By Adam Eliyahu
Berkowitz March 5, 2019 , 1:48 pm
On that day, He will set His feet on the Mount of Olives, near Yerushalayim
on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall split across from east to west, and
one part of the Mount shall shift to the north and the other to the south, a
huge gorge. Zechariah
14:4 (The Israel Bible™)
A confrontation between the Israeli police and the Palestinians is expected
as more politicians are calling for the closure of a prayer area that was
opened in the area of the Sha’ar
HaRachamim (the Gate of Mercy, also known as the Golden Gate).
The area was closed 16 years ago by court order after it was used as a
meeting place for Hamas-related organizations. Last Friday, Arabs began
protesting and broke the lock, entering the site.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the site closed but the
police have yet to carry out that order. Haaretz
reported that the Waqf (Muslim authority) director-general Sheikh Azzam
al-Hatib requested permission from the police to bring construction materials
into Sha’ar HaRachamim for renovations and according to Waqf sources, his
request was not denied.
The Waqf has thus far refused to respond to summonses to appear in court and
on Monday, an Israeli court ordered the area closed unless the Waqf responds.
It is expected that riots will break out on Friday when the area normally fills
with Muslim worshipers. On Monday, Agriculture Minister (MK) Uri Ariel (Bayit
Yehudi) ascended to the Temple Mount and attempted to enter the Sha’ar
Harachamim area but was turned away by police.
“What’s happening at the Gate of
Mercy [Golden Gate] is a major breach of the status quo, and our demand is that
this matter be returned to its previous status immediately. There is no reason
for Netanyahu to agree to this change and certainly not when Muslims are
allowed in and Jews are not,” Ariel told the Orthodox news site Kipa.
At an emergency meeting on Sunday night of all the Temple Mount movements
concerning the recent Muslim takeover of Sha’ar HaRachamim. Assaf
Fried, spokesman for the Temple Organizations, was at the meeting.
“We are not giving up on Sha’ar Harachamim at all,” Fried told Breaking
Israel News. “We know that this is entirely the fault of this government
but three mosques have been built under Netanyahu. This time there are many
more Jews on site so hopefully that will prevent them from turning the site
into a mosque. And indeed, the government is taking steps that they never took
in the past. They have issued legal restrictions forbidding several Muslim
leaders from entering the Temple Mount.”
In order to show the government that the Jews in Israel are firmly committed
to the Temple Mount, the group of organizations has called for everyone who
objects to the Muslims usurping the site to ascend next Thursday, March 14.
The assembly also called for the government to have the Waqf declared an
illegal organization and to have it banned from the Temple Mount.
The participants at the conference also called on Israeli political parties
to demand the permission of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount as a precondition
for any coalition agreement after the upcoming Israeli elections.
The groups also called for the establishment of a synagogue on the Temple
Mount. This project was first advocated by Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, former
Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, in the mid-1990s. His son, Rabbi Shmuel
Eliyahu, Safed’s chief rabbi, continues to work toward that goal and in 2016,
Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David
Lau, generally considered to be moderate in his politics as well as his
religious rulings, stunned many when he said
in 2016 that there was enough room on the Temple Mount for the addition of both
a synagogue and church without infringing on the Muslim sites currently in
existence.
In response to Rabbi Eliyahu’s call to make a synagogue in the unused
underground area of Solomon’s Stables, the Waqf built the Marwani
Mosque at that location capable of accommodating at least 10,000
worshippers. The construction was carried out without permits and in violation
of agreements signed with Jordan. When the Waqf constructed the
underground mosque, they worked with heavy machinery, trucking away tons of
dirt with total
disregard for the archaeological integrity.
Part of the concern over construction at the Sha’ar HaRachamim is for for
wooden beams stored at the site. The beams lay in the courtyard outside of the
location under a tarpaulin, neglected and ignored. The politically volatile
situation does not allow the timbers to be removed but carbon-14 dating carried
out in 1984 identified them as Turkish oak and Lebanon cedar ranging in age from
1,340 years to 2,860 years old. The Waqf sold some of the wood in the 1960’s as
scrap and in 2012, a group of Jews visiting the Temple Mount photographed some
of the wood being burned on site.
The Muslims claim that Israel is attempting to change the status quo on the
Temple Mount however, as Ariel indicated, a cursory look at the history of the
site since Israel conquered it in 1967 shows that precisely the opposite is
taking place. In 1967 there was one functioning mosque on the site; the
silver-domed al-Aqsa.
If the Waqf succeeds in establishing a mosque in Sha’ar HaRachamim, this
will be the fifth mosque on the Temple Mount. During the 1970’s, the Muslims
closed two gates to non-Muslims, restricting their entrance to the Mughrabi
Gate. It was also possible for non-Muslims to enter the structures on the site
and that too became restricted. The hours for non-Muslim visitation have become
more curtailed as time has progressed, though the number of Jews visiting the
site has skyrocketed
in recent years.
Yaakov Hayman, chairman of the United Temple Movements, sees the current
situation as an open confrontation.
“Our holiest site is being trampled by people who have declared themselves
as our enemies,” Hayman told Breaking Israel News. “We can’t blame them
since they are acting precisely like enemies. This shows where we are
spiritually and what we need to do. We need miracles for the Third Temple to
arrive but God will only do miracles after he sees that we want it. Jews are
finally waking up to the Temple Mount but we need to take it up a few notches.”
“The Arabs know all his; that Jews are waking up and that even the non-Jews
are waking up. They see this in Trump and they are terrified. This is their
desperate last-ditch effort.”
Not only is the site significant to the Jews as the site of the two Temples
but it is prophesied to play a significant role in the end-of-days.According to
Jewish tradition, the Shekhinah (שכינה) (Divine Presence) used to appear
through the Eastern Gate and will appear again when the Messiah arrives.
In addition, the Zohar, the seminal work of Jewish mysticism, describes
an pre-Messiah war on the Temple Mount involving the descendants if Ishmael who
are understood to be the Arabs.
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