Listen up, you pathetic bunch of liars – sheikhs, "clerics," and terrorists in suits, robes and jalabiyas; listen well, you, who on the wings of your al-Aqsa plots, in the name of holiness, have lit a foreign fire. You have made up stories, destroyed, burned and murdered the fragile coexistence that prevailed here among the inhabitants of this land, Jews and Arabs, the sons of our ancestor Abraham.
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I do not know if and to what extent my words will have any influence, but as someone who has devoted some years of his life and two books to your art of falsehoods, the public - that which is incited by you; who is now being attacked by missiles with fire and stones, and the one who you are leading astray in Israel and abroad - they have a right to know the truth.
Your al-Aqsa, which was built on the ruins of our temple, is not in danger. The State of Israel gave up the Mount that is sacred to us and you in 1967 and granted you exclusivity over it in everything related to religious worship and prayers there. It even forbade Jews to pray in the holiest of holies. Many of us still believe that we were out of our minds back then, but the governments of Israel for generations, right and left, have clung to this religious and historical disruption, on the assumption that this will prevent a religious war. They were probably wrong.
For 54 years now, you, like your spiritual father, the bitter enemy Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, and his 'son' and follower, our contemporary, Raed Salah, are trying to 'sell' to the world a fabricated story about the "status quo" that Israel allegedly violates on the Mount and "abuses." But the reality is quite the opposite.
Israel strictly maintains the status quo on the Temple Mount, prevents Jews from praying on it, and even prevents itself from reminding you and the world of what I and some of my colleagues have documented and re-exposed in our research books:
You, who today deny any Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, have confessed orally and in writing – for a thousand years or more – about the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and the existence of a temple there.
Until 1967 you told in your writings the story of the construction and destruction of the two temples just as the Jewish sources document. You also knew how to explain to your children that your religion draws from Judaism and that you consecrated the rock (the Foundation Stone) and the al-Aqsa compound, precisely and mainly because of the knowledge that the Temple was located there. A complete reversal of your denial today of the connection of Jews to Jerusalem in general, and the Mount in particular.
Moreover – not we, but you are the ones who reversed the same "sacred" status quo, changed it for your own good, made a mockery of it and of us. You are the ones who actually deleted it.
In the 1970s, you used the Dome of the Rock structure for prayers, which was not originally built as a mosque.
In 1996, you built a third mosque on the Mount, the Al Marwani Mosque, in Solomon's Stables
In 1998, you built a fourth mosque on the Mount - 'Ancient Al-Aqsa', in the spaces below Al-Aqsa
In the early 2000s, you paved flooring on extensive sections of the Mount for the benefit of Muslim prayers and in 2019 you used the Golden Gate compound as a fifth (actual) mosque.
Status quo? Over the years you have closed the Chain and Cotton Gates to Jews. You made sure that their hours and days of visiting the Mount would be reduced and limited. You threatened and rioted and harassed until a defined route was made for Jews (mostly religious) on the Mount and they were forbidden to enter mosques.
As part of the same 'status quo', Jordan has turned from being an employer who pays the salaries of Waqf members on the Mount into a senior Israeli partner in its management; There is no more enforcement of planning and construction laws on the Mount; archaeological supervision has been greatly undermined as well as the enforcement of the Antiquities Law, and the restoration of the Mount walls, southern and eastern, has been entrusted to professionals on your behalf.
Even the ban on waving flags on the Temple Mount has become a joke. It is enforced only when it comes to Israeli flags. On the other hand, the flags of Hamas, the PA, ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizb ut-Tahrir are frequently hoisted.
So who reversed the status quo - us or you? Who 'murdered' a historical legacy, his and ours, on the Mount, and destroyed and damaged the antiquities, just so that God forbid the connection of the Jews to the place would not be proven? And who has turned the lies of 'al-Aqsa is in danger' into a production line of terrorist attacks and terrorism while bearing the name of Allah in vain and desecrating his and our holies? And now 'burning down the house' and pumping the arsonists consistently with – "al-Aqsa."
That over the years we have given up to you – we have contained, we have restrained, we have ignored, we have retreated, we have been shamed, we have been humiliated, that we conquered our will against your will and we were the 'silver tray' on which the Mount was served to you - we'll have to live with. But at least tell the truth – we still can.
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