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Video: Beyond the Debate over Metal Detectors

(Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Dore Gold - Holy sites across the Middle East have lost their traditional immunity. The Taliban dynamited 2,000-year-old Buddhist statues in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan. There were attacks in areas controlled by the Palestinians such as Joseph's Tomb in Nablus and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. This year, Saudi Arabia foiled a suicide attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca. A year ago there was an attack on the Prophet's Mosque in Medina where four Saudi Arabian security officers were killed. ISIS recently destroyed the 800-year-old Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, Iraq. Given this wave of attacks, all governments around the Middle East feel the necessity to put in place security measures that will prevent jihadi organizations from carrying out their plans. What has been motivating many young Palestinians who are protesting outside of the Temple Mount area has been the complete falsehood that Israel intends to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This myth was originally begun by the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini back in 1929. It has returned every four or five years with greater force. Raed Salah, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel's northern branch, has for the last decade been convening large rallies with huge posters asserting that Al-Aqsa is in danger. Beyond Israel, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual head of the Muslim Brotherhood, who sits in Qatar, who has been asserting that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is in greater danger than ever before. Young people hear these stories and are convinced that if they don't take action, then their cherished mosque is at risk. Even if you solve the problem of what kind of sensors you put in place at the Temple Mount, you're going to be left with the incitement that is the principal cause of the violence. This is why, if the issue of religious incitement is not explicitly addressed, then the seeds will still be left in place for the next round of violence ahead. The writer, president of the Jerusalem Center, served as Israel's ambassador to the UN and director general of the Foreign Ministry.
2017-07-27 00:00:00
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