Summary
The Temple Mount — Har Habayit to Jews, Haram el Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) to Muslims — the plateau in Jerusalem’s Old City where Solomon’s and Herod’s Temples stood and where the Dome of the Rock and the el-Aksa Mosque stand, whose status quo at least five groups sought to change after 1967 in Lustick’s account (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 3300-3450).
Details
- The Western Wall is a retaining wall for the courtyard of Herod’s Temple, the only portion of the structure that remains intact; Mohammed is said to have ascended to heaven from the plateau, the Dome of the Rock marks the spot of his ascent, and the el-Aksa Mosque is the third holiest shrine in Islam, following those in Mecca and Medina (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 3300-3400).
- Halacha bars religious Jews from setting foot on the plateau since the exact location of the Holy of Holies is unknown, so supervision of the Muslim shrines has been left largely to Muslim authorities in Jerusalem (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 3300-3400).
- Since 1967 at least five separate groups, with total estimated membership of 1,500, have sought to change that status quo, with objectives ranging from building a Jewish synagogue on the site to replacing the Muslim shrines with a rebuilt Temple (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 3300-3400).
- Lustick records a May 1980 plot to blow up the el-Aksa Mosque, a March 1983 underground digging operation to seize the Mount for prayer, a January 27, 1984 intrusion leaving thirty pounds of explosives and twenty-two grenades near the shrines, and the Jewish Underground’s 1978-1982 plot to destroy the el-Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 3300-3500).
- In Lustick’s Chapter 6, the Temple Mount becomes, after Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook’s death, the central issue of the movement’s leadership problem: his opposition had kept it off the Gush agenda, but since 1983 efforts to assert Jewish rights over the Mount as a prelude to removing the Muslim shrines and reconstructing the Temple have moved into the Gush mainstream — Nekuda items on the Mount went from very few before the early 1980s to dozens in 1983-1986, virtually all advocating Judaization, and a September 1986 Nekuda editorial concluded that, having pushed the end for the whole Land and the state, “we must now build the Temple” (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 6, lines 8487-8736).
- Rabbis led by former Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren used archeological finds to eliminate the halachic restrictions on Jewish entry; in early 1986 demonstrative visits by sympathetic Knesset members ignited furious Arab reaction, and in October 1987, fearing a Succoth demonstration, 2,000 Muslims battled police for three hours; columnist Doron Rosenblum holds the destruction of the Muslim shrines “only a matter of time”, while Shlomo Aviner argued for continuing the entry ban and “achieving closeness to it by keeping distance from it” (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 6, lines 8487-8736).
- Appendix 5 reproduces the widely known photomontage of the Temple Mount with a rebuilt Temple in place of the Dome of the Rock and the el-Aksa Mosque, captioned: “Naturally, when the peoples of the world come to learn from us, they are attracted not just by Holiness-the Land of Israel-but by the holy of holies.” (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Appendix 5, lines 10277-10292).
- Lustick’s polling appendix records that 18.3 percent of Israeli Jews supported rebuilding the Temple before the coming of the Messiah (May 1983), and 25 percent of Israeli Oriental Jews supported razing the Muslim shrines to rebuild the Third Temple (May 1982) (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Appendix 2, lines 9697-10051).
Related pages
For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jewish Underground, Kach, Gush Emunim, Shlomo Goren