Submitted by Yisrael Medad, May 15, 2007 02:10

Hillel Halkin is entitled to his opinion about whether the Temple Mount should or should not be surrendered by Israel. That I do not begrudge him. It is his logic and his ignoring of a few facts.

The Muslim religious trust authority, the Waqf, together with the most radical of Muslim forces in Israel, the Islamic Movement (North), led by Sheikh Ra'ad Salah, has, since, the mid 1990s, been actively engaged in increasing the acts of destruction of Jewish aritfacts and remains, on the one hand, and the building of Muslim structures (two new underground mosques and a reputed fifth minaret, contributed by Jordan).

That Israeli authorities studiously ignore these acts and that the world pays no attention has nothing to do with Jewish prayer or other religious obligations towards the Temple Mount is obvious. It is a political question of simple respect that one people should have to another. If, after 40 years, these acts continue, it is only that Israel, a la Halkin, has attempted to minimize any Jewish identification with the site.

Prayer is banned. Psalm saying is prohibited. Overtly Jewish appearance is restrained. But there is no status quo and Jewish interests, entirely of a historical, cultural and scientific character are endangered and injured. Whereas Israel archeologists were willing to fight over Section G at David's City in the 1980s, having police horses ride over protesting ultra-Orthodox Jews, no archeologist insists on any excavation within the Temple Mount.

This attitude, backed up by the courts who refuse to apply the secular law of the land to protect a citizen's civil rights and liberties, is what encouraging further Muslim uncivilized behavior. And, I maintain, this is what motivates them to continue to fight Israel, using the most horrendous acts of terror in doing so. There is no way that Halkin's solution can defuse the Islamic opposition to Zionism and Israel but, rather, his suggested kowtowing to Islam at the location where Jewish primacy is so obvious is what will prove to be inimical to the idea of Jewish nationalism.

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