19 January 2023
Ebrahim Moosa | Palestine Information Network
‘Al-Aqsa in Danger’ is a slogan that has long echoed from the mimbars and streets of Bayt al-Maqdis seeking to awaken the conscience of dormant Muslim World. The dangers have always been real to this iconic station for the lofty journey of Mi’raj from the onset of the modern Zionist movement securing a foothold in the Holy Land. With each phase of the ascendancy of Zionism – the Balfour Declaration, the Nakba, the Naksa, the charade of the peace-process, the violent response to intifadas – the occupiers have circled in closer on Masjid al-Aqsa with their agenda of peril.
Its latest chapter brings us Itamar Ben-Gvir and the forces of what some have dubbed as Israel’s ‘New Nakba’ government. Ben-Gvir is a blunt racist who once proudly showed off to reporters a framed photo of Baruch Goldstein, the murderer of 29 Muslim worshippers at Al-Khalil’s Ibrahimi Masjid, hanging in his living room in the illegal West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba. In his job as a lawyer, Ben-Gvir has represented numerous Jewish-Israelis accused of conducting acts of terror against Palestinians, including the convicted murderer of the Dawabshe family, who were burned in their home in the West Bank village of Duma in 2015. He has served as a provocateur in besieged Palestinian neigbourhoods of Al-Quds like Sheikh Jarrah, and actively seeks to subvert the already eroding historic status quo of Muslim-only prayer at Masjid al-Aqsa.
In comments made prior to taking office, Ben-Gvir was seen in footage lecturing to a group of Palestinians that “if you throw stones, I’ll mow you down.”
“We’re the landlords here, remember that, I am your landlord,” he says.
This narcissistic baron is now in charge of overseeing Israel’s Occupation police, who in turn enforce the occupier’s usurping policies at Masjid al-Aqsa.
As Israel’s new national security minister he wasted no time in invading Masjid al-Aqsa during his first days at office. Ben-Gvir’s intent was no less inflammatory than that of Ariel Sharon when he trespassed the Masjid in September 2000, sparking the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
Says journalist Jonathan Cook, “Ben-Gvir appears ready to provoke a religious war – one that would demonstrate once and for all the power of his kind of Jewish zealotry and thuggishness to subdue all Muslim opposition. Al-Aqsa could be the powder-keg to ignite such a conflagration.”
Lamentably, the lack of an adequately forthright response from the Muslim World suggests a failure to grasp the seriousness of the provocateur’s intent.
“Ben-Gvir was testing the waters. He will surely be back soon, with bigger provocations,” adds Cook.
For a man who idolises Baruch Goldstein whose crime facilitated the division of the Ibrahimi Masjid between Jews and Muslims, it is most conceivable that he would seek to impose the same annexing template on Masjid al-Aqsa.
“But it does not end there. Like his supporters, Ben-Gvir wants to destroy the Muslim holy site and [make] it as a Jewish temple. He said as much last May when he visited Al-Aqsa complex, posting a picture calling for the eradication of the mosque to “establish a synagogue on the mount”.
Buoyed by his stance, Ben-Gvir’s constituency are already salivating at the prospect of enacting animal slaughter rituals during the Passover period – coinciding with Ramadan – inside Al-Aqsa, as a curtain-raiser for their Temple schemings.
On a broader level, the current Israeli government’s coalition agreements, says Adalah, a Palestinian human rights group, amount to a declaration of intent to commit grave crimes under international law upon the Palestinians. Among these proposed policies are: an intention to restructure the Occupation police force and allow for even less-restrictions for firing on Palestinians; institutionalising the cooperation between armed Jewish-Israelis and the police to subdue Palestinians during times of crisis; affording near-blanket impunity to Israeli soldiers in cases involving crimes against Palestinians; imposing the death sentence on Palestinians deemed guilty of “harming the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people”; increasing revocation of Palestinian residency rights; pursuing an accelerated policy of ‘transfer’ for Palestinians who reside within the present State of Israel, and Judaizing their lands; seeking to outlaw NGOs that advocate for Palestinian rights; and transferring civil responsibility for the Occupied West Bank to another firebrand settler minister, Bezalel Smotrich.
Together, these proposals amount to nothing short of an all-out declaration of war on Masjid al-Aqsa, the city of Al-Quds and all Palestinians. Jewish settlers in Sheikh Jarrah recently paraded through the neighbourhood chanting “we want Nakba now,” whilst Zvika Fogel, an MP with Ben-Gvir’s ‘Jewish Power’ party said in an interview that the time was ripe for a “final war” that should subdue Palestinians “once and for all”.
The accelerating crimes on the ground affirm that these are no empty threats. On this commemoration of the Isra and Mi’raj let us reaffirm our love for Masjid al-Aqsa, and intensify our tangible acts of solidarity with its steadfast people.
