TITLE: Jewish Extremists Plot to blow up Al Aqsa Mosque

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DATE: January 8, 2001

Israeli experts fear of apocalyptic holy war if Jewish extremists succeeded to bomb the mosque. Occupied Jerusalem (agencies) ~ January 08 Israeli experts say they fear Jewish fundamentalists are plotting to blow up mosques on a holy site at the heart of the Israeli-Arab conflict and could spark an apocalyptic holy war if they succeed. Blowing up Al Aqsa could imperil Israel's existence. '... if a Jewish group bombed the mosques the Muslim world would declare a war on Israel.' In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made public this week, former Shin Bet secret service chief Carmi Gillon and former police commissioner Assaf Hefetz warned that an extremist strike "would likely lead to all-out war and unleash destructive forces that would imperil Israel's existence." Control of Muslim's holy shrines in Al-Haram Al-Sharif, Al Aqsa mosque compound, (or the so-called Temple Mount to Jews) lies at the core of tensions between Israelis and Palestinians and is one of the most divisive elements in a new US peace plan. The blueprint forwarded by US President Bill Clinton would reportedly give Palestinians control over the upper section of the compound and its mosques, while Israel would retain control over the "Western Wall" below and the underground section. Fears that Israel is on the brink of ceding sovereignty over Judaism's holiest site, the third most sacred in Islam, is galvanizing extremists, according to the Keshev Center for the Protection of Democracy in Israel. A new report by the center found tens of thousands of people, many with convictions for "violent, ultra-nationalist activity," had recently been active in Temple Mount groups. Result a "Total apocalypse" "These Temple Mount lovers want ideologically and practically to build the third Jewish Temple where the mosques now stand," Keshev director Yizhar Be'er said. "The result would be a total apocalypse because if a Jewish group bombed the mosques the Muslim world would declare a war on Israel," he said, adding that Jewish extremists had been helped with financial backing from fundamentalist Christians. According to Jewish claims, King Solomon built the First Temple at the site 3,000 years ago. A second temple was built on its ruins centuries later and was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. Some extremists maintain only a third temple on the spot will herald the Kingdom of God. Keshev said at least 10 groups as working to bring about the third temple, including the "Small Sanhedrin" organization. Keshev maintains the group meets regularly in Jerusalem's Old City where it plans how to bring about a religious state. He says that activists practice sacrificial slaughter in a West Bank settlement as part of preparations for a new temple. A spokeswoman from the Mitzpe Yericho settlement rejected the accusation. "People here study theory about Temple practices. They are not doing anything and they are not sacrificing. (The claim) is funny," she said. Rabbis warn against concessions Israeli Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau and other leading rabbis have said that no Jew has the right to make concessions over the Temple Mount. Former security chiefs Gillon and Hefetz warned that the rabbinic calls could be "interpreted as permission to attack the mosques on the Temple Mount" by extremists seeking to avenge the deaths of Jews killed by Palestinians in recent violence. Such fears were rejected by "Western Wall" Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich, who told Israeli radio on Sunday that people taking the law into their own hands were "not part of Judaism and no rabbi would permit this". But even secular Israelis believe ceding the site is one concession too many. An opinion poll in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper last month showed 57 percent opposed transferring the so-called Temple Mount, even if Israel kept the "Western Wall" below. Fourteen weeks of the Palestinian Intifada in which some 333 Palestinians have been killed, have strengthened the resolve of Jewish activists who see the conflict as part of a divine master plan. "Events today are a part of the end of time and battle of nations after which will come God?s judgment of all the enemies of Israel," said Gershon Salomon, leader of the Temple Mount Faithful that wants to build the third Jewish temple. Gershom Gorenberg, author of "The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount," said political leaders must be sensitive to both sides. "For politicians to ignore the fears, even if they seem irrational and unjustified, is like sticking a claustrophobic in a box. It's dangerous political blindness," he said. END top