Massacring Palestinians

The recent firing of rubber bullets by Israeli police at worshippers in the Masjid Al-Aqsa is not merely the public health measure it purports to be, but is also part of the tussle between the Palestinians of the West Bank and the settlers of the Zionist entity over the two-state solution. The Zionist entity is not only insisting on setting up new settlements, but on retaining roads between those settlements, so that what would be left to the Arabs of the West Bank would be multiple pieces of land cut off from one another. It is already bad enough to have a state consisting of two pieces of land, as the West Bank and Gaza.

However, a two-state solution is far into the future. The immediate issue is the day-to-day administration of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, occupied by Israel after the Six-Day War of 1967. Perhaps the prize conquest during the Six-Day War was East Jerusalem.

Just as the Hindus did with the Babri Masjid, with a claim of a Ram Mandir, so will Israel claim Al-Aqsa, first for destruction and then for replacement? The Al-Aqsa claim is stronger than that of the Ramjanmabhoomii, for while Muslims denied the latter, they admit the former.

Jews, even those who reject religious belief and regard their Jewishness as a purely ethnic identity, claim a homeland in Palestine on the basis of Biblical claims. Those Biblical claims make the Masjid Al-Aqsa the holiest place in Judaism, the site of the First and Second Temples, and of the Third Temple, which Jews have vowed to build whenever they ruled Jerusalem again.

It was a sort of attempt, by a visiting Australian, to burn down the Masjid Al-Aqsa, which prompted the founding of the OIC in 1969. He wished to facilitate the Second Coming of Christ, which is supposed to take place in the Third Temple. However, there were two attempts by Jews, of Orthodox sects, to demolish Al-Aqsa. Two members of the Gush Emunim Underground plotted its destruction. Then the Temple Mount Faithful, in 1990, attempted to lay a foundation-stone, for the Third Temple, and 22 Palestinians were killed, on 8 September 1990.

A visit to Al-Aqsa by then Leader of Opposition Ariel Sharon on 28 September 2000, provoked protests which ultimately led to the five-year Al-Aqsa intifada. Since 1967, Israeli law enforcers had not gone into the mosque itself. That restraint disappeared in 2004, and was not observed this time either.

There is a strange pattern, of it being treated as an Arab problem rather than a Muslim one. Arabs are mostly Muslim, and many of them have acquaintance, even closer (Jordan’s King Abdullah has a Palestinian wife), with Palestinian refugees. A lot of Palestinians also found employment in the Gulf when oil wealth began to pour in there. However, Muslims all over the world have not just an attachment to the cause of fellow Muslims, but also to that of Al-Aqsa, which is the first Qibla, the direction to which the Holy Prophet (PBUH) led his Companions in prayer al through his Meccan years, and the beginning of his Madinan period, until he switched towards the Kaaba in Makkah. It is a historical anomaly that the Khadimul Harmain (once the title of the Osmanli Caliph, now of the Saudi King) does not presently rule all the Harams.

Along with Makkah and Madina, Al-Aqsa is a haram, a sanctuary. No mosque is a sanctuary from arrest. However, the three harams are inviolate. Anyone can worship there, secure from both the wrath of the state, and private revenge. More than anything else, it provides Islam’s link to the other Abrahmic religions. Until 1967, it was part of the Hajj.

However, since 1967, it has not been part of the Hajj package, for most Muslim countries do not have diplomatic relations with Israel, and their citizens cannot go there. It is not the first time since iits being built that Al-Aqsa has been under non-Muslim occupaton. The first episode was in 1098, when the First Crusade took Jerusalem.

The historian Amin Mallouf describes it thus, as it was described to the Caliph in Baghdad in August 1099:

“Wearing no turban, his head shaved as a sign of mourning, the venerable

Qazi Saad al-Harawi burst with a loud cry into the spacious diwan of the caliph al-Mustazhir Billah, and then proceeded to lecture all those present. “Shall the valorous.Arabs resign themselves to insult, and the valiant Persians accept dishonour?’

“The entire audience broke out in wails and lamentations. But al-Harawi shouted, “Man’s meanest weapon is to shed tears when rapiers stir the coals of war.”

“If he had made this trip from Damascus to Baghdad, it was not to plead for pity. All the people travelling with him had fled from towns sacked by the invaders; among them were some of the few survivors of Jerusalem. He had brought them along so that they could relate, in their own words, the tragedy they had suffered just one month earlier.

“The Franj had taken the holy city on Friday, after a 40-day siege. The exiles still trembled when they spoke of the fall of the city: they stared into space as though they could still see the fair-haired and heavily armoured warriors spilling through the streets, swords in hand, slaughtering men, women, and children, plundering houses, sacking Mosques. Two days later, when the killing stopped, not a single Muslim was left alive within the city walls.

“A few days later, the first refugees from Palestine arrived in Damascus. Soon afterwards the survivors of Jerusalem duly approached the Syrian capital. “While they were sick at heart at  having been forced to abandon their homes, they were determined never to return until the occupiers had departed for ever, and they resolved to awaken the consciences of their brothers in all the lands of Islam.

“Why else would they have followed al-Harawi to Baghdad? Was it not to the caliph that Muslims must turn in their hour of need? Was it not to the prince of the faithful that they should address their complaints and their tales of woe? “In Baghdad, however, the refugees’ disappointment was to be as great as their hopes had been high. The caliph al Mustazhir Billah began by expressing his profound sympathy and compassion. Then he ordered seven exalted dignitaries to conduct an inquiry into these troublesome events. It is perhaps superfluous to add that nothing was ever heard from that committee of wise men.”

It was not until 1198 that Jerusalem was reconquered by Salahuddin Ayyubi. In the meantime Al-Aqsa was converted into a stable, and later handed over to the Templars. That is a little like the Sikhs who converted the Badshahi Mosque of Lahore into a stable.

The world has changed, but some things have not. The tears are still shed, but nothing is done. Then, the Caliph referred the matter to a committee, now there are attempts to convene the UN Security Council, which has met. But without stopping the slaughter.

Another development has been that internal Israeli politics is involved. Because of the Israeli attacks on Gaza, the pro-Hamas Ra’am Party has had to pull out of the coalition being built against Benjamin Netanyahu. That coalition would have turfed him out and left him to face corruption charges. Though he lacks a Knesset majority, he will survive in office, and go on avoiding arrest.

It is almost as if the Israelis are now learning from the Hindus after having taught them something. The Hindus have learnt how to turn the Muslim majority in Kashmir into a minority, from the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are similarly converting a Palestinian majority into a minority. Just as the Hindus did with the Babri Masjid, with a claim of a Ram Mandir, so will Israel claim Al-Aqsa, first for destruction and then for replacement? The Al-Aqsa claim is stronger than that of the Ramjanmabhoomii, for while Muslims denied the latter, they admit the former.

It is not history that determines claims. The Christian grip over Jerusalem lasted a century, and was ended neither by OIC resolutions or UN condemnations, or even imprecations by the Caliph. It took an Army, commanded by Salahuddin Ayubi, a Kurd who ruled Egypt, to do the job for all the Muslims.