The Palestinian "victory" celebrations that took place after Israel removed metal detectors and surveillance cameras from the entrances to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem bode badly for the future of stability and peace in the Middle East.
To the Palestinians and many Arabs and Muslims, the Israeli move is viewed as a sign of weakness. In their eyes, the removal of the security cameras and metal detectors is capitulation, pure and simple.
How do we know this? Easy: look at the Palestinian response. Rather than acknowledging the conciliatory nature of the Israeli government's decision, aimed at easing tensions and preventing bloodshed and violence, the Palestinians are demanding more.
As far as the Palestinians are concerned, the controversy over the Israeli security measures at the Temple Mount, which came after three terrorists murdered two Israeli police officers at the holy site on July 14, is part of a larger battle with Israel.
We have reached a new level in this discourse: Palestinian Authority (PA) officials are now openly admitting that it is not the metal detectors or security cameras that are at issue.
Instead, they admit, this is a battle over sovereignty on the Temple Mount and Jerusalem. For the Palestinians, the real battle is over who controls Jerusalem and its holy sites. The real battle, in their eyes, is over the Jews' right to live in their own state in the Middle East.
Many Palestinians have still not come to terms with Israel's right to exist, and that is what this battle is really about.
The Palestinians, feeling triumphant now that Israel has complied with their demand to remove the metal detectors and security cameras, have been clarifying that it is only the first step in their fight to eradicate any Israeli presence in the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.
No one explained this Palestinian position better than the PA foreign minister, Riad Malki, who announced on July 27 that the Palestinians consider the Israeli decision to dismantle the metal detectors and security cameras as surrender.
He also confirmed what many Israeli and Palestinian political analysts have been saying for the past few weeks -- that the conflict over Israel's security measures was merely an excuse used by the Palestinians to force Israel to make political and territorial concessions.
In a speech before the Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo, Malki explained: "The issue is not metal detectors or cameras, but who is in charge and who has sovereignty over the Al-Aqsa Mosque." READ MORE
