Jews of the Masjid Al-Aqsa was perhaps inevitable, a natural consequence of not just the creation of Israel but also of its illegal occupation of Jerusalem, but its timing was suspicious, right in the midst of an Israeli war on Iran, as the Israeli partner in the attack, the USA, engaged in backchannel attempts for an agreement with Iran. It was almost as if Israel’s Netanyahu government was trying to use its extremist supporters to sabotage the US-Iran peace talks.

This time around, the intruders did not simply go inside the compound, but carried out certain religious rituals and offered prayers. Jews have long prayed at the Wailing Wall, part of the retaining wall built about 2000 years ago by King Herod to enclose the Second Temple. The site of the Second Temple (built after the Babylonians destroyed the original when they conquered Jerusalem in 587 BC) is identified as the Dome of the Rock, a spot in the Al-Aqsa compound which marks the place from which the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) ascended to Heaven.

The Jewish extremists are like Hindu extremists in that they too have a Babri Mosque they want to take over, only it is the Masjid Al-Aqsa. Like the Hindu extremists who had a Ram Mandir in mind, they too have a replacement, the Third Temple. The recent desecration was thus a preparation for this ultimate goal

There is considerable dispute among Jews about whether they can go to the Temple Mount as long as they are in a state of ritual impurity,which can only be removed with the ashes of a red heifer sacrificed in the Temple. A number of Jewish sects now hold that the Third Temple need not be built, nor blood sacrifices reinstituted.

Whatever the mainstream belief of the Zionist Jews who inhabit Israel, there are a number of Orthodox extremists who hold that the establishment of Israel fulfills the requirement for the rebuilding of the Temple. Others hold that the Messiah must come first. The Temple will be rebuilt, and then there will be Armageddon, the final battle.

This means that Christian Zionists, who believe that Armageddon is to precede the Second Coming of Christ are also supporters of this desire to rebuild the Temple. US President Donald Trump has not expressed any belief in this regard, but he is a Christian Zionist, complete with a photo of him in a yarmulka at the Wailing Wall. Jews are supposed to bewail the destruction of the Temple and pray for the rebuilding of the Third. What Trump prayed for is not known.

It should not be forgotten that there is a strong religious element within Zionism. Apparently a movement of ‘assimilated’ Jews, its reliance on the Bible for evidence of the Jewish claim to a homeland made the most extreme claims likely to be put forward.

One of the biggest lies told by Zionists is that Palestine is ‘a land without a people for a people without a land’. The land had a people already. The Palestinians. Inevitably, there was a difference of religion. Palestinians are Muslim, with an admixture of Christians. Therefore, they got into difficulties with the ‘people without a land’ who arrived in the first half of the 20th century.

The Zionists were basically fleeing their own land, Europe, where they had suffered for centuries as second-class citizens, and had undergone pogroms, until they suffered the Holocaust in Germany under Hitler, which was the most brutal pogrom of them all.

The Zionists who came from Europe to Palestine brought with them a colonial settler mentality, along with most of its worst attributes, including the racism that made the Jews suffer at the hands of the Nazis. While Jews are seen by the rest of the world as a homogenous whole, they have a number of divisions, such as between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, which are basically between white and non-white. However, the real division between them and the natives is not so much race as religion. A Yemeni, Moroccan or other Sephardic Jew is discriminated against because he or she is browner than the Ashkenazi Jew from Poland, but both look down upon the Palestinian not because he is brown, but because he is a Muslim.

It is often said in defence of Israel that it is a democracy, but that has religious implications. It means that someone deemed holy, or someone making a religious argument, need not be in a majority to enforce his opinion upon a religious minority, he needs only convince his co-religionists to sympathize even if it be lukewarmly.

Therefore, while an average Israeli might be appalled at the idea of demolishing the Masjid Al-Aqsa himself, he feels (as a Zionist) that the whole point of a Jewish state is to allow all Jews to live Jewish lives, and if that means taking over the Temple Mount, then so be it, and if Muslims object, big deal.

The other state created on the basis of religion was Pakistan, and one can see traces of this in its continued antagonism with Hindu India. Luckily for Pakistan, there were no disputed sites in its jurisdiction, the most prominent, the Shaheedganj Mosque, having been resolved (albeit with violence) before Partition.

What needs to be understood is that the Palestine issue arose during the era of decolonization, and was supported for that reason. Decolonisation is over. With only Palestine remaining. Therefore, the bulk of international support for Palestine is not for decolonization, but because of how brutal Israel was against Gaza. Support in the West seems to have died down after the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

However, the Palestinian cause has a source of support in the Muslim world, not because it is an oppressed Muslim land, but because it is the land of the Miraj, the Night Journey of the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) to Heaven itself. The Masjidul Aqsa is the holiest for Muslims after the Haram in Makkah and the Masjidun Nabi in Madinah, and with them is one of the only three Harams in Islam. Bigger mosques have been built, magnificent structures to reflect the devotion (and wealth) of their builders. But none is more sacred than this trio.

The Iranian resistance is not based on nationalism, or hatred of the USA, but the commitment of its Islamic government to the freedom of the land of the Isra wal Miraj. \\\it is a commitment shared all across the Muslim world, also by minorities in non-Muslim countries. Israel’s animus against Iran, and thus the USA;s, is because of this.

One of the most striking features of this episode is how calmly the Muslim world has taken it. If one compares it with the reaction to the 1969 arson of Masjid Al-Aqsa, by an Israeli settler from Australia, which came after the 1967 Six-Day War, after which Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza. Then there came the first Islamic Conference, and the formation of an organi\ation that is today’s OIC. This incident does seem to have got lost in the midst of the attack on Israel, but that is probably because the Muslim World has been gradually conditioned by previous intrusions.

Those by Rabbi Sholomo Goren, which started after the 1967 War, when he was Chief Rabbi of the Israeli Defence Forces, and which he continued for the rest of his life, were just the beginning. Of greater significance have  been those by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose politics is even further to the right than Benjamin Netanyahu, and who is the successor of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who propagated a forcible takeover of the Masjid Al-Aqsa.

The Jewish extremists are like Hindu extremists in that they too have a Babri Mosque they want to take over, only it is the Masjid Al-Aqsa. Like the Hindu extremists who had a Ram Mandir in mind, they too have a replacement, the Third Temple. The recent desecration was thus a preparation for this ultimate goal.