Zoabi: Israel is a ‘Terror State’
Presence of Jewish Temple on Temple Mount is a ‘myth.’
By Uzi Baruch, Tova Dvorin, Israel National News, 11/14/2014
Arab MKs are among the Israeli Arabs readying to protest in Umm Al-Fahm Friday, as frustrations build in the Arab city over the Temple Mount and the shooting of terrorist Hir Alhamdan in Kafr Kana.
Participants not only include Umm Al-Fahm residents, but also MKs Hanin Zoabi (Balad), MK Jamal Zahalka (Balad), and MK Afu Agbaria (Hadash) – as well as Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood-linked northern Islamic movement.
Speaking to reporters Friday afternoon, Hanin Zoabi deifantly stated, “we are not afraid of Israel, the terror state.”
Jamal Zahalka, meanwhile, encouraged the total closure of the Temple Mount – Judaism’s holiest site which Muslims claim under the label “the Al-Aqsa Mosque” – to Jews.
“Al-Aqsa is a tangible reality, while the [first and second Jewish] Temple there is a myth,” Zahalka claimed. “Any attempt to damage Al-Aqsa will bring greater escalation.”
“Anyone who wants tensions to calm [there] should allow [Muslim] prayer there [to resume] and stop pyromaniacs and provocateurs of all sorts from ascending to it,” he added.
“We are part of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, which failed all Israeli targets, both military and political,” Zoabi boasted to reporters at the scene.
“The Palestinian people is still occupied, however, and we cannot break it by force – only through a just political solution and ending the siege and the occupation.”
Flashback: Bill Clinton, a true believer
During the Camp David conversations with Bill Clinton in 2000 Yasser Arafat expressed doubts that the ancient Jewish temple actually lay beneath the Islamic-run compound in Jerusalem containing the holy Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. This was a critical point of dispute, since the Western Wall, a remnant of the temple’s retaining wall, is the holiest site in Judaism and one the Israelis were intent on maintaining sovereignty over. “I know it’s there,” Clinton said he told Arafat.” (Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, June 27, 2001)
The Temple & Fort Antonia
“When Romans took control, they built a huge fortress, which is now mistakenly called the temple mount, north of the city of David, which enclosed 35 acres — about three times as much as the entire City of David.
This was the Tower of Antonia. This fortress follows the same pattern as Roman fortresses and camps in other places in the world.” George Wesley Buchanan
Josephus, a Jew who was an eyewitness of the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome in 70AD and the author of “The antiquities of the Jews” and “The Jewish wars”(available online) said the Temple of Herod was built high up on a platform that had four walls around it forming a precise square of 600 feet on each side.
Josephus said the wall of its southeast corner had its foundations directly in the deepest part of the Kidron Valley (in the streambed itself) and that its height was 300 cubits (450 feet, or about the height of a modern 40 story building). This description in no way fits the dimensions of the Haram.
Near the northwest corner Josephus said this external Temple wall was connected to Fort Antonia by two side-by-side colonnade roadways (each 600 feet long).
Josephus then said that Fort Antonia itself was built around a notable “Rock” that was viewed as the centerpiece feature of the interior of the Fort (which was also known as the Praetorium).
This well-recognized “Rock” in the Praetorium around which Fort Antonia was built was called the lithostrotos in the Gospel of John (19:13) and Christ stood on it when judged by Pilate. Josephus said that Antonias size was much larger than the Temple (he described Fort Antonia as the size of a city and it contained a full legion of Roman troops with many open spaces for military exercises and training).
Fort Antonia was so large that Josephus said it obscured the whole of the Temple square from the north. (temple Update)
Flavius Josephus:
“Tyrants among the Jews brought the Roman power upon us”
“Titus Caesar pitied the people who were kept
under by the seditious”
“I will not go to the other extreme, out of opposition to those men who extol the Romans nor will I determine to raise the actions of my countrymen too high; but I will prosecute the actions of both parties with accuracy.
Yet shall I suit my language to the passions I am under, as to the affairs I describe, and must be allowed to indulge some lamentations upon the miseries undergone by my own country. For that it was a seditious temper of our own that destroyed it, and that they were the tyrants among the Jews who brought the Roman power upon us, who unwillingly attacked us, and occasioned the burning of our holy temple.
Titus Caesar, who destroyed it, is himself a witness, who, during the entire war, pitied the people who were kept under by the seditious, and did often voluntarily delay the taking of the city, and allowed time to the siege, in order to let the authors have opportunity for repentance.”
Titus (Latin: Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus) was Roman Emperor from 79 to 81. Prior to becoming Emperor, Titus gained renown as a military commander, serving under his father in Judaea during the First Jewish-Roman War. In 70, he besieged and captured Jerusalem, and destroyed the city and the Second Temple. For this achievement Titus was awarded a triumph; the Arch of Titus commemorates his victory to this day.
As emperor, he is best known for completing the Colosseum and for his generosity in relieving the suffering caused by two disasters, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 and a fire in Rome in 80.
“Oh most wretched city, what misery so great as this didst thou suffer from the Romans, when they came to purify thee from thy internal pollutions!
For thou couldst be no longer a place fit for God, nor couldst thou longer survive, after thou hadst been a sepulchre for the bodies of thine own people, and thou hast made the Holy House itself a burying-place in this civil war of thine. Yet mayst thou again grow better, if perchance thou wilt hereafter appease the anger of that God who is the author of thy destruction.
But I must restrain myself from these passions by the rules of History, since this is not a proper time for domestic lamentation, but for historical narrations. (The Lamentation of Josephus, War 5.1.4 19-20)
Zealots, provoking a civil war
Bands of desperate Zealots began to spread over the land, plundering houses, while the Roman garrisons in the towns, rather rejoicing in their hatred to the race than wishing to protect the sufferers, afforded little help.
Large numbers of these evil men stole into the city and grew into a daring faction, who robbed houses openly, and many of the most eminent citizens were murdered by these Zealots, as they were called, from their pretence that they had discovered a conspiracy to betray the city to the Romans. They dismissed many of the sanhedrin from office, and appointed men of the lowest degree, who would support them in their violence, till the leaders of the people became slaves to their will.
At length resistance was provoked, led by Ananus, oldest of the chief priests, a man of great wisdom, and the robber Zealots took refuge in the Temple and fortified it more strongly than before. They appointed as high priest one Phanias, a coarse and clownish rustic, utterly ignorant of the sacerdotal duties, who when decked in the robes of office caused great derision.
This sport and pastime for the Zealots caused the more religious people to shed tears of grief and shame; and the citizens, unable to endure such insolence, rose in great numbers to avenge the outrage on the sacred rites. Thus a fierce civil war broke out in which very many were slain. (Flavius Josephus: the fall of the temple)
“Where are we going?”
Uri Avnery, 15-11-2014
The entire country is now aflame. East Jerusalem is already a war zone, with daily demonstrations, riots and bloodshed.
In Israel proper, since the Kafr Kanna killing Arab citizens are also mounting daily strikes and demonstrations. In the West Bank, there were some demonstrations and a fatal stabbing, after which an Arab was shot and killed.
Mahmoud Abbas is doing everything in his power to prevent a general uprising, which might quite well endanger his regime. But pressure from below is mounting. Abbas refused to meet Netanyahu in Amman.
Popular wisdom in Israel has already found a name for the situation: “Intifada of Individuals”. For the Israeli security chiefs, that is a nightmare. They are ready for an organized Intifada. They know how to quash it by force, and, if necessary, by more force. But what to do with an Intifada which is entirely made by isolated individuals, with no orders from any organization, with no grouping that can be infiltrated by the collaborators of the Shin Bet net of informers? …
The center of the storm is the Temple Mount..
For decades now, a group of Israeli zealots has been busy planning for a new Jewish Temple to be built in place of the al-Aqsa and the magnificent Dome of the Rock. They are stitching garments for priests and making the necessary preparations for animal sacrifices.
Until recently, they were considered simply a curiosity. Not anymore.
Several cabinet ministers and Knesset members have entered the holy enclosure to pray, contrary to the status quo. Throughout the Islamic world, this has aroused alarm. Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and in Israel proper are furious.
Netanyahu promised King Abdallah II to restore quiet. But he is doing the opposite.
Jesus turned water into wine. Netanyahu is turning water into gasoline and pouring it on the flames.
The Garden of Gethsemane looks down into the Kidron Valley and up across to Jerusalem. This means that Jesus would have been able to see Judas and the procession of soldiers coming to get Him from a long way off. (source)
Independent News Informer 