Day of Rage and Alarm

You can somehow understand when Muslims in general and Palestinians specifically tell blunt lies about Israel, because you somehow understand that it is all part of the mind-games, a part of the psychological warfare they are using in order to get the world's support in their war against Israel.

What you can't understand is how people are falling for their lies, and more bothering is how can bright people take something as a fact, when it stands against any sort of common sense.

Today was declared by the Palestinians as a "Day of Rage and Alarm" and thousands of Arabs rioted in Jerusalem. Arab hooligans also stoned buses in the city of Jaffa, deep inside the "consensus borders" of Israel. The rage and the alarm are mainly about the reconstruction, the inauguration, the restoration, the reopening or whatever you'd like to call it, of the "Hurva" synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem.

According to the Palestinians, the reopening of this synagogue is a symbol to Israel's attempt to "Judaize" Jerusalem, and that Israel doesn't really care about building a synagogue and its "true intention" is to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque, also known as Haram al-Sharif or Beyt al-Mukdas.

What the Palestinians will never mention is who destroyed this synagogue in the first place. They will never mention it because they know that this synagogue was destroyed - not once but twice - by Muslims!

You can get a detailed history of the synagogue in Wikipedia, but in short - this synagogue was first built in 1700AD. It was destroyed by Muslims in 1721, and on the same event the Muslims deported a big part of the Jewish population, forbidding them from living in Jerusalem for decades. In 1864 the synagogue was rebuilt, and was used until 1948, when the Jordanian army intentionally blew it up. It is reported that the Jordanian officer who commanded the demolition of the Hurva synagogue reported to his superiors, saying "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible". Well, guess what - the Jews returned.

And here's what troubles me: if the Muslims lied, saying there was never a Jewish synagogue in this location, and the world "bought" the lie - I can somehow take it, but if the Muslims say "yeah, there was a synagogue there, yeah, we destroyed it, and yeah - if Israel rebuilds it we'll see this as a declaration of a Holy War" - how can anyone take them seriously?

How come you hear Obama's administration constantly denouncing Israel, but you don't hear him say that the Palestinians should immediately stop the riots, release Gil'ad Shalit, and sit and talk? How come you don't hear Europe condemning the riots? Can you imagine a case where Muslims burn down a church, and then riot because Christians rebuild it? I doubt it.

The Palestinians and their supporters around the world keep saying that Israel is trying to destroy holy Muslim sites. Well guess what - whenever Muslims took over Jewish holy sites - they destroyed them, and prevented them from getting anywhere around them. When Israel took over holy Muslim sites - it gave the authority, and practically the ownership - back to the Muslims. This goes for Al-Aqsa, and same goes for The Jewish holy sites in Hebron and Beth-Lehem, where Muslims can pray freely.

If Israel wanted to destroy Al-Aqsa or any other Muslim site, it would have done that in 1967, it wouldn't have waited until today. But that's the difference between Israel and the Arabs: Israel doesn't speak of respect to other religions, it simply respects them. Arabs have a lot of respect to religion - but only to their own.

Remember that next time somebody tells you Israeli is provoking Arabs and Muslims.
And remember that if someone tells you that building a house approximately 450 meters (492 yards) he must be a lier or a fool, but either way - he's not someone follow.

466 meters from the Hurva synagogue to Al-Aqsa mosque