Only Arabs of age 40 and over were allowed onto the Temple Mount today - no Jews at all have been allowed there for a year - as Palestinians celebrate the beginning of the current violence one year ago. Violence was anticipated expected today, but in the event, the 8,000 Moslems dispersed peacefully. One year ago, then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the site - the world\'s holiest location for the Jewish people - in a visit the Palestinians have blamed for provoking the current war. However, Israel submitted a document to the Mitchell Committee in January of this year in which it explains,
\"The groundwork for the violence had been laid long before [the visit]. Stung by the widespread appreciation in the international community that Palestinian inflexibility was responsible for the failure of the Camp David Summit, counseled not to declare a Palestinian state unilaterally on 13 September 2000 as had been planned, the Palestinian leadership looked to violence to \'create new facts on the ground...\' The document notes, in paragraph 173, that PA Security Chief Jibril Rajoub had specifically told then-Foreign Minister Ben-Ami that Sharon\'s visit to the Mount would pose no problem.
On March 2 of this year, PA Communications Chief Imad Falouji confirmed this when he told a PLO rally in southern Lebanon that the intifada had nothing to do with Ariel Sharon\'s walk on the Temple Mount, but were rather planned after the peace talks failed in July. \"It [the uprising] had been planned since Arafat\'s return from Camp David, when he turned the tables on the former U.S. president and rejected the American conditions,\" Falouji said.
Despite this, the PA called for autonomy residents to riot in honor of the anniversary, and the Israeli-Arab tracking committee similarly called for a general strike to mark the day.
\"The groundwork for the violence had been laid long before [the visit]. Stung by the widespread appreciation in the international community that Palestinian inflexibility was responsible for the failure of the Camp David Summit, counseled not to declare a Palestinian state unilaterally on 13 September 2000 as had been planned, the Palestinian leadership looked to violence to \'create new facts on the ground...\' The document notes, in paragraph 173, that PA Security Chief Jibril Rajoub had specifically told then-Foreign Minister Ben-Ami that Sharon\'s visit to the Mount would pose no problem.
On March 2 of this year, PA Communications Chief Imad Falouji confirmed this when he told a PLO rally in southern Lebanon that the intifada had nothing to do with Ariel Sharon\'s walk on the Temple Mount, but were rather planned after the peace talks failed in July. \"It [the uprising] had been planned since Arafat\'s return from Camp David, when he turned the tables on the former U.S. president and rejected the American conditions,\" Falouji said.
Despite this, the PA called for autonomy residents to riot in honor of the anniversary, and the Israeli-Arab tracking committee similarly called for a general strike to mark the day.