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By Khalid Amayreh
When Israel occupied East Jerusalem in
1967, the Israeli army Chief Rabbi, General Shlomo Goren, tried to
convince a commander of the conquering forces, Uzi Narkis, to blow up
the Mosque “once and for all.”
The story was told by Narkis shortly before
his death in 1997 and quoted by Avi Shlaim’s in his important book ,
“The Iron Wall- Israel and the Arab world.”
“There was an atmosphere of spiritual
elation. Paratroopers were milling around in a daze. Narkis was standing
for a moment on his own, deep in thought, when Goren went up to him and
said ‘Uzi, this is the time to put a hundred kilograms of explosives in
the Mosque of Omar-and that’s it, we’ll get rid of it once and for
all.’ Narkis said ‘Rabbi, stop it.’ Goren then said to him, ‘Uzi, you’ll
enter the history books by virtue of this deed.’ Narkis replied, ‘I
have already recorded my name in the pages of the history of Jerusalem.’
Goren walked away without saying another word.”
Interestingly, this Goren reentered the
Haram al Sharif esplanade on 15th August 1967, in military uniform along
with two dozen soldiers from the Israeli army in order to take the
measurements of its length and width. Afterwards, Goren announced where
the temple would be positioned. Two weeks later after this incident, the
Israeli occupation army seized the key to one of the gates of
al-Masjidul Aqsa (the Moroccan Gate).
Four days after the seizure of East
Jerusalem, Israeli army bulldozers wantonly demolished the Maghariba and
al-Sharaf neighborhoods, leveling them to the ground. The Palestinian
inhabitants of the two neighborhoods were expelled unceremoniously at
gunpoint. All in all, 135 houses, two mosques, and two religious schools
or Zaouias were destroyed and completely obliterated.
On April, 1968, Israel confiscated the
Haret el Maghariba for “public use” and built on the site a large plaza
in front of the Buraq Wall (Wailing or Western Wall.” The Haret al
Maghariba and the adjacent smaller Haret al-Sharaf, which was also
destroyed and completely obliterated, were both Islamic Waqf (religious
endowment) property dating back to the Kurdish Muslim warrior Salahuddin
al-Ayyoubi who defeated the Crusaders and restored Jerusalem to Islam.
On 21 August, 1969, an Australian Christian
Zionist, bearing the name Michael Dennis Rohan, set fire on the
interior of the Aqsa Mosque, probably using flammable substance. The
huge fire he set quickly and completely gutted the ancient exquisite
minbar of Sallahuddin. ( a new minbar, a replica of the old one, was put
into place on Feb. 1, 2007). Rohan claimed he was “the Lord’s emissary”
and acting upon divine instructions. He said his purpose was to enable
the Jews to build a temple in order to hasten the second advent of
Jesus. The Israeli authorities, which claimed that Rohan was deranged,
hindered efforts to put off the fire, thus contributing to the
destruction of the priceless minbar.
In 1970, Israeli occupation authorities
began intensive excavation works right beneath the mosque on the
southern and western sides, and in 1977, the digging continued and a
large tunnel was opened beneath the women’s prayer area.
In 1979, a new tunnel was dug under the mosque, going east to west.
On 2 March, 1982, an armed Jewish
terrorist, a Talmudic student, attacked al Masjidul Aqsa from Bab al
Silsila after assaulting Muslim guards. Eventually, the terrorist was
overpowered, thus preventing the occurrence of a potential massacre.
On 11 April, 1982, a Jewish American
terrorist, who was also an Israeli soldier, by the name of Allan
Goodman, entered the Dome of the Rock and started firing randomly at
Muslim worshipers. Dozens of people were killed and injured. Goodman, a
member of the Jewish Defense League, was eventually pardoned by the
Israeli government after spending a few years in jail.
On 27 April, 1982, Jewish terrorist leader
Meir Kahana, along with a hundred of his followers, stormed the Aqsa
Mosque plaza, carrying a large diagram of the Temple which he was
planning to build “on the ruins” of the Aqsa Mosque.
On 27 January, 1984, two waqf guards saw
two Jewish terrorists fleeing near the Golden Gate, the two left behind
ladders, 13 Kg of explosives and 21 Israeli-manufactured grenades
similar to the ones found previously.
On 29 March, 1984, the Israeli
archaeological department of the Ministry of Religious Affairs dug a
tunnel, one meter in length and two meter in width and ten meters deep
near the western part of the Aqsa Mosque, endangering the Islamic
“Majlis” or Council building.
On 1 August, 1984, the Al-Aqsa security
guards discovered another group of Jewish terrorists preparing to blow
up the Mosque. Sheikh Sa’ad al Din al Alami, the Mufti of Jerusalem,
said “Had it not been for the protection of God, the whole mosque would
have been completely obliterated.
Also on 1 August, 1984, a Jewish terrorist
by the name of Yosef Zeruya was convicted of plotting to blow up the
Dome of the Rock Mosque and sentenced to 3 years in jail.
On 8 October, 1990, Israeli “border police”
soldiers murdered as many as 22 Palestinians and injured more than a
hundred others during a protest triggered by an attempt by Jewish
extremists to lay the cornerstone for a Jewish temple in the Haram al
Sharif plaza. On 19 August, 1991, an Israeli Judge, Ezra Kama, ruled
that the police, not the Palestinians, provoked the violence. The UN
also condemned Israel for the carnage.
In September 1996, the Israeli occupation
authorities opened a large ancient tunnel beneath the Hamara al Sharif,
sparking off bloody clashes with Palestinian Authority police throughout
the West Bank in which 57 Palestinians and 16 Israelis were killed.
In December, 1997, Jewish terrorists tried to toss a pig’s head into the Haram al Sharif.
On 28 September, 2000, Ariel Sharon, then
opposition leader, carried out a deliberate provocation when he led
hundreds of Israeli crack police into the Haram al Sharif esplanade in
order to “underscore Jewish rights”. The next day, the al-Aqsa Intifada
broke out.
On 7 February, 2007, Israeli bulldozers
began digging outside Bab El-Maghariba (Moroccan Gate). Israel claimed
that it was only repairing an old ramp leading to the Aqsa Mosque.
However, Muslim officials contended the digging was part of Israeli
designs against the Mosque. On Friday, 9 February, the Israeli
occupation authorities prevented Muslims from accessing the Aqsa Mosque
for the weekly congregational prayer. Non the less, a few thousand
Palestinians managed to enter the Mosque where they protested the
provocative excavations. The Israeli police fired tear gas and stun
grenades at the protesters, injuring several of them.
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