Sunday, June 18, 2017
Elder of Ziyon
The official PA news agency Wafa had two stories on Friday that form an interesting juxtaposition.
One described how hard it was for Muslims to reach the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount for the third Friday in Ramadan due to Israeli checkpoints. The streets of the Old City are narrow and Israeli police must do crowd control on all religious holidays to make sure that people can get where they need to go. But Wafa quotes officials complaining that Israel restricted those under 40 from coming (because of terror fears), and the PA "foreign ministry" condemned Israeli actions.
An article posted a short time later said that, despite the heavy Israeli restrictions, 300,000 Muslims managed to reach the Temple Mount on Friday.
That is more Muslims visiting Judaism's holiest place in one day than the number of Jews who visited in the past thirty years.
But every time a couple of dozen Jews visit, it creates headlines - not only in Palestinian newspapers but throughout the Arab world.
