By Giulio Meotti – Arutz Sheva
Unesco’s two resolutions on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which gave Islam absolute sovereignty over Judaism’s most holy site, did not mention the fact that the terrorist attacks “on behalf of the Mosque of Al Aqsa” had already counted thousands of victims in Israel. That this “noble sanctury”, a religious symbol, is a magnet of political riots, which has never been the case at the Western Wall (Muslims have never been attacked from below, while Muslims have hurled stones down at the Jewish faithful many a time).
But with the terror attack last Friday, Palestinian terrorism made a leap of quality: the use of the mosques as preparation to kill two Israeli police officers. For radical Islam and Palestinians, these places are the basis of terror against Israel. The Palestinian use of the holy places dates back to the era of the Grand Muftì of Jerusalem, the ally of Hitler Hajj Amin al Husseini, who hid weapons and terrorists in the mosques. Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi, guru of the Muslim Brotherhood from which Hamas was born, theorized the role of the mosque in the Jihad, while ayatollah Khomeini, inspirer of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, defined the mosque as “fortress of Jihad”.
In the last month, London hosted two Islamist demonstrations dedicated to Al Aksa, where a South African imam called the Jews “fleas”. In its war against Israel, even in Gaza Hamas made use of the mosques. The mosque al Tafweek was destroyed by Israel because it was used as a launch ramp. Missiles were found in the wooden pulpit of the Atatür mosque.
And how to forget what happened in 2002 at the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the siege of the second holy place of Christianity?
It took place during one of the most dramatic months for Israel, March 2002, in which 132 civilians and Israeli soldiers were killed in Palestinian attacks, many organized in Bethlehem. The Christian sacred place in Bethlehem was held hostage and used by terrorists. There were to be found Ibrahim Musa Abayat, the officer responsible for the murder of Army officer Yehuda Edri, and Nidal Abu Ahmed Galif, one of the perpetrators of suicide attacks at Kiryat Yovel and Beit Yisrael in Jerusalem, where entire Jewish families were destroyed.
In the Italian press, Giorgio Forattini published a cartoon in which Jesus watched an Israeli tank with David’s star, wondering if they would crucify him again. In Denmark, a Lutheran bishop pronounced a sermon in the cathedral of Copenhagen, comparing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the biblical Herod. The entire Catholic hierarchy demonized the Jews, not the terrorists, for the siege.
Unesco’s anti-Semitic resolutions are just the last example of an offensive from which Israel has suffered and that has not only tried to isolate it in international public opinion, turning it into an usurper of holy places, but also clearing the idea in the world that the use of the mosques for violence and terror is legitimized by the idea that these are “threatened” by the “enemies of Islam”. Read it: the Jews, “the sons of pigs”.
Giulio Meotti
The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book “A New Shoah”, that researched the personal stories of Israel’s terror victims, published by Encounter and of “J’Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel” published by Mantua Books.. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary.