In The New York Times, Raja Abdulrahim writes about Israel's keeping the Temple Mount safe for all people during Ramadan, which she characterizes as "restrictions."
This one sentence that volumes.
Some of the most provocative episodes have been raids into the Aqsa compound by baton-wielding police forces firing tear gas and sponge-tipped bullets who have clashed with Palestinians throwing stones and setting off fireworks.
Which started first, the raids or the rioting?
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Last year, it was young Palestinian men who refused to leave the compound according to an agreement signed by the Waqf. They specifically stayed there overnight in order to block Jews from visiting the site. They stockpiled banks of fireworks and stones and blockaded doors.
The New York Times never reported about the agreement. It has a theme that all violence is initiated and planned by Israeli security, and it will ignore any facts that disagree with that theme.
The anti-Israel bias suffuses this article. For example, the Muslim claims about the site are accepted as true, the Jewish claims are just claims:
Every Friday, Yousef visits Jerusalem’s Old City to pray at Al Aqsa, the third holiest site for Muslims and part of the compound sacred to Jewish people, who call it the Temple Mount.
...Many Palestinians say their access to Al Aqsa compound has become increasingly restricted in favor of Jews, who consider the Temple Mount the most sacred place in Judaism.
Al Aqsa is claimed, as established fact, to be the third holiest place for all Muslims - even though Shiites have traditionally seen Karbala and Najaf as pilgrimage sites ahead of Jerusalem in importance. (Some also believe that the Al Aqsa mosque mentioned in the Quran is in the heavens, not Jerusalem.
But Jews only "consider" the Temple Mount to be the holiest place in Judaism.
Beyond that, security measures at holy sites are only considered onerous when Jews are involved.
Seth Frantzman once compared the security measures in place between the Temple Mount and other religious holy sites. The Kaaba in Mecca has "5,000 CCTV cameras and over 100,000 people employed to provide security during the annual Hajj" as well as electronic screening devices around all of Mecca, where every non-Muslim is banned. St. Peters Square in Rome, which used to be open, now has thousands of police, checkpoints and metal detectors, and even nuns can be searched. He found similar security measures in Buddhist and Sikh holy places.
And all of them are in place because of specific fears of Muslim terrorism.
Here's the NYT photo of Muslims who could not enter the Temple Mount on Friday and prayed on a sidewalk outside the walls instead.
All young men. And no harassment from police for an unauthorized gathering in a public street blocking pedestrian traffic.
Freedom to pray is important, but it is not more important than security. Framing the very reasonable and universal requirement for safety and security as being anti-Muslim restrictions by Jews is false and slanderous.
It is Muslim terrorism and Muslim rioting that prompt these security measures to begin with, not Islamophobia nor Jewish supremacism.
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