Yehuda Glick, who lies on a hospital bed in critical condition, in mortal danger after being shot in the chest and stomach 3 times, point blank, has been labeled an “agitator” by the New York Times in its coverage of the incident.
ag·i·ta·tor noun ?a-j?-?t?-t?r
: a person who tries to get people angry or upset so that they will support an effort to change a government, company, etc.
: a device for stirring or shaking something in a machine (such as a washing machine)
Why is he an “agitator” according to Isabel Kershner and Rick Gladstone? Because he “has pushed for more Jewish access and rights” to the Temple Mount, the holiest site of the Jewish people. This was the spot where Abraham offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice and it’s the place where the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, prayed on behalf of the nation of Israel on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, each year. Jewish liturgy is well-saturated with references to the Mount.
But Kershner and Gladstone in their opening statement editorialize and damn Glick as someone whose only motive is to upset people, in this case, Arabs, rather than offering their readers the truth, which probably would not be as interesting. The truth is that Yehuda Glick has worked hard to raise awareness of the denial of religious freedom to Jews in Israel: the denial of Jewish access to the Temple Mount, the holiest Jewish site, and the denial of the right to Jewish prayer in this spot on the rare occasion that Jews are permitted to ascend to the mount.
The New York Times writers refer to the Temple Mount as a “hotly contested” religious site, which is a half-truth. The Mount itself has no religious significance for Muslims. The only reason the site is now holy to Muslims is that they built a mosque there, in a place they know is holy to the Jews.
Islam, you see, means “submission.” The main focus of all Muslims is to cause the other nations and religions to submit to Allah: to their god alone. For them, building a mosque on top of the Jews’ holiest site makes a statement that Islam is superior to Judaism and that the Jews must submit to Allah, to Muslims, to make way for the Muslim Caliphate, the Umma.
Having built a mosque there, the Muslims say that the site is now holy to Islam, to Allah. By the same token, they attempted to build a mosque at Ground Zero so as to dedicate the spot to Allah.
For the same reason, Bob Bergdahl claimed the White House as sacred territory for Islam.
Having conquered the Western Wall and the site of the Temple Mount at the time of the Six-Day War, in a defensive war, Moshe Dayan turned around and gave the site BACK to the Muslim Authority, the Wakf, saying, “We don’t need a Vatican.”
In my opinion, this is the greatest sin of our generation. This is the Jews’ holiest site. By no means should Islam, which postdates Judaism, reign supreme over a Jewish holy site.
The Muslims do not allow the Jews to pray on the Mount. They pay people to throw things (stones, shoes, firecrackers) and yell at Jews who attempt to ascend to the Mount.
During the years 1948-1967, Jews could not even pray at the retaining wall of the Temple, the Western Wall, because Jordan had attacked Israel along with 6 other armies and stolen the Jews’ rightful property. And after 1967, and until NOW, Jews are severely restricted from visiting the site and when they are allowed up on the Mount, they cannot even give the appearance of praying, by moving their lips, or they are arrested by the Israeli police.
The Muslims reign supreme over the Jews’ holiest site. Moshe Dayan made this happen and now this is our reality.
Yehuda Glick, on the other hand, is asking only for freedom of religion to be applied to the locus of the Temple Mount, which is situated within the ONLY democracy in the Middle East, in the Jewish State, where one would think a Jew could visit his holy site and pray!
But no. That’s not the way it is. The Muslims want supremacy and Kershner and Gladstone want to give it to them. The two writers tie the shooting of Glick to an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council requested by “Palestinian” and Jordanian diplomats, to address the “religious strife and growing anger over Israeli housing expansions in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians regard as the capital of a future state.”
So let’s take that sentence apart, shall we?
“Religious strife” refers to the fact that Muslims want to reign supreme over a Jewish holy site and the Jews will not submit to the Umma. Yehuda Glick is trying to raise awareness of this issue: that Jews are not allowed to pray on the Temple Mount and most of the time, are not allowed access to this holy site. This causes “growing anger” for the Muslims who think the Jews have a chutzpa not to submit to Allah and Islam, which after all, means, yeah: SUBMISSION.
By the same token, Jews building homes in East Jerusalem, referred to here as “Israeli housing expansions” is seen as a refusal to submit to Islam, to Allah, which “the Palestinians regard as the capital of a future state.” This means the Muslims want Jerusalem to be part of their Caliphate. They want to claim this territory for Islam, for the Umma.
Did you know: the word “Jerusalem” does not once appear in the Koran?
It would be the ultimate triumph to declare the Jews’ holiest city as the capital of the Muslim Umma, the caliphate.
Israel, which regards all of Jerusalem as its capital, has faced intense criticism over the housing expansions, including from its most important ally, the United States, which has described theses housing projects as illegitimate obstructions to an any hope for a peaceful solution to the longstanding Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
No. Israel does not “regard” Jerusalem as its capital. Jerusalem IS Israel’s capital.
This is a fact.
The United States and other countries don’t recognize this as a fact because it makes the Muslims very, very angry. It makes the Muslims angry because they want to reign supreme over the Jews. The Muslims are loud and violent. Their brethren have power, oil, wealth, and weapons.
And the Jews are not beloved by the world.
Nevertheless, whether or not you like the Jews, building homes poses no obstruction to peace and this is a nonsensical idea. Should anyone disagree with me, they have only to look at what happened with the Disengagement in which 8,500 Jews were expelled from their homes by Israel, who then destroyed their homes, and gave the territory over to Arab control. Homes were not an obstacle to Disengagement.
Homes are not an obstacle to peace.
It’s a dumb, dumb, dumb diddlyum idea. They can shout it from the White House. They can shout it from Parliament. They can trumpet it in the UN and splash it across the front pages of news sites and still:
Building homes does not and will not obstruct peace.
Period.
It sure sounds good, though. You have to admit that, otherwise, people would not be still be positing this ridiculous idea so many years later, ad infinitum.
It makes no sense.
Okay, so moving right along, in answer to those who say that Jews should not be walking on the Temple Mount anyway, because of its special holiness or because no one knows for sure where the Holy of Holies is, a place where only a High Priest may stand, I say this:
I personally would not ascend to the Temple Mount. That doesn’t mean, however, that a Jew who wants to ascend to the Temple Mount and pray there, should not be able to do so.
It’s an issue not of agitation but of religious freedom. Jews have a right to ascend to their holiest site. They have a right to pray there. And tough tootsies if the Muslims don’t like it, you know? Tough tootsies if it insults them: how dare anyone not be Muslim?
This is not the way of a democracy and like it or not (and sometimes I don’t!), Israel IS A DEMOCRACY.
But Kershner and Gladstone rewrite the facts. They write:
“Mr. Glick, widely viewed as a provocative figure who has exacerbated tensions between Muslims and Jews . . . ”
“Provocative” for working for religious freedom in the democratic State of Israel? “Exacerbating tensions” because he dares to say that Allah will not reign supreme over the Jews? Provoking Muslims and making them angry because Jews dare to refuse Mohammed as their prophet?
The really funny thing about the assertion that Glick is an agitator is that he has actively worked for religious tolerance and not just for Jewish rights. He not only does not incite, he strives for peace and harmony between Muslims and Jews. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.
Yehuda Glick made a gunman angry because he tried to tell the Jews that they need to fight for their religious freedoms in the city that is holy to Jews and not to Muslims. He made a gunman angry because he tried to tell the Jews that appeasement only emboldens the enemy, the Arabs who want to drive the Jews out of their holy places so they might take possession of them themselves. He made a man angry because he dared to say out loud and proud that he would not give the Arabs everything they want just because they want it so bad they will shoot someone who stands between them and the prize, the jewel in the crown of the Jewish people, the Temple Mount, which stands in the city mentioned HUNDREDS of time in the Torah, and not once in the Koran.
Jerusalem.
Please pray for Yehuda Yehoshua Ben Ita Bryna. ????? ?????? ?? ???? ??????