Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Maarat HaMachpelah

Showing posts with label Maarat HaMachpelah. Show all posts

Sunday, May 15, 2022

Google Maps calls second holiest Jewish spot by its usurped Muslim name

I looked up the Maarat HaMachpelah, Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs in Google Maps. Here's what it found:

Muslims have been usurping Jewish holy sites from the beginnings of Islam. But there is no reason for Google to go along with it.

Let's them call it the Ibrahim Mosque in Arabic, but it is an insult to Jews to make that the default name.

UPDATE (September): Google now shows both names, not sure when it started. (h/t MN)

More Muslims are visiting Al Aqsa on a typical Friday under Jewish rule than ever visited under Muslim rule in history

It's Friday, which means that tens of thousands of Muslims will be visiting the Temple Mount as they do every Friday.

Here is what it looked like one Friday in October, when 50,000 Muslims visited to pray.

Muslim media typically reports 40,000-50,000 visiting every Friday. Even during COVID there were tens of thousands visiting every week when it was open.

As far as I can tell, more Muslims visit Judaism's holiest site, under Jewish rule, on a typical Friday than ever visited even on Muslim holidays under Muslim rule, in history.

I have looked for any photo or description estimating the number of Muslims that visited the holy site even during Muslim holidays, and while some descriptions mention "thousands" of worshippers, never have I seen anyone report "tens of of thousands" as the site sees every single week nowadays.

A letter from a British resident of Jerusalem in the November 23, 1937 Manchester Guardian disputes the claim that 10,000 Muslims carried the Mufti around the Temple Mount by pointing out that only perhaps once a year does the Haram esh Sharif attract that many Muslims:

Only 13,000 Muslims lived in Jerusalem in 1922 and 40,000 in 1948 (compared to over 300,000 today) so 40,000 visitors would have been an astronomical figure to visit at any time under Muslim rule.

Now, during Fridays in Ramadan, Israel allows some 200,000 Muslims to visit Judaism's most sacred spot.

I am confident in my claim that more Muslims will visit the site today, on a typical Friday, walking past Israeli guards, than had ever visited at one time in the entire 1200 years of Muslim control of Jerusalem.

The contrast to how Muslims didn't allow Jews to visit the Temple Mount or the Cave of the Patriarchs at all under their rule couldn't be more striking.

Never in history has there been as free access to holy sites for all religions than under Jewish rule, yet earlier this week the UN again accused Israel of "racial and ethnic discrimination."

We are truly living in 1984 where ignorance is strength.

Should Jews stay away from the Cave of the Patriarchs to avoid "conflict"?

Media outlets like Haaretz and the New York Times warn about how dangerous it is for Jews to pray in the holist Jewish site, the Temple Mount, that was claimed as an Islamic holy sites over a millennium later. Their argument is that such prayer is lighting a fuse for a global jihad by Muslims. Jewish religious rights, according to these "experts," are not nearly as important as appeasing Muslims who usurped the site.

By that logic, Jews should not be allowed to pray in the second holiest Jewish site either - the Ma'arat HaMachpela, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, from which Jews were banned for centuries by intolerant Muslims.

Just like the Temple Mount.

From reading the NYT and Haaretz, one would think that Muslims have accepted Jews worshipping in the Hebron site so it is not an issue any more. After all, there was a signed agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority dividing up the site into sections where Jews and Muslims can worship, and on ten days a year Jews can use the whole site while on ten other days Muslims take over the whole site.

But while the PA may have accepted this agreement, the Muslims have not.

Just this morning, Shehab News tweeted the scandalous video of Jews praying in the holy site - something done every day but the video is still meant to incite hate and violence.

The caption says "Settlers perform Talmudic prayers inside the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron."

مستوطنون يؤدون صلوات تلمودية داخل المسجد الإبراهيمي في الخليل pic.twitter.com/rdRDMdwMNi
— وكالة شهاب للأنباء (@ShehabAgency) September 17, 2021

Yom Kippur is one of the ten annual days Jews can pray unimpeded in their holy site, and Palestinian media are calling this a "desecration," claiming that the Jews rolled up the Muslim prayer rugs for the services.

Hundreds of citizens performed dawn prayers today, Friday, at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, despite the restrictions of the occupation, and hours after it was stormed and desecrated by dozens of settlers.

Citizens from all parts of Hebron arrived at the mosque to perform prayers and participate in its reconstruction, in light of the dangerous Judaization operations it is being exposed to.

The freed prisoner Issa Al-Jabari said, "The settlers removed the carpets from the Ishaqi Hall, where the citizens prayed on the tiles on which light, worn mats were spread."

The settlers posted on their sites scenes of their performance of Talmudic rituals inside the Ishaqi hall in the Ibrahimi Mosque after removing the prayer rugs and storming it with their shoes.

The settlers deliberately photographed the mosque and its pulpit during the performance of rituals and chanting Talmudic heresies.

Dozens of Jewish women also participated in the desecration of the Ibrahimi Mosque to celebrate the so-called Jewish Day of Atonement, which the occupation takes as a pretext to close the mosque and allow settlers to storm it.

Here's a photo of the rolled up prayer rugs. Awful, isn't it?

Except that these rugs aren't removed by the Jews and left there in a mess for the Muslims to clean up. The Muslims roll up the rugs to avoid the dirty Jews from walking on them! As this 2015 article notes:

Before relinquishing their side, Abufilat and his attendants rolled up the wall-to-wall prayer mats.
“We remove our carpets because we don’t want them to get dirty. The Jews come here, they conduct their dances, their celebrations, and also their drinking,” Abufilat says. It’s a reference to Jews drinking wine during holiday rituals.

Muslims know that the secular Jews who write these articles about Jewish "provocative" prayer at the Temple Mount are cowed by Arab threats. Every single time an Isabel Kershner or Eric Yoffie writes about how Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is bad because it upsets Muslims, the Muslims have more incentive to incite more anger and violence.

The articles about the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Arab media are intended to roll back the gains that Jews achieved in being able to return there after being banned for centuries. And the Jewish useful idiots happily will agree that the right of Jews to their own holy places is less important than appeasing Arab Muslims - who will never be appeased until every Jew has been pushed out of the region.

(h/t Yoel)

Israel set to build elevator for all to access to Tomb of the Patriarchs, Palestinians claim it is only for Jews

The planned additions

Palestinian site Safa reports that Israel's attorney general Avichai Mendelblit recently approved a plan use land next to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron to build an elevator and ramps to help access "for the Jewish disabled" to the holy place.

Even though they are quoting Arutz-7, the original report makes clear that the elevator is meant for all, Arabs and Jews as well as tourists.

Israel has tried for years to cooperate with the PA in helping give access to all to the site, and the PA refused to talk with Israeli authorities, as this 2019 report notes. Even the most right-wing Jews of Hebron insist that the elevator be open to Muslims, saying "The Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs belongs to the people of Israel, and the state must ensure that every person of every religion can pray there."

Even the far left Meretz agrees that there should be universal access:

A wide variety of elected officials this year have joined the call to create access for the disabled. Mossi Raz, a former Member of Knesset from the left-wing Meretz party called for wheelchair access. Despite being an and an ardent opponent of the Jewish community, Channel 20 reported he sent a personal letter to the Palestinian Authority Minister of Religious Affairs and to the PA mayor of Hebron asking them to approve the permit.

Right now people in wheelchairs need to be physically carried up some 60 stairs.

The Palestinians are saying that the land surrounding the site belongs to the Waqf.

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