Wailing Wall compound

abc.net.au reported Middle East Correspondent Mark Willacy reports from Jerusalem's Old City.

MARK WILLACY: I'm standing right in front of the most disputed site in all of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Before me is the Wailing Wall, the most holy site in Judaism. Looming above it is the Golden Dome of the Rock – Islam's third holiest site.

Committee for Accurate Reporting reported The Temple Mount is the site of the first and second Jewish Temples, destroyed in 586 BCE and 70 CE, respectively–a historic fact accepted even by Muslim authorities. Nevertheless, that fact has not stopped some journalists from reporting on the Temple Mount’s significance in Jewish history cautiously, as if its status is a matter of Jewish faith, or “belief,” and not archeologic evidence.

Thus, in the context of anticipated demonstrations by right-wing Israeli Jews, Reuters’ Jonathan Saul reported on April 7:

The ancient mosque compound is Islam’s third holiest site. It is Judaism’s most sacred site, the place were Jews say a biblical Jewish temple was razed by the Romans in 70 A.D. ("Non-Muslims Banned from Flashpoint Jerusalem Shrine")

Likewise, the New York Times’ Steve Erlanger reported yesterday in the second paragraph of his article “Israeli Troops Kill 3 Teenagers In Buffer Zone at Gaza Border”:

The shootings sharply raised tensions ahead of a planned protest in Jerusalem on Sunday by Israeli militants who oppose a pullout from Gaza and want to demonstrate at one of Islam’s holiest places, Al Aksa Mosque.

Much further down, in the second to last paragraph, he notes:

In Jerusalem, thousands of police officers fanned out in and around the Old City to prevent the threatened march on Al Aksa mosque. Jews believe that the site, also known as the Temple Mount, housed the second temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70.

But it is not Jews who “say” or “believe” that the site housed both Jewish temples. Indeed, Muslim conquerors selected that site to build the Al Aqsa Mosque precisely because the Temples stood there. This fact is not under dispute even among Muslim authorities, (Yasir Arafat’s protestations to the contrary at Camp David in 2000 notwithstanding.) For instance, the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, a pro-Arab source edited by John Esposito, notes that the Muslim armies:

First built at [the Temple Mount’s] southern end their congregational mosque (al-Aqsa), and by 692, had completed at is center the splendid shrine called the "Dome of the Rock," revered both as the terminus of [Mohammed’s] Night Journey and the biblical site of Abraham’s sacrifice and Solomon’s Temple.(page 368)

It is true that this area is the Temple Mount, revered as the site of the two Jewish temples. The same spot is revered by Muslims as the Haram al Sharif, which contains Al Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Therein lies the reason for the extreme attachment by both Jews and Moslems for this area

• From the Jewish perspective it is the location for the first two Jewish temples, and the place where they want to rebuild a major temple
• From the Islamic perspective it is the place where the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.

Both religions want their capital to contain this site. Clearly that cannot happen. It is my opinion that the only way to resolve this is for neither to have its capital here. I believe that the entire area including Jerusalem to Bethlehem should be an International Area, open to people of the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian faiths, and goverened by a board containing religious leaders from all three faiths and secular leaders from many nationalities. Their objective should be to make sure that the rights of all three faiths are protected.