Israel-haters are furious because it is a day ending in Y and Israel still exists. But also over something more specific: Israel closed al-Aqsa Mosque.
Israel has closed al-Aqsa Mosque for the third consecutive day, preventing Palestinian Muslims from praying at the site during the holy month of Ramadan, in what has been described as an unprecedented violation.
Palestinians warn that the move forms part of a broader Israeli strategy to exploit security tensions to impose further restrictions and consolidate control over al-Aqsa Mosque.
The closure comes under what Israeli authorities describe as a state of emergency following its launch of a war with Iran on Saturday.
The mosque, located in occupied East Jerusalem, will remain shut until further notice, with only essential activity permitted.
Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem and one of al-Aqsa’s senior imams, condemned the “unjustified” decision.
He told Al Jazeera the closure “signifies police control under the pretext of security”.
“It contravenes freedom of worship and suggests that the occupation authorities are asserting control over the mosque and stripping the Islamic Waqf of its authority to administer it.”
The closure during Ramadan is unprecedented in recent memory, as al-Aqsa Mosque is rarely shut to worshippers.
That’s right. Israel closed al-Aqsa Mosque because rockets have been raining down on Israel. There is no pretext – it are facts. The same emergency regulations apply to synagogues. To public events. To everyone – which has put a hell of a dampener on Purim this year, let me tell you!
Yet here we have the haters essentially complaining about the fact we are protecting Muslims – including the ones who hate us – essentially from themselves.
The same report inadvertently reinforces this by mentioning other occasions we closed the site:
Israeli forces briefly closed the site in 2014 and again in 2017 amid heightened tensions in Jerusalem. In 2014, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described the move as a “declaration of war”.
The mosque was also closed during the Covid-19 pandemic on public health grounds. Aside from that period, no prolonged closure had been recorded since Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967.
However, Israel shut the site during the 12-day war with Iran in June, a move many Palestinians viewed as unprecedented at the time.
What makes this complaint even more ridiculous? It was made even after this happened:
The warhead of an Iranian missile hit a site just several dozen meters from the Old City of Jerusalem, and just several hundred meters from the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, during the course of Saturday, police announced on Sunday.
According to police, an explosion was heard and smoke was seen rising from a site just west of the Old City on Saturday morning, shortly after the beginning of the latest armed conflict with Iran.
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The Old City of Jerusalem includes some of the most important holy sites in the world, including the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, the holiest sites in the world for Jews; as well as the al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam; and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, believed by Christians to be the site of the crucifixion of Jesus.
Israel is protecting the site from the very people who claim to be its “defenders” in Tehran. Not that these particular people we are protecting likely appreciate it. In fact, I suspect most, if not all, of them are praying for more rockets.
