If You're Going Up En Masse, Keep Your Mouth Shut

According to this report, the publicity relating to a mass ascent to the Temple Mount was thwarted.

A report in an Israeli newspaper, disseminated worldwide by United Press International (UPI) stated that Jews planned a “mass pilgrimage” numbering in the “hundreds” to the Temple Mount on Thursday.

The “mass” throng actually consisted of only 200 Jews, but the reports set off panic among Arabs and left Jews outside the site as police blocked their entrance, as has happened several times in the past after Arab clerics spread fears of a “Jewish takeover.”

A spokesman for the activists said, “The police provided no reason for their arbitrary decision. At one point police claimed that the Mount was closed due to the Moslem new year, which occurs on Friday and not on Thursday.

Now, let's go back to the original story:

A group of activists dedicated to bringing Jews to the Temple Mount told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that they were hoping to see hundreds of participants take part in a planned "mass pilgrimage" to the site scheduled for Thursday morning in honor of Hannuka

...a representative of the Organization for the Renewal of the Temple (ORT) - which is organizing Thursday's event - told the Post on Tuesday there had been no indication the planned pilgrimage would cause renewed disturbances...[despite this] Yosef Rabin, an ORT member, told the Post that the scuffle broke out after a number of Arabs standing nearby became enraged when his colleagues started to sing Hannuka songs and dance as they departed.

...Nevertheless, Rabin said, the trip had been calm and quiet up until the fighting broke out, and he added that his group was pursuing its goal of promoting awareness of the mount "through legal means only."

"We do everything legally and in conjunction with the police," Rabin said. "And as long as we do, there shouldn't be any problem."

...Rabin said he had personally spoken with police about Thursday's pilgrimage and that they had told him there was no reason to believe problems would occur.

"Our focus is on bringing people to the Temple Mount, nothing else," Rabin said. "And we've been making hundreds of phone calls, using lists we have, and sending out e-mails and Facebook messages to try and get as many people as possible to come."

"Little by little, we're going to take back the mount," he continued. "And it will be done without violence or force."

The spokesperson, who I checked, is not know to most other activists, perhaps should have spoken to the press after the ascent unless, of course, this Rabin fellow was a GSS agent.  Now, there's a neat conspiracy theory.

If Rabin does exist, please contact me so I can clear your name.

As for your political sophistication, that's another matter altogether.

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P.S.  There is indeed a Yosef Rabin (pronounced Ray-bin).  And yes, he is upset.  However, as I informed him, the two most major and central Temple Mount activists could not, when I contacted them, confirm his existence.  He insists he has been active for the last four months and feels that what I wrote above in my blog "might be legally considered character assassination".  I doubt that.  He does admit "going to the media may not have been the best move".  Okay, we can agree on that. It seems that a very central Temple Mount leader actually told him that this week and hopefully, will be aiding him in his enthusiasm.

He also claims that he is a "part of the very few that safeguard the last thread of sovereignty for the Jewish People on the Mount".  I applaud him.  Indeed, as someone who substituted as tour leader for Dr. Yoel Elitzur the Thursday before Chanukah and ended up sharing tour guide duties with Rabbi Chaim Richman, has ascended the Mount a few times ever since my first ascent in September 1970, just 39 years ago, and who has written not-a-bad monograph (here) - I welcome him into the few.  I would guess that in the future, there will be no need for me to question not only his existence, and not only the extent of his activism but also his political sophistication which, of course, was the main point of my blog post.  My apologies, Yosef.  And good work for Har Habayit

Oh, and that GSS throwaway?  That was just in jest.  Why should I presume that an activist would be in cahoots with them?

Jerusalem - No Less Than Paris And Much More

Further to my previous post on Yossi Melman's disparaging suggestion that we move the capital of Jerusalem, even temporarily, I searched for the following and here it is, General Charles De Gaulle's speech on the liberation of Paris, August 25, 1944.  Here are words that express the true genuine feelings of a people for their capital:

"Why do you desire that we hide the emotion which seizes us all, men and women, who are here, at home, in Paris that stood up to liberate itself and that succeeded in doing this with its own hands?

No! We will not hide this deep and sacred emotion. These are minutes which go beyond each of our poor lives. Paris! Outraged Paris! Broken Paris! Martyred Paris! But liberated Paris!

Liberated by itself, liberated by its people with the help of the French armies, with the support and the help of all France, of the France that fights, of the only France, of the real France, of the eternal France! Well! Since the enemy which held Paris has capitulated into our hands, France returns to Paris, to her home. She returns bloody, but quite resolute. She returns there enlightened by the immense lesson, but more certain than ever of her duties and of her rights. I speak of her duties first, and I will sum them all up by saying that for now, it is a matter of the duties of war...

...It is for this revenge, this vengeance and justice, that we will keep fighting until the last day, until the day of total and complete victory. This duty of war, all the men who are here and all those who hear us in France know that it demands national unity. We, who have lived the greatest hours of our History, we have nothing else to wish than to show ourselves, up to the end, worthy of France. Long live France!"

Those are the words of a nationalist, of a patriot, of a lover of his country and its capital city.

We Jews have no need to feel inferior to any nation or people.

"For We Are Paupers Without It"

Yossi Melman of Ha-Ha-Haaretz has clarified the extent of post-Zionist pottiness.

In his "Give Up Jerusalem" op-ed, he kisses Jerusalem good-bye.  From the text:-

    There are about 200 countries in the world, but it seems that only two attribute holiness to their capital: Israel and Palestine...Jerusalem has always been an obstacle to a settlement...The leaders on both sides, not only the religious leadership but also secular politicians, consider Jerusalem not merely their "eternal capital" but attribute holiness to its stones, its homes and its symbols.

    ...it might be better if they agreed on the following: Israel would announce that at least temporarily it would move its capital to a different city...In parallel, the Palestinians will agree that Jerusalem will not be declared their capital...Would this mean that Israel is giving up on the Jewish connection to Jerusalem? Of course not. The religious, historic and emotional connection will remain, precisely like it did during 2,000 years of exile, which did not blur that link. Does this mean that the two sides are relinquishing their historic rights or sovereignty over the city? Of course not...Even if the proposed hiatus does not advance peace, it may bring healing to the dying city. And when Jerusalem goes back to being Israel's capital it will also be a city worthy of such standing, a city in which life is good...

Ha-Ha-Haretz strikes again.

Uri Tzvi Greenberg expressed it well some 50 years ago:


For us, the entire world has no worth without the shine of the Temple in Jerusalem
Seventy nations - seventy fears, without the crown of Jerusalem.
We have measured our shekels on the Temple Mount more than all the gold of their furs
And without it, we are the paupers of Jerusalem.
All our hope of pride is also as the mass of fallen leaves at the water
For what is our value amongst the nations without the honor of essential being that is Jerusalem.