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The Truth about the Temple Mount Controversy

[Weekly Standard] David Gelernter - The hysterical Arab reaction to the replacement of a ramp to the Temple Mount must be understood in context. Why are Muslim religious authorities in charge of the Temple Mount anyway - Judaism's holiest site, in the heart of Israel's capital city? And who built the Temple Mount in the first place, and what makes this site holy? Furthermore, the real question is how can the Arab world be cured of its blood-lust against the Jews of Israel? Muslims revere this site in consequence of the Temple that once stood here. The Temple was as real as the World Trade Center. No sane historian doubts its existence. It is attested in many contemporary sources, Jewish and otherwise. Simon Goldhill, professor of Greek at Cambridge University, called the Temple "the largest and most awe-inspiring religious monument in the world....There is nothing like this anywhere else in the ancient world." Israelis created (long ago) the platform on the Temple Mount and the Temple itself, and the religious community that gave it all meaning. Thousands of years later, Israel in 1967 turned over the keys to the Waqf in a peace offering, an act of friendship. Today, Arab leaders demand (in violent outrage) that the world protect the Al-Aqsa Mosque - their precious, sacred cultural treasure - by stopping an Israeli construction project that won't go anywhere near it. The writer is a national fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
2007-02-19 01:00:00
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