Are We Seeing the Sparks of a Holy War in Jerusalem?
19th July 2017
Oh, say it ain’t so.
The faithful leaving Jerusalem’s al Aqsa mosque yesterday evening were thrilled for the after-party. Marching on and around Temple Mount, they chanted cheerful slogans like “We will sacrifice our lives for al-Aqsa,” “We will die as martyrs,” “There’s going to be another Intifadah,” and “There’s nothing like killing soldiers.” More than a few were throwing rocks and glass bottles at the Israeli police officers stationed nearby. Among the rioters was Ekrima Sa’id Sabri, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a popular preacher in al Aqsa, and a Holocaust denier who energized the crowd with talk of holy war.
To what do we owe this pleasure? To hear the mob tell it, the violence was a legitimate expression of outrage sparked by Israel’s decision to install metal detectors at the entrance to the holy site. And Israel, you may recall, installed metal detectors at the entrance to the holy site after three Palestinian terrorists opened fire there Friday morning, killing two Israeli police officers who happened to be Druze. As David Horovitz put it crudely but poignantly, “Arabs killed Arabs at a holy place, the Jews are trying to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, and the Arab world is furious with the Jews about it.”