Kindgo
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Aug. 9, 2002
MK Kleiner visits Temple Mount
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
Jerusalem Post Internet
Nearly two years after the Temple Mount was declared off-limits to non-Muslims due to concerns over renewed violence, MK Michael Kleiner (Herut) was permitted by police to briefly enter the area Thursday night.
Kleiner, who had led a group of several hundred demonstrators on a walk to the Western Wall plaza from Jaffa Gate, said that his decision to visit the site came after months of increasing frustration and failure by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to reopen the site to Jews and Christians.
"The Temple Mount, the holiest site for Judaism, has been decreed Judenrein," Kleiner said. "This racial discrimination must stop."
Waving placards that read "Free the Temple Mount," and wearing T-shirts that read "The Temple Mount is for the Jews, Mecca is for the Arabs," the largely religious crowd of several hundred made its way through the narrow alleyways of Jerusalem's Old City to the plaza area.
Separated by a large police cordon, a group of two dozen Peace Now supporters held a counterdemonstration near the area, their signs reading "Sharon and Kleiner a twin disaster," as Arab passersby watched.
"Even excluding the religious reasons, the discrimination against Jews and Christians is amazing," said 21-year-old Ben Marcus, of Long Island, a participant in the demonstration. "It just isn't fair that Judaism's holiest site should be closed to Jews," said Avi Piner, 20, of Brooklyn who is studying at the capital's Mir Yeshiva.
"You are asking for more spilled blood," a Peace Now demonstrator shouted out as the marchers made their way to the Western Wall plaza, where three of them were arrested by police.
Fearing renewed Palestinian violence, police have barred non-Muslims, including archeologists, from entering the Mount since then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon's controversial visit to the site in September 2000, leaving the site without any archeological supervision. The 22 months since then is the longest period the site has been closed to non-Muslims since the unification of Jerusalem in 1967.
A year ago, Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau called the restrictions on Jewish and Christian entry to the mount "an anomaly" that "runs counter to all the democratic principles of the Jewish State. Israel will have to find the proper time to see to it that principles of freedom of worship and archeological preservation are ensured," Landau said in August 2001.
"Anybody who reads the Bible and who knows history knows the significance of this place to the Jewish nation," said one of the most elderly participants in last night's march, 80-year-old Rachel Cohen, who came from the Negev.
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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