Rassem Obaidat

What happened yesterday, Tuesday, on the anniversary of what is known as the destruction of the First Temple, the ninth of Av, at the hands of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, in terms of timing, size and type of incursions, indicates that there is a qualitative and dangerous development awaiting the fate of Al-Aqsa Mosque that goes beyond the issue of temporal and spatial divisions, and expresses a systematic “Israeli” policy in which roles are being distributed. Do not be deceived by Netanyahu’s statement that the political issue related to Al-Aqsa is within the powers of the Prime Minister, and that he will maintain the existing “status quo”, and that there are no special projects for this or that minister in Al-Aqsa. Let Ben Gvir, who led this incursion, respond to him by saying that he will continue the incursions, and that “the people of Israel” will pray in all places, including the “Temple Mount”. We know that Ben Gvir does not care about Netanyahu’s warnings and threats. He and Smotrich, as representatives of national and religious Zionism and partners in Netanyahu’s government, hold Netanyahu’s political decision-making power. Ben Gvir has stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque six times since he assumed the Ministry of National Security. To justify these raids, “Israel” presented the same arguments and pretexts, that it will maintain the status quo… The timing comes in light of an American-Egyptian-Qatari presidential call for negotiations tomorrow, Thursday, and Netanyahu, whose Minister of War Galant said that he is responsible for disrupting the prisoner exchange deal, and the American newspaper “The New York Times” shares this view, that Netanyahu is setting new conditions for negotiations… Therefore, this raid, of this size and timing, is deliberate, and part of Netanyahu’s policy of escalation and thwarting the plan to reach an agreement that would stop the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and achieve the completion of the prisoner exchange deal. Perhaps the title of this raid, “Renewing the Pledge to Build the Temple,” and its slogan, “The Flood of the Temple,” carry a deep meaning, by saying to the resistance forces, with Hamas at its heart, “Your Al-Aqsa Flood,” which you said has one of its goals, protecting Al-Aqsa and Jerusalem. We tell you that there is no sovereignty or control over Al-Aqsa outside of “Israeli” sovereignty.

This unprecedented incursion is pushing things towards the highest levels of escalation, and Ben Gvir believes that the state of Arab-Islamic “death” and the inability of the countries of the collapsed official Arab system, not only in the inability to provide support to Gaza and its children, but also to Al-Aqsa, reaching the point of being unable to speak, such that they have begun to denounce and condemn in secret, provides him with the opportunity to establish new facts in Al-Aqsa, religious and legal.

This massive storming with very large numbers of extremists reaching 2958 extremists, and the launching of racist slogans and slogans of “The people of Israel are alive”, and blowing the trumpet and raising the flags of the Temple and “Israel” in the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and performing Talmudic and biblical rituals of epic prostration, the settlers prostrating on their faces as the highest form of Talmudic and biblical rituals, as well as public prayers and dancing and singing sessions, and this was accompanied by provocations and attacks on Palestinian citizens and shop owners, and the attack under the protection of the army and police on those who came from the worshipers to perform the dawn prayer, all indicate that this storming, and in this particular circumstance, is intended to provide Jewish Zionism, with its national and religious branches, with a great opportunity to impose new facts in Al-Aqsa that change its religious, legal and historical character, and beyond the issues of temporal and spatial divisions to provide life and sanctity for the Jews in Al-Aqsa Mosque, i.e. partnership in place, and for Al-Aqsa Mosque to become, not an Islamic mosque Pure, specific to followers of the Islamic religion, but with a shared Islamic-Jewish sanctity on the way to moving to the next actual step of working to build the Third Temple in place of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.