The Restrictions on the Temple Mount
Yesterday, as I was waiting for some friends at the entrance to the Old City at the Jaffa Gate, I noticed a group of people quarrelling. I pulled out my camera and approached.Very often in the news do we hear about the Temple Mount being closed to Palestinian men under the age of 50 because of some security concerns, but very little do we know on how it looks like on the ground. For example, it turns out that not only the Haram A-Sharif compound (the Temple Mount) is restricted, but the whole Old City is closed by the police, and only Palestinians who are registered as Old City residents, as well as women and men older than 50 are allowed in (together with Jews and tourists of course).
The footage below is a very banal scene, a story that no news agency would pick; just a group of people, stopped by an arbitrary order, who are very angry. But I think that each of us can imagine himself at this situation: Had I been the Palestinian who needs to go to work, to open my shop in the Old City, when the Israeli policeman stops me, how would I react? Would I be the one who’s so annoyed and loses his temper? Or would I be the one who tries to mediate the dispute (only to find himself powerless in the face of arbitrariness)? Or maybe I would try to wait quietly, to make myself as unnoticed as possible?
And if I were the policeman, would I be the “good cop” who tries to explain to the Arab men why they can’t come in? Or maybe the “bad cop” who seems on the edge of losing his temper and arresting people? Whether I would have been the “good,” or the “bad” in this scene, one thing was for sure: it was all so ugly.
Eyes On The Ground in East Jerusalem 
What we see is Palestine’s chickens . . . coming home to roost 😀
Last week, and the week before that, there were no police inspecting papers. Muslims made a decision to engage in liberalism, violence and jihad, so naturally security increased. What goes around (islamic violence) comes around (security).
If you cannot handle the jihad, stay out of the kitchen: that’s what I say :O)
Secondly. These muslims must now know what its like for Jews who would like to pray on the Temple Mount. Boy doesn’t feel so good does it? Better change the racist islamic policy soon, or when the Jews take over they may not be so forgiving of their islamic oppressors.
[There are big differences, of course. Unlike at the Temple Mount there weren’t brigands of bloodthirsty left-wing islamonazi youth also throwing stones at the jews – but you get the point].
If muslims want to be treated respectfully, its time that they start acting respectfully.
There is no holy land, no holy people, no god and no revealed truth. There is but violence, bloodshed, humiliation, brutality, death, arrogance, in the name of a concept that was invented by men.
Jerusalem is not more holy than Buenos Aires or Brooklyn.
GOD is NOT. Now is the time for you all to land and begin to make peace. I don’t think that both Jewish and Palestinian mothers want more of their children to be killed in the name of god.
He who wants to achieve something find solutions, he who don’t find excuses.
It is time for peace. As Amos Oz wrote: in this tragedy, there is no good one, and no bad one. There are only 2 victims.
Peace if the most courageous act a man can do. It is the less easy. Because it begins with a fight against one’s own enemy: oneself.
Good luck to Arabs and Israelis who want to achieve this great thing.
And peace to you all.
I feel sad for the self-hating Jews such as the author of this essay.
She even calls the Temple Mount by the name given to it by the Arab occupiers.
The idea of peace with Pal-Arabs is based in the denial of facts: The very existence of the so called “Palestinians” is solely for the purpose of destroying Israel. Otherwise there is no “Palestinian” nation, never has been.
The “Palestinian” nation was invested.
They have no separate culture, language, religion, nothing that distinguishes them form let’s say Syrian,s Jordanians, or Lebanese. Even their flag is almost identical.
A couple of callous posts ahead of me bereft of any humanity, but patronising and arrogant at the same time. Do you guys like perpetual conflict? Do you get a kick out of inciting the whole of the muslim world, while defying any western call for human rights? Well get real chaps, cos the balloon has finally blown up in Bibi’s face. America cares more about saving the skins of its own boys than it does about saving your inflated egos. The show is winding down at last and and the dream of Eretz Israel is as dead as the dodo. You crazy goons can just get used to living alongside a Palestinian state real soon now,protected by American/NATO troops if necessary. And then if you want a fight you can fight amongst yourselves, settlers against the rest or ashkenazis against the mizrahim. Fight to your hearts content. Do you think I’ll shed any tears about the self destruction of Israel. Not I, you’ve had it coming for far too long.
“A couple of callous posts ahead of me bereft of any humanity”
Wow – I think you just committed a hate crime!
“Patronizing?”
Ha ha. If you only knew the low respect with which I held the violent islamonazi children who engage in jihad . . . . guilty as charged . . . . 😀
“Arrogance” Definitely. Every conservative should relish in their moral and cultural superiority over a society where a woman who halal butchered 11 children is the greatest hero. (Dalal Mughrabi). Definitely we should celebrate the moral and cultural inferiority of Islamonazism.
😀 *** its a party in the U.S.A. *** 😀
“Do you guys like perpetual conflict?”
Absolutely. God created a world where Evil and Good both flourish. My religion teaches that God told us to “Choose Life” and do so by turning from Evil and embracing Good (sur mei-rah, v’aseh tov). However, even after you make the right choice, Evil doesn’t just disappear. To the contrary: Life is all about the perpetual conflict between Evil (islamonazi values) and Good (Judeo-Christian values). Yes. Perpetual conflict. I would even say Eternal conflict. And for all the successes of Jihad, we smile when we know how it all ends . . . 😀
“Do you get a kick out of inciting the whole of the muslim world”
Hell yeah!
[…] (1) Filmed on 15 March – Hagit Ofran, who documents settlements for Peace Now, has posted this encounter at the entrance to the Old City of East Jerusalem on her new Eyes on the Ground in East Jerusalem Blog, here: […]