ISRAELI-ARAB CABINET MINISTER: ISRAEL HAS NO AUTHORITY ON TEMPLE MOUNT

Minister questions Temple Mount jurisdiction (JTA)
An Israeli Cabinet minister drew censure by questioning the Jewish state's legal right to the Temple Mount.

Culture Minister Ghaled Majadle appeared in the Knesset on Tuesday to address lawmakers' complaints about renovations by Muslim authorities on the Temple Mount, which houses Islam's third holiest mosque.

Asked by Aryeh Eldad of the National Union whether he recognizes that Israel has jurisdiction over Judaism's most important site, Majadle, who is the only Arab in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Cabinet, said "no."

Asked to elaborate, he said: "As a citizen, as a man, as a Muslim, I believe this should not be so."

Israel annexed east Jerusalem after capturing it in the 1967 Six-Day War, though it allows the Jordanian- and Palestinian Authority-sponsored Muslim Waqf to administer the Temple Mount.

Israel Radio reported that Eldad may file an official complaint charging Majadle with breach of trust, as his remarks clashed with long-standing government policy regarding sovereignty over Jerusalem.

MUFTI: NO JEWISH PRAYERS IN "PALESTINE'S" JERUSALEM

Security of Jerusalem Holy Sites Threatened - Mike Seid
Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the UN and Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs president, has a warning for the religious faithful. "Taking the holy sites of Jerusalem which are presently protected and secure and putting them under the uncertainty of Palestinian rule or of some poorly defined special regime for the Holy Basin is to put their future in great doubt." At the planned summit in Annapolis, the fate of this special city appears to be on the table.

"Jerusalem has been a part of Jewish faith and religious practice since the time of King David and King Solomon," he says. "The most widely practiced ceremonies in Judaism today, the Passover Seder and the Ne'ila prayer of Yom Kippur, close with the declaration 'Next year in Jerusalem.' The call for rebuilding Jerusalem is a part of Jewish daily prayer and of the grace after meals. Thus Jerusalem is at the heart of Jewish religious consciousness."

"Christians treasure the importance of Jerusalem, but their main institutions developed elsewhere," Gold says, referring to Rome and Constantinople. "For Islam, Jerusalem has special meaning. But Jerusalem never appears in the Koran. And the proper place of pilgrimage for the haj is Mecca, with Medina being the second most holy city in Islam. Jerusalem was never the seat of the Islamic caliphate." "Only a free and democratic Israel can protect Jerusalem for all faiths," he concludes.

Dr. Ikrema Sabri, former mufti of Jerusalem, says, "Islam said the city was to be under the authority of Muslims because it is a Muslim city." Despite this week's findings of First Temple remains on the Mount by the Muslim Wakf, Sabri argues, "There was never a Jewish temple on Al-Aksa and there is no proof that there was ever a temple." Similarly, Sabri maintains that the Western Wall "is not part of the Jewish temple, it is just the Western Wall of the mosque," he says. "There is not a single stone with any relation at all to the history of the Hebrews." Islamic leaders were not always so certain. The Supreme Muslim Council in 1930 wrote that the Temple Mount's "sanctity dates from earliest times. Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute." (Jerusalem Post)

Mufti: No Jewish prayers in 'Palestine's' Jerusalem by Stan Goodenough (JWN)
If Jerusalem is divided, and it's eastern part made the capital of "Palestine" - world Jewry will be forever cut off from the hope it has held onto for 2000 years, and be once and for all prohibited from ascending the Temple Mount and even from praying at the Western Wall.

This warning was clearly sounded in an interview the former PLO-appointed mufti of Jerusalem gave to The Jerusalem Post this week, excerpts of which were published Thursday.

Ikrema Sabri emphatically told the Post no Israelite temple had ever stood on the Temple Mount. What's more, the cleric insisted, the Western Wall - whose massive stones the entire world knows to have been laid by Herod the Great during the Roman occupation of the Land of Israel - had nothing to do with any temple either. "The wall is not part of the Jewish temple. It is just the western wall of the mosque. There is not a single stone with any relation at all to the history of the Hebrews. "It was always only a mosque - all 144 dunams, the entire area," Sabri said.

"No Jews have the right to pray there. ... No Jewish prayer. If the Jews want real peace, they must not do anything to try to pray on Al-Aqsa. Everyone knows that."

The Mufti's ranting underscored how the Muslim Arab effort to wrest Israel's holiest site from the Jewish people and entrench it under irreversible Islamic control is intensifying in the run-up to next-month's US-sponsored Middle East conference.

Washington is pushing for this conference, fully aware that the Arab side’s intent is to steal great chunks of Israel’s historic homeland for the creation of a juden-rein Palestinian state that will never tolerate Jewish and Christian worship on or near the Temple Mount – or at any other site deemed sacred to Islam.

PALIS WANT WESTERN WALL AND MORE!

Palestinians Want Western Wall as Part of Any Settlement (NYSun)
UNITED NATIONS — As an American-hosted Middle East summit approaches, Palestinian Arabs are hardening their positions: An aide to the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, said yesterday that the Palestinians will demand sole Arab control over Judaism’s holiest site in Jerusalem, the Western Wall.

Mr. Abbas’s adviser on religious affairs, Adnan al-Husseini, made the new demand in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, sparking an outcry from many Israeli politicians who complained that recent reports about the Olmert government’s proposal to transfer Arab-dominated neighborhoods in Jerusalem to the jurisdiction of a Palestinian state have led to further Arab demands.

As the last remnant of the ancient Second Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 of the common era, the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall, is considered Judaism’s holiest site. Muslims, who call it Al-Burak, also venerate it as the place where they believe the prophet Muhammad tied his horse before ascending to the heavens.

“We are talking about full control” over Jerusalem, Mr. Husseini, a scion of one of the most prominent Palestinian Arab families, told Ma’ariv. “The Wailing Wall,” he said, “is a Muslim waqf,” or sacred endowment, “and therefore cannot be abandoned.” He cited a 1928 British mandate white paper that called for the area to be under Muslim control where Jews would be allowed to worship.


See also Abbas Demands Full Israeli Withdrawal to Pre-1967 Borders
PA Chairman Abbas on Wednesday called for a full Israeli withdrawal from all territories captured in the 1967 Six-Day War. "We have 6,205 square kilometers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," Abbas told Palestine TV. "We want it as it is." According to Palestinian negotiating documents, the Palestinian demands include all of the Gaza Strip, West Bank, east Jerusalem and small areas along the West Bank frontier that were considered no-man's land before the Six-Day War. At the same time, Palestinian officials confirmed that Abbas would be willing to adjust his claims, as long as they end up with the same amount of land. (AP/Ha'aretz)

See also Arab League Sets Terms for Attending Peace Conference with Israel
Arab countries will need guarantees and a timetable for talks over a final solution to their conflict with Israel as a condition to their participation in an international peace conference to be sponsored by the U.S., Arab League Secretary-General Amr Musa said Wednesday. Nothing has been offered so far, hence Arab reluctance to sit at the negotiation table with Israel, Musa said. (Deutsche Presse-Agentur)

CLEANING KOTEL KVITTELS

Cleaning Kotel kvittels
Millions of people from around the world come to Jerusalem’s Western Wall to wedge prayers scrawled on scraps of prayer in between the Kotel’s ancient stones. Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz cleans them up. (Washington Post)

UPDATED: LEO DICAPRIO VISITS YAD VASHEM WITH ISRAELI GIRLFRIEND

DiCaprio, Rafaeli tour Yad Vashem (YNet)
Hollywood superstar Leonardo DiCaprio and his Israeli girlfriend model Bar Rafaeli toured Monday evening the Yad Vashem Museum for the commemoration of the Holocaust, which opened after hours for their visit. DiCaprio apparently showed great interest in the tour and was moved by the experience, asking numerous questions and pausing repeatedly at various displays. The couple was expected to tour Jerusalem immediately following. DiCaprio and Rafaeli landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday and headed straight to the Rafaeli family home in Hod Hasharon.

UPDATE: Israel Police arrest bodyguards of star Leonardo DiCaprio (Haaretz)
Israel Police arrested on Monday two members of actor Leonardo DiCaprio's security team after they clashed with photographers during a visit to Jerusalem by the star and his Israeli girlfriend Bar Refaeli. Israel Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said DiCaprio and supermodel Refaeli were taking a private tour of the Western Wall tunnels, next to the Western Wall which is Judaism's holiest site, in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Rosenfeld said the photographers waited outside the tunnels for the couple to emerge. "Two of his [DiCaprio's] security guards were arrested by police after being involved in a fight that broke out," Rosenfeld said. "They are being questioned." Covering their faces after the tour, DiCaprio and Refaeli were whisked away in a waiting white van.