Zionists and Jerusalem: Tactically flexible, strategically inflexible

On Jerusalem: Tactically flexible, strategically inflexible

Jerusalem is in the news. After an assault inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound Sanctuary (al Aqsa), Israel responded with security measures that the Palestinians and Muslims worldwide condemned.  Thousands of Jerusalem Palestinians protested and refused to go through the metal detectors to pray inside the al Aqsa. They prayed outside it. Israel tried to crush their protests but failed. Finally, Israel relented and removed the security cameras and the metal detectors.

Why did Israel place the metal detectors? Why did it place the security cameras? It is incremental takeover of the Compound. The takeover process started with Jews asking for Muslim permission to pray at the Western Wall of al Aqsa. The Ottoman authorities, out of religious tolerance, allowed Jewish pilgrims to pray at the Borak Wall/the Western Wall. During the British Mandate, Zionists tried to expand this foothold at the wall. As a result, they unleashed the six-month Borak revolution/strike. The Palestinians knew that the Zionist movement, secular on the outside, had a religious aggression and a hostile takeover scheme at its core. They have been resisting the Zionist takeover of al Aqsa since then.

In 1967, Jordanian-controlled Jerusalem easily fell in the hands of the Israelis. As detailed in a recent Haaretz article, Israel moved quickly to create facts on the ground using all kinds of schemes to make the changes appear not central planning by the state. The Moroccan quarter that is adjacent to the Boraq Wall was destroyed and its residents forcefully thrown out. Those who refused to leave had their houses destroyed on them and on their personal property. In the Moroccan Quarter a Plaza was built, a de facto Jewish shrine. Another step toward takeover was taken in the fog of war.

Who witnessed these incremental takeover steps? Jerusalem Palestinians. Today, PM Netanyahu leads a coalition that includes Jewish religious zealots who want nothing in the world more than destroying al Aqsa and building a Temple in its place. There are open calls in Israel for destroying al Aqsa, the “abomination.” Israel uses all kinds of pretexts to move incrementally toward that goal. Avi Shlaim in Collusion Across the Jordan characterized Zionism as tactically flexible, strategically inflexible as to the goal of creating a Jewish state in Palestine. The same can be said about its al Aqsa designs. Being tactically flexible Israel backed down from the confrontation with the Jerusalem Palestinians over the cameras and the metal detectors. However, the strategic goal of taking over al Aqsa has not/ will not be abandoned by the international Zionist movement that controls the state of Israel.

The irony of it all? There is zero archaeological evidence that Solomon’s Temple stood where al Aqsa stands today.  Israel has been excavating under the Aqsa since 1967 and no physical evidence of a temple has ever been found. I asked an archaeology professor who worked in Palestine for decades about this and he said: “On the temple issue, we only have literary evidence.”