Extremist Zionist rabbis plan to pay a controversial visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, knowing full well the anger it will provoke, writes Khaled Amayreh from East Jerusalem While voicing a reluctant willingness to "deal with some elements" of the Arab Peace Plan, Israel continues to implement policies that constitute the exact antithesis of each and every clause in that plan. Earlier this week, the Israeli government allowed nearly a dozen radical religious-Zionist rabbis who openly call for "enslaving or expelling" non-Jews in Israel-Palestine, to tour the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem. The reasons for this are clear and it is highly unlikely that the Israeli political security establishment was unaware of the disastrous consequences of the visit. The rabbis allowed into the Haram Al-Sharif compound are different from other Israeli rabbis. They are a group of fanatical ideologues who constantly preach hatred against Muslims and the rest of the non-Jewish world. They also indoctrinate their hundreds of thousands of followers, including the majority of Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with the apocalyptic messianic doctrine that the way to accelerate the appearance of the "redeemer" or Jewish Messiah, and consequently attain salvation is by igniting violence and bloodshed on a very large scale. And the most effective way of doing so is, the rabbis believe, by provoking war, preferably by demolishing the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Muslim world's third holiest place. One of the rabbis who visited the holy shrine was Dov Lior from the settlement of Kiryat Arba near Hebron. Lior eulogised as "a great martyr and saint", Baruch Goldstein, the Jewish terrorist who in 1994 massacred 29 Palestinians as they prayed at the Ibrahimi Mosque in downtown Hebron. The "visit", carefully planned to coincide with Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem according to the Hebrew calendar, was apparently not going to be the last one. On Tuesday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Rabbi Avraham Wasserman, one of the organisers, as saying that, "this is a process which is going to continue. "After so many years in which people got used to being forbidden from ascending the Temple Mount, explanatory work and lengthy preparations are needed to bring the public to the mount in purity, after fulfilling all the ritual requirements," he said. In the event these provocative tours of the Al-Aqsa compound continue, there is little doubt that a third bloody Intifada will soon break out in the occupied territories. Many remember how Ariel Sharon's highly publicised visit to the site in 2001 triggered the Al-Aqsa Intifada, causing thousands of deaths and injuries among Palestinians and Israelis alike. More to the point, a fresh Intifada over the Al-Aqsa Mosque is likely to spill over to other Arab and Islamic countries with unpredictable ramifications at this time. And the Palestinians are watching what is happening very carefully. The chief Islamic judge of Palestine, Taysir Al-Tamimi, warned that, "the Jews are playing with fire." Similar statements have been made by other Palestinian leaders. To be sure, the rabbinic incursion into the Al-Aqsa compound didn't occur in a political vacuum. Israel, fearing further demographic threats in the form of a higher Arab birthrate in Jerusalem, has already encouraged the Israelis to draw up counter-plans to maximise the Jewish presence, and minimise the Arab presence in the city. On Sunday, 13 May, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced the allocation of a hefty $1.6 billion to "strengthen the Jewish presence", by confiscating more Arab-owned land for building cheap houses for Jews. Moreover, many of Olmert's supporters, including the fanatical Talmudic mayor of the city, Uri Lupolinski, are already proposing "proactive" measures to "harass Arabs" into leaving the city, similar to the campaign of intimidation and harassment carried out by Jewish settlers in cooperation with the Israeli army against Palestinians in Hebron's Old Quarter. On Monday, 14 May, two Israeli human rights organisations, B'tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) released a report stating that a policy of ethnic cleansing by the settlers and the army was being imposed on Hebron. The two groups said that the Israeli policy, spearheaded by fanatical settlers, had already forced Palestinians citizens to abandon more than 1000 homes and at least 1829 businesses in the centre of Hebron, due to pressure and harassment by the army and the settlers. This week Israeli celebrations of the "unification of Jerusalem" (the city is actually as divided as ever) were boycotted by the Europeans, the Americans and most of the international community. The US and Germany which assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union both informed Israel that they wouldn't send their ambassadors or any other representative to the celebration, since they don't recognise Israeli sovereignty over the city. The boycott was a painful snub to a government that only last week was seriously damaged by the Winograd report that blamed it for mismanaging Israel's war against Lebanon last year, but stopped short, however, at calling for the resignation of Olmert and his Defence Minister Amir Peretz. Palestinian leaders on both sides of the "green line" welcomed the boycott. Palestinian spokeswoman and lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi was quoted as saying that "in line with the rule of international law. the Israelis cannot get away with creating facts on the ground and then forcing everybody to fall in line." Similarly, Israeli Knesset member Ahmed Tibi labelled the European-American boycott of the celebrations as "right" and "consistent with international law". Mainstream Israeli leaders reacted silently to the boycott, while the more rightwing-oriented politicians accused both the US and Europe of "harbouring anti-Semitism." Meanwhile, the Israeli government said it would wait for the proper timing, before launching any widespread incursion into Gaza. The "right timing" here probably suggests that Israel won't proceed with an-all out invasion into Gaza, so long as Hamas and Fatah are preoccupied with their internal clashes which, of course, are music to Israeli ears. However, the Israeli government has ostensibly given army generals a green light to respond to the firing of the homemade Al-Qassam missiles from Gaza in whatever manner they deem fit. This includes carrying out assassinations of Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has welcomed the proposed visit to Israel by an Arab League delegation for the purpose of discussing the Arab Peace Plan. However, Livni, now deceptively presented as the Olmert government's most dovish minister, has been quoted as saying that the Arab plan was no substitution for direct talks between Palestinians and Israel. The implication of this is patently clear. Israel is insisting on bullying and squeezing the weak and vulnerable Palestinian Authority, especially PA President Mahmoud Abbas, into accepting the premise that it is "the outcome of Palestinian-Israeli talks" and not the Arab Peace Plan, nor indeed, the rule of international law, that will constitute the final solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
