Arab–Israeli conflict - Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and the rebuilding of the Third Temple

Arab–Israeli conflict - Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and the rebuilding of the Third Temple

Jerusalem has become a place of increased tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, which have led to a number of violent clashes, a spate of terror attacks by suicide drivers, the horrific massacre in Har Nof’s largest shul, two men being stabbed by Arab assailants near Jaffa Gate and Rabi Yehuda Glick, who was shot four times by a presumed Palestinian assailant, who was later killed, two people were stabbed by a Palestinian man at a Rami Levy supermarket in the Mishor Adumim industrial zone, east of Jerusalem near the settlement of Maaleh Adumim. He was shot by an off-duty security guard. Two Palestinians from the West Bank Jerusalem suburb Al-Azariya were detained and questioned by police in the supermarket on suspicion of aiding the assailant. There is now a greater mistrust toward Arabs living and working in the city due to fears that they may be the next terrorist who goes on a rampage. Is this current cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence a third Intifada? No. But what then is the cause of all the trouble in Jerusalem?

The riots and violent incidents have been occurring mainly along the lines separating Jewish and Arab neighborhoods and also in mixed areas. About 12,000 incidents of stone throwing, petrol-bomb throwing, and hurling of fireworks, along with hit-and-run attacks, stabbing and shooting incidents have brought this wave of violence, which is directed (almost without exception) at Jews.

The Temple Mount, a major focal point of the Arab–Israeli conflict, is currently at the centre of escalating violence and rising tensions in Jerusalem.

A brief look into the Palestinian (Arab)-Israeli Conflict

After the assasination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, and in the shadow of enforced assimilation, attacks from Pogroms and the "Haskalah" being practised by many Jews, the first Jewish immigration movement consisting of Rumanian and Russian Jews, known as the Lovers of Zion, was established. Another organization, known as Bilu having immigration of Jews on its agenda had been established in 1882.

Aliyah is an important Jewish cultural concept and a fundamental component of Zionism. It is enshrined in Israel's Law of Return. In Zionist history, the different waves of aliyah (return to Eretz Yisrael) started with the arrival of the Biluim from Russia in 1882 (1882 - 1903) followed by the second Aliyah 1904 - 1914 (Jews from Russia and Yemen), the third 1919 - 1924 (Jews from Russia), the fourth 1924 - 1932 (Jews from Poland and Hungary), and the fifth 1933 - 1939 (Jews from Germany).

By 1910 Jews were rapidly coming into their own. This holy city then contained more than 60 000 Jews, and they formed over two thirds of the whole polpulation. In the main there were 3 different classes - the Ashkenazim made up of Jews from Russia, Poland, Austria and Germany. Their common language, Yiddish. The second class was the Sephardim. They were Spanish and Portuguese Jews. The third class was the eastern Jews, made up of Israelites from Syria, Persia, Arabia and central Asia.

The Balfour Declaration

Arab tension

Religious tension, an international economic crisis and nationalist tension (over Zionist immigration) led to the 1929 Palestine riots. In these religious-nationalist riots Jews were massacred in Hebron and the survivors forced to leave the town.In 1936 an Arab uprising occurred, which lasted for three years. The Supreme Muslim Council in Palestine, led by the Mufti, organized the revolt.

Partition of Palestine

The 1947 UN decision to partition Palestine. On 29 November 1947 the United Nations General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state (with Jerusalem becoming an international enclave). Amid public rejoicing in Jewish communities in Palestine, the Jewish Agency accepted the plan. The Palestinian Arab leadership and the Arab League rejected the decision and announced that they would not abide by it. Tensions gradually evolved into Arab-Israeli conflicts. Israeli independence in 1948 was marked by massive migrations of Jews from both Europe and the Islamic world to Israel, and of Arabs from Israel leading to extensive conflict with the Arab League. The situation escalated with Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories (The West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip) in the 1967 war. Source. Historical Israel, Zionism and the Messianic Age. Owen Noome.

In our day and age we witness a systematic campaign of terror and violence orgastrated by Hamas, the PLO and Fatah.

This include inflammatory statements made by Palestinian leaders. In the month of November 2014 Israeli Prime Minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu (Bibi) accused Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of incitement in Jerusalem. In October 2014 Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar declared the constant cycle of violence in Jerusalem an “intifada." In September 2014, 30 Hamas operatives were arrested by Shin Beth. This terror network operated throughout the West Bank. They planned to kidnap Israelis in Israel and abroad, enter Israeli villages, detonate car bombs, perpetrate roadside attacks, and execute a major terror attack in Teddy Soccer Stadium. In the latest terror attacks in Jerusalem Hamas congratulated and praised the Arab attackers and called to continue such attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Reasons aggravating (motivating) Palestinian assaults and hatred

Injustices that befall the Palestinians.

“Several leading scholars of Middle Eastern studies and Islamic history have confirmed that the Palestinians do not have ancient roots in the area and are trying to invent origins for themselves that predate the Jewish people’s presence,”

The One Land, Two-State solution. A two-state agreement between Israelis and Palestinians remains a thorny issue. A Two-State solution means; a division of Palestine/Israel into two territorially independant states - one Israeli state and one Palestinian. The borders of the state of Palestine are "based on the pre-1967 borders". Many Palestinians and Israelis, as well as the Arab League, have stated that they would accept a two-state solution based on 1949 Armistice Agreements, more commonly referred to as the "1967 borders".

"A Palestinian state in the occupied territories within the 1967 frontiers in peaceful coexistence alongside Israel is the only conceptual candidate for a historical compromise of this century-old conflict. Without it the conflict will remain an open-ended one." Walid Khalidi, MLit, General Secretary of the Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS).

"The premise on which the peace process has been based is the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is also an integral part of what has become known as Bush's vision for the future of the Middle East, i.e., two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side. This political vision is one of the fundamental bases for the implementation of a future solution based on international legality that calls for Palestinian self determination in an independent state in the territories occupied in the 1967 war." Ghassan Khatib.

"In my vision of peace, in this small land of ours, two peoples live freely, side-by-side, in amity and mutual respect. Each will have its own flag, its own national anthem, its own government. Neither will threaten the security or survival of the other. These two realities - our connection to the land of Israel, and the Palestinian population living within it - have created deep divisions in Israeli society. But the truth is that we have much more that unites us than divides us..." Benjamin Netanyahu, MSc, Prime Minister of Israel.

"Palestinian unity government will accept a two-state solution." Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

"November 2017 deadline for the establishment of two states is based on the boundaries that existed before the 1967 Middle East war, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza and seized East Jerusalem - the areas the Palestinians want for an independent state." Saeb Erekat.

Issues undermining prospects for a two-state solution

"We won't recognize the Zionist entity. Our rights are still usurped and it's illogical for us to recognize the Zionist entity because that would be at the expense of our stolen lands and our people in the refugee camps.” (Musa Abu Marzouk, deputy to Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, Cairo, May, 1, 2011).

"Our goal is to liberate all of Palestine, from the river to the sea, from Rosh Hanikra to Umm Al-Rashrash [Eilat]. We do not want a state 364 square kilometers in size, nor do we want a state which we had to beg for at the negotiating table. Such a state will never come to be. What we want is a free state, which maintains its dignity, 27,000 square kilometers in size – the size of Palestine in its entirety." (Hamas representative Osama Hamdan at press conference, Hamas Al Aqsa TV, Dec. 2008).

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” Hamas Covenant. Article Seven.

"The question of the liberation of Palestine is bound to three circles: the Palestinian circle, the Arab circle and the Islamic circle. Each of these circles has its role in the struggle against Zionism. Each has its duties, and it is a horrible mistake and a sign of deep ignorance to overlook any of these circles. Palestine is an Islamic land which has the first of the two kiblahs (direction to which Moslems turn in praying), the third of the holy (Islamic) sanctuaries, and the point of departure for Mohamed's midnight journey to the seven heavens (i.e. Jerusalem)." Hamas Covenant. Article Fourteen.

"We will never recognize the Jewishness of the state of Israel.” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

God's warning

The Temple Mount, a major focal point of the Arab–Israeli conflict

Temple Mount (Heb., Har Habayit; Arabic, Haram al-Sharif, The Noble Sanctuary)

"The Temple Mount is one of the focal points of the violence, both in a literal and an ideological sense. What happens there affects both the immediate and more distant surroundings." Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Rebuilding of the Temple in the days of Herod (Herod's Temple)

Herod the Great became king of Judea in 40 B.C. In the eighteenth year of his reign undertook a very great work, that is, to build of himself the temple of God, and make it larger in compass, and to raise it to a most magnificent altitude, as esteeming it to be the most glorious of all his actions, as it really was, to bring it to perfection; and that this would be sufficient for an everlasting memorial of him. The Jews were afraid that he would pull down the whole edifice, and not be able to bring his intentions to perfection for its rebuilding; and this danger appeared to them to be very great, and the vastness of the undertaking to be such as could hardly be accomplished. But while they were in this disposition, the king encouraged them, and told them he would not pull down their temple till all things were gotten ready for building it up entirely again. So Herod took away the old foundations, and laid others, and erected the temple upon them,.....Herod's work more than doubled the size of the Temple building and the Temple Mount itself was greatly expanded to a plaza area measuring about 2,575 by 985 feet, with eight gates. Flavius Josephus. Book XV. Chapter 11. 1 - 7.

Herod's temple, the temple of Jesus' day, was a huge and magnificent structure, a wonder of the ancient world. This was the same Temple, which took 46 years to complete. 70 AD - the Romans under command of Titus destroyed the Temple, 7 years after its completion.

Jerusalem was taken in the second year (A.D. 70) of the reign of Vespasian (reigned 1 July 69 – 23 June 79), on the eighth day of the month Gorpeius (Elul) "Elul" is the Sixth Month of the year, counting from "Nisan," called in the Chumash, "the first month. It is called "the month of repentance," "the month of mercy," and "the month of forgiveness."

The Temple Mount is the trapezoid-shaped, walled-in area in the southeastern corner of the Old City of Jerusalem. The four walls surrounding it date back – at least in their lower parts – to the time of the Second Jewish Temple, built at the end of first century BCE. These huge supporting walls, partly buried underground, were built around the summit of the eastern hill identified as Mount Moriah , the site traditionally viewed as the location of where Abraham offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice. The trapezium shaped platform measures 488 m along the west, 470 m along the east, 315 m along the north and 280 m along the south, giving a total area of approximately 150,000 m2 (37 acres).

The 17th of Tammuz is a fast day and the beginning of the three week period known in Hebrew as bein hameitzarim - "between the straits" - which commemorates the destruction of both the first and second Holy Temples, concluding with a 25 hour long fast on the 9th of Av, the day of the destruction of the two Temples. The month of Tammuz has been marked for the past two thousand years of Jewish history by weeping and mourning for the Holy Temple.

In the days of Hadrian

In A.D.135, Hadrian built the largest temples of Jupiter in place of the Jewish temple on the Temple Mount. He also built a temple to Jupiter in Baalbek, Lebanon, that is still standing today. We know that Hadrian wanted to make himself the object of worship in his Temple to Jupiter in Jerusalem and he set up a statue of himself riding a horse on the Temple mount at the El-Kas fountain. Tuvia Sagiv believes that Hadrian, in the ultimate act of arrogance and insult to the Jews, placed this horse statue in the precise location of where the Holy of Holies stood from the Jewish temple. Reminds us of the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:15, "Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand)." The Temple of Jupiter stood from 135 AD, until the time of Hadrian's later successor Constantine in 325 AD. Constantine "did right in the sight of God" and was as anti-pagan as any of the most righteous Jewish Kings of the Old Testament. He utterly destroyed Hadrian's Temple of Jupiter on the temple mount. The temple of Jupiter on the temple mount, lay in ruins for almost 350 years until the Muslims arrived, except for a unsuccessful attempt by the Jews to rebuilt the temple around 400 AD. Source. www.bible.ca.

The Third Temple

The Muslim Period

This desecration was not redressed until the Muslim conquest of the city by the Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab in 638. He ordered the clearing of the site and the building of a "house of prayer". Years later (691), the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock to enshrine the outcrop of bedrock believed to be the "place of the sacrifice" on Mount Moriah. In 715 the Caliph al-Walid I built the large mosque at the southern end of the Haram, which came to be called al-Aqsa (al-Aqsa Mosque).

It is said:

The Dome of the Rock was a temple of the Jews, built by a Jew named Abd el Malik in 691 A.D. using a facade design seen on second century coins in the Bar Kochba Revolt . The doorway resembles the Temple built by Herod the Great. Abd el Malik was a Jew accepted by the early Muslims and a first tradition was made praying towards the temple, now called "Dome of the Rock" In 1165 A.D. Moses Maimonides visited the Dome of the Rock and dedicated it as a Holy Place for Judaism . But in the interim time the Muslims turned away from the Dome and prayed to Mecca, then came the Crusades ,and the Christians built the El Aqsa Mosque as a CHURCH until the time of Saladin in 1187 A.D. conquered the site and turned the Crusader Church into the Mosque near by the Dome of the Rock. From the time of Saladin the city was free to all comers to visit and nothing more was said of the Dome of the Rock by the Muslims, until in 1947 A.D. The Mufti Haj Amim , dedicated the Dome of the Rock to be a Muslim Holy Place . covering up the history of it being a Jewish building. Now the Koran says nothing about Jerusalem and nothing about the Dome of the Rock , so the history after that time is what causes the conflict of who conquered what and who the place belongs to, as it signifies domination over the whole world, in a figurative and religious sense.

The Arabs are mostly afraid that giving up control of the Temple Mount area , would destabilize their own peoples throughout the Middle East of the Islamic World, because their core solidarity , a rule by Religious Governance is lost if the Jews take over the site. So, it means to the Muslims , a cause for world war, if the Jews were to rule the site unilaterally.

Israel and Jerusalem conquered

Are you aware that:

The struggle for the Temple Mount and increasing tensions. (Who owns the Temple Mount?)

In the meantime Jews and devoted Jewish worshipers continue to stream to the holy site day after day despite of growing Arab violence and blatant incitement against Jews on Temple Mount. Yehudah Glick, Temple Mount activist in Jerusalem, was threatened all the time before being shot three times by an Islamic Jihad operative. More recently Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat visited the site. The Waqf condemned the visit. On Monday, October 13, the 5th day of Sukkot (2014), Knesset Member and Deputy Speaker Moshe Feiglin made his ascent to the Temple Mount. "The increase of Jews ascending the Mount, including a public figure, is not a 'provocation' and certainly not a violation of the status quo." Said Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein.

As part of ongoing efforts to educate and raise people's consciousness, the Temple Institute conducts aliyot, (lit: going up; making a pilgrimage), to the Temple Mount. These aliyot are conducted in accordance with halachic requirements, and take place during weekday mornings, as these are the only hours that Jews are presently allowed to ascend the Mount. Also, in keeping with the oppressive "rules" set by the Wakf. The aliyot are led by Rabbi Chaim Richman of the Institute. To visit the Temple Mount in accordance with halacha (Jewish law), one needs to be accompanied by an experienced guide, expertly versed in the laws and traditions particular to the Temple Mount. Source. The Temple Institute, Jerusalem.

The organization "Women for the Holy Temple" has begun a training course for women in guiding Jewish worshipers on the Temple Mount. The twenty women who have registered for the course are being taught the halachot (laws) concerning the preparation required before ascending the Temple Mount as well as the halachot of Mora Mikdash - the conduct required to show proper reverence for G-d when visiting the Temple Mount - in the places permitted by Torah.

Call for the destruction of Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount and the building of a Third Jewish Temple

Besides advocating for non-Muslim rights on the mount, several Jewish and Christian Zionist Movements call for the destruction of Muslim holy sites and the building of a Third Jewish Temple.

Welknown secular Jew and Temple Mount activist Linda Olmert, who is passionate about restoring and protecting the right of Jews to pray on the holy site, doesn’t wish to see a third Holy Temple built before the coming of the messiah. Olmert works closely with Yehudah Glick. She is the Deputy Director of HALIBA ( The Initiative for Jewish freedom on the Temple Mount) founded by The Israel Independence Fund and The Temple Mount Heritage Foundation.

Goal of the Temple Mount Faithful movement:

"... the building of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in our lifetime in accordance with the Word of G-d and all the Hebrew prophets, and the liberation of the Temple Mount from Arab/Islamic occupation so that it may be consecrated to the Name of G-d."

The Temple Institute's ultimate goal is to see Israel rebuild the Holy Temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem in our time and to reinstate sacrificial worship.

The Temple Institute interprets the opinion of the Rambam (Maimonides) as saying that Jews should attempt to build the Temple themselves, and have a mitzvah (obligation) to do so if they can. The Rambam's opinion, however, is a controversial one and has aroused substantial opposition. The Temple Institute's view of the Rambam's opinion is not universally accepted by Maimonides scholars. According to seventeenth-century Rabbi Yom Tov Lipman Heller in his commentary on the tractate Yoma, the Rambam did not say that any Jew can build the future Temple, only the Messiah. According to Maimonides, any Jew who starts rebuilding the Temple is a potential Messiah.Source. Wikipedia.

“It is not enough to wait and pray for the Third Temple, It is a Biblical obligation to build it.” The Temple Institute.

Building the temple, says the Temple Institute, would “usher in a new era of universal harmony and peace,” as prophesied in the Bible.

1)Preparations for the Temple

2)Holy Temple blueprints