CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO AL-AQSA

BY ADIL RASHEED (Khaleej Times Editorial Page Issues) / 24 April 2008

The Majestic Qubbat Al-Sakhra Mosque or 'Dome of the Rock

ALMOST every night a loud rumble shakes their tenements. Palestinians living close to Occupied Jerusalem's Al Haram Al Shareef compound complain of being frequently awakened in the wee hours by the distinctive noise of a mechanised dig.

Many of the residents are convinced that slowly and surely Israelis in the area are burrowing their way toward the holy compound in order to weaken the foundations of its two Holy Mosques.

However, the international community rather ingenuously accepts Israeli explanations. For some strange reason, the issue has remained buried under the pile of other intractable problems fomenting Palestinian-Israeli hostilities. Even the news of this dig barely makes a blip on the radar of the world's free media.

Still, Palestinian concerns should not be taken lightly. Any untoward fallout of this dig could have enormous, potentially cataclysmic, implications for global peace and security.

Al-Aqsa Mosque is respected by roughly a fifth of mankind, the approximately 1.6 billion Muslims across the globe. To them, Al-Aqsa Mosque is the site of their 'first Qibla,' the second house of prayer established on Earth, and the third holiest Islamic site after the two Holy Mosques at Holy cities of Makkah and Madinah. It was from a rock within the Holy Al-Sakhra Mosque that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had ascended to the heavens. The sanctity of this holy site can only be understood by the profuse allusions to it in the Holy Quran and Hadith.

Al-Haram Al-Shareef lies at the heart of Jerusalem. At its southern end is Al-Aqsa Mosque and at its centre is the celebrated Qubbat Al-Sakhra Mosque or the 'Dome of the Rock.' However, for Muslims everything enclosed within the walled Al-Haram Al-Shareef precinct is sacred and inviolable.

What makes the excavation work, from the Silwan area to the Western wall, near the Al-Aqsa compound more dubious is that nobody, not even any Western journalist, is allowed to inspect the dig. Moreover, it is not the Israeli government but an Israeli settler outfit, the Ir David Foundation, which is financing the dig.

Claimed to be based on a late 19th century British excavation, Israeli diggers assert the quarry has exposed an ancient tunnel that veers close to the mosque complex but does not pass under it. However, many Palestinians believe the real plan behind this excavation is to dig secret tunnels beneath Al-Haram Al-Shareef to weaken the foundations of its sacred shrines.

Palestinian fears are by no means unfounded. They are aware how on August 20, 1929, extremist Jews aided by the British army raided the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque complex and seized control of its western part, including Al-Buraq Wall (now known as the Wailing Wall by the Jews). In a span of 15 days, 338 Palestinians are said to have been killed in their effort to thwart Zionist plans.

Then in 1967, the Israeli army entered Haram Al-Shareef in tanks. Thereafter, the then chief rabbi of the Israeli Army, General Shlomo Goren, entered the mosque courtyard and pointed toward a spot, which he said should be the site for the construction of the Third Jewish Temple. He clearly stated that he had planned a project for establishing the temple in the place of the Holy Al-Aqsa and Al-Sakhra Mosques.

On August 21, 1969, an extremist by the name of Dr Dennis Michael Rohan set the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque on fire. The flames caused extensive damage to the mosque, especially its historic 'minbar' (pulpit). However, Rohan was absolved of all charges on grounds of insanity.

Then on April 11, 1981, an American-born Israeli soldier named Alan Harry Goodman was able to enter Al-Aqsa Mosque, after which he started firing randomly. Two Palestinians were killed in the firing.

The Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque

In 1968-69, Israel carried out excavations close to Al-Aqsa Mosque and 'opened' two tunnels that penetrate beneath it in the area of the Hulda and Single gates. Then from 1970 to 1988, Israeli authorities dug up a tunnel passing northwards from the Western wall of the holy mosque. In doing so, they used mechanical excavators, which caused cracks and structurally weakened the buildings.

In 1996, the digging of an archaeological tunnel near the sacred compound again triggered unrest. Sixty-one Arabs and 15 Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes. On September 28, 2000, Ariel Sharon visited the Al-Aqsa compound, which provoked the Second Intifada. In the ensuing bloodshed about 6,000 Palestinians were martyred.

Then again in February 2007, Israeli forces demolished the historic road leading to Bab Al-Maghreba, for the building of a huge bridge in its place, to provide easy access for Israeli security forces and Jewish extremists groups to the courtyard of the holy site. These incidents clearly demonstrate the reasons why Muslims are apprehensive of Israeli intentions of carrying out excavations near Al-Haram Al-Shareef.

However, the current threat to the holy compound seems to be the greatest and most organised of its kind. Apart from their aforementioned dig, they are also building a ring of new settlements in the area, which Palestinians say will bolster their claim to the city of Jerusalem in any future peace deal. Last month, Israel invited tenders for 750 new housing units in this area of East Jerusalem.

However, despite all the archeological digs, authentic remains of ancient Jewish temples have not been found at the site. In fact, Israeli excavators have been baffled by the failure of the excavations in exhuming the so-called "Jewish era" of Jerusalem.

Therefore, far from establishing any Jewish legitimacy over the holy Islamic sites, present excavation work near Al-Haram Al-Shareef would merely weaken the foundations of the sacred mosques in the holy compound. In doing so, Israel is not only aggravating its existing tensions with the Muslim world, it is also risking the disastrous consequences of any untoward development caused by the dig.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2008/April/opinion_April89.xml&section=opinion&col= 

FREEDOM TO ABUSE?

Is it Politically Correct to Abuse Islam?

BY AFIA KHAN (Khaleej Times Editorial) 1 April 2008:

ONCE again the ‘freedom of expression’ bug has smitten the West. Though Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, feminists and even Blacks have managed to inoculate themselves against its abuse, with the Western media becoming more mindful of their sensitivities, Muslims frequently find themselves exposed to its most virulent strain.

Somehow, it has become politically correct and morally commendable in the West to subject Muslims and their religion to the most vulgar and inane insults in the name of this freedom. However, the several simultaneous and sudden attacks by Western media and politicians on Muslims in recent days seem to be as synchronised as they are insidious.

So when the far-right Dutch politician Geerth Wilders, who openly claims to be a Mossad-affiliate, makes an incendiary anti-Islam film and launches it on the Internet, the self-styled champions of freedom of expression come out to defend it, although the movie purportedly seeks to ban a religious book.

Even more curious is the fact that the Netherlands, far from taking any action against Wilders, asks the EU to hold a high-level summit in anticipation of the film sparking violence in the region. For its part, the EU also reportedly assures the Dutch government of supporting it in the cause of ‘freedom of expression.’

Similarly, it is difficult to understand how 17 Danish newspapers recently decided to simultaneously republish highly offensive anti-Islam cartoons, despite having known that these cartoons had sparked worldwide protests and uproar when they were first published by the Jylland Posten newspaper two years ago.

Like Netherlands, the Danish government has also showed its aversion to taking any action against the newspapers. In fact it has said it will itself stand guard over ‘freedom of expression.’

It would be only pertinent to raise the question that if Denmark is such a passionate advocate of freedom of expression, why does it have punishments written down in its penal code against libel and blasphemy. It is important to note that these provisions are not limited to violations against the Christian or Jewish faiths only, but to all people living legally in the country. Thus # 140 of the Danish penal code states:

"Anybody who publicly mocks or insults any in this country legally existing religious community tenets of faith or worship, will be punished by fine or imprisonment for up to 4 months."  The Danish government could have also taken action against newspapers over the publication of the offensive cartoons under other sections of its penal code, such as # 266b that states:

"Whoever publicly, or with intention to disseminating in a larger circle makes statements or other pronouncement, by which a group of persons is threatened, derided or degraded because of their race, colour of skin, national or ethnic background, faith or sexual orientation, will be punished by fine or imprisonment for up to 2 years.

Sec 2. When meting out the punishment it shall be considered an especially aggravating circumstance, if the count has the character of propaganda." However, its is highly unlikely that the Danish government or the EU would heed the plea of the Islamic world, even though Muslims have so far not resorted to any unseemly acts of violence in their protests. In the sam vein, Germany may also lack the political will to prevent the staging of a play based on Salman Rushdie’s novel Satanic Verses in Portsdam on Sunday.

Most Muslims believe that such insults and expressions of hate almost certainly would have been treated differently had they been directed against the Jewish community. Europe has strict laws against anti-Semitism, which no votary of freedom of expression could think of violating.

Even noted academicians who have slightly divergent views on the genocide of the Jews during World War II, either in the manner or the extent described by the current Western scholarship, get the tag of ‘Holocaust denier.’ Over a dozen countries in the world, including all the great votaries of freedom of expression, like France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, consider a partial disagreement with the official account of the holocaust fit enough to be deemed a criminal offence for which a person can be jailed for years.

David Irving

 David Irving, Germar Rudolf, Ernst Zundel, Roger Garaudy, Jean Marie Le Pen, Nick Griffin, Ahmed Rami, Pedro Varela, Carlos Porter, Siegfried Verbeke, Jurgen Graf, Hans Schmidt, Erhard Kemper, Ingrid Weckert, are just some of the scholars, politicians and activists who have been victimised, tried, or jailed for holding differing views on the holocaust than the official historical account. These people should have known the fate of Julius Streicher at the trial of German war criminals at Nuremberg. Streicher, the publisher of the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer, had argued in his defence that he had not killed anyone, but had merely published a newspaper. However, for causing incitement to genocide, Streicher was hanged to death in Nuremberg on 16 October 1946.

Therefore, freedom of expression has almost become the exclusive preserve of Western powers. For example, when religious symbols were recently banned from French public schools mainly to prevent Muslim girls from wearing headscarves in class, an exception was introduced for Jews and Christians that allowed them to wear of crosses and Stars of David. However, in the post-Iraq war scenario the credibility of Western values is eroding rapidly. Even in the US, the so-called trustworthiness of its mainstream media that is virtually owned by four conglomerates has come under severe strain, especially after its role in misleading the country into the Iraq war and their disregard of the 9/11 truth movement. A CBS/New York Times poll conducted in October 2006 found out that 84 per cent of Americans do not think the US government is telling the truth about the 9/11 attacks. An earlier poll conducted by CNN put the number at 89 per cent.

Yet, the mainstream US media does not publish the ‘evidence’ of the alleged cover-up and dismisses members of the 9/11 Truth Movement as loonies. Many members of this movement are noted public figures, scientists, former senior military and government officials, reputed academicians, scholars, TV and radio talk show hosts etc, who have suffered persecution for expressing their views. Therefore, before presenting itself as the proponent of free expression, Western zealots should first take a look at the hollowness of their claims.

For starters, they should understand that the principles of freedom of expression do not extend to hate campaigns, and that it is time to address the offence and not its reaction.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?section=opinion&xfile=data/opinion/2008/april/opinion_april4.xml