Thousands of Arabs waving Palestinian flags essentially took over parts of northern Jerusalem this afternoon, during the funeral procession of Feisal Husseini. The police closed off the French Hill junction to all Jewish traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, to allow the Arabs to pass. Earlier, Prime Minister refused to allow Arafat to enter Jerusalem for the funeral; Arafat eulogized Husseini, his political rival and the PLO Jerusalem chief, in Ramallah. The funeral procession path leads from Ramallah to northern Jerusalem, then to PLO headquarters in Orient House, and then via Herod\'s Gate (on the northern wall of the Old City) to the burial spot astride the Temple Mount where his father and grandfather are buried.
Noam Federman, a Kach member who lives in Hevron, appealed to the Supreme Court today against Husseini\'s burial so near the Temple Mount - Judaism\'s holiest site on earth. Federman maintains that Israeli law stipulates that a burial may only take place in a cemetery that is recognized as such, and in any event not in an archaeological site such as the Temple Mount. The three-justice panel - Dorner, Matza, and Chief Justice Barak - rejected the suit, explaining that the suit was filed too late for it to be properly reviewed; that the coffin was already on its way to the site; and that Husseini will technically be buried not on the Temple Mount, but in his family plot precisely adjacent to it. Temple Mount expert Yehuda Etzion explained to Arutz-7\'s Yosef Zalmanson today that the burial chamber, above the Hasmonean Tunnels, has a window that opens onto the Mount.
The succession fight has already begun. Three Fatah seniors have already indicated their intention to vie for the spot vacated by Feisal Husseini at the helm of the PLO for Jerusalem affairs: Sari Nusaiba, Ziad Abu Ziad, and Ahmed Anim.
Noam Federman, a Kach member who lives in Hevron, appealed to the Supreme Court today against Husseini\'s burial so near the Temple Mount - Judaism\'s holiest site on earth. Federman maintains that Israeli law stipulates that a burial may only take place in a cemetery that is recognized as such, and in any event not in an archaeological site such as the Temple Mount. The three-justice panel - Dorner, Matza, and Chief Justice Barak - rejected the suit, explaining that the suit was filed too late for it to be properly reviewed; that the coffin was already on its way to the site; and that Husseini will technically be buried not on the Temple Mount, but in his family plot precisely adjacent to it. Temple Mount expert Yehuda Etzion explained to Arutz-7\'s Yosef Zalmanson today that the burial chamber, above the Hasmonean Tunnels, has a window that opens onto the Mount.
The succession fight has already begun. Three Fatah seniors have already indicated their intention to vie for the spot vacated by Feisal Husseini at the helm of the PLO for Jerusalem affairs: Sari Nusaiba, Ziad Abu Ziad, and Ahmed Anim.