JERUSALEM – Major Arab groups and Jordan each separately condemned Israel for temporarily closing the Temple Mount on Friday, but failed to mention the deadly Palestinian terrorist attack at the Mount that prompted Israel to enforce the closure for national security reasons.
The statement from Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit complained that the Jewish state’s “banning Palestinians from praying” will only work to “inflame extremism and escalate tension” in the Middle East.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which consists of 57 member states and callsitself the “collective voice of the Muslim world” also slammed Israel for closing the Mount, claiming the move amounted to “a serious crime and a dangerous precedent.”
The Jordanian government, which administers to the mosques on the Mount, issued a statement reading, “The Jordanian government opposes any harm against Muslims in carrying out their religious worship in their holy places, freely and with no obstacles.”
None of the statements mentioned the reason for Israel’s rare temporary closure of the Temple Mount. Mount preachers are notorious for using Friday night sermons to incite against Israel – especially with false claims of Israeli threats to the Al Aqsa Mosque – and there was fear here that the services could have been used to instigate further violence on the Mount following Friday’s terrorist attack at the site.
Two Israeli Border Police Officers were murdered and a third was wounded on Friday when three Palestinian terrorists opened fire at security forces near an entrance to the Temple Mount at the Lions Gate and then fled into the Mount complex. The Palestinian assailants, reportedly carrying two rifles and a pistol, were pursued by Israeli forces and were shot and killed as they tried to escape toward the mosques on the Mount. READ MORE
