Israel’s ancient high
court, the Sanhedrin, now reborn, has issued a statement warning the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization not to try to
interfere with – or change – the history linked to the Temple Mount.
A
report by Breaking Israel News says the U.N. agency wants to adopt a resolution at its current
meetings in Istanbul that would declare the Temple Mount, site of the ancient
Jewish temples, is “sacred to ‘Muslims only.'”
The proposal comes
jointly from Palestinian and Jordanian interests and follows an earlier
decision by the agency to call the site in Jerusalem in official papers only by
the name created by Muslims – Al-Aqsa.
But Breaking Israel News
reported the new plan is “far more radical.” It said “UNESCO’s very unholy
actions” would deny that there is any Jewish link to the location at all.
That prompted the
Sanhedrin, which is known in the New Testament for condemning Jesus, to act.
The court, which was
disbanded about A.D. 425 and now has been re-created, released a statement
warning that the U.N., through its statements and comments, is fomenting global
terror.
“The Jewish right to the
Temple Mount was established in the Bible, and should therefore be recognized
by Christianity and Islam,” the Sanhedrin said in its statement. “In fact, the
Jewish claim to Jerusalem is as essential to those religions as it is to
Judaism. The biblical connection between the Jews and Jerusalem led to the
building of the First Temple by King Solomon, which strengthened our claim to
Jerusalem even more.”
The statement from the
court, made up of leading rabbis and scholars continued, “A plethora of
archaeological evidence in and around Jerusalem is undeniable proof of Jewish
settlement in biblical times. Islam did not exist, in Israel or anywhere else,
until the year 636 … more than 500 years after the destruction of the Second
Jewish Temple.
“If there are any doubts
or counter-claims, the Sanhedrin challenges them to establish an objective
committee of archeologists to check these facts. On this matter, the Sanhedrin
decries the Palestinians’ efforts to destroy the archaeological evidence on the
Temple Mount. … These acts, destroying the sites and artifacts of other
religions … are intended to create belief in the false historical narrative the
Palestinians are trying to spread among the non-Jews, and even among the Jews”
of no historical links between Jews and the site.
The statement was
referring to periodic actions by the Islamic Waqf, which manages the Islamic
mosque now on the mount, to do “construction” with heavy equipment and
machinery in an “area rich with archaeological relics.”
The Jewish leaders wrote
that the looming UNESCO vote, based on a “false belief,” would promote the “way
for terror attacks and other tragedies.”
Rabbi Hillel Weiss,
spokesman for the Nascent Sanhedrin, explained that every aspect of the Temple
is connected to the concept of peace, Breaking News Israel reported.
“The Temple was intended
to be the place where all the nations came together to to serve God, in peace.
By enabling the Muslims to turn the Temple Mount into the antithesis of this
idea, UNESCO is doing the opposite of their stated mission of uniting the
nations,” he told the agency.
“By allowing the Muslims
exclusive access to prayer on the Temple Mount, the world has chosen ‘priests’
of war and terror. The world must allow the Jews, the real lovers of peace, to
be the priests representing all the nations on the Temple Mount,” he said.
The U.N. faction
specifically calls for a return to the status quo that was there before 1967,
which Breaking Israel News said apparently “means completely banning Jews and
other non-Muslims from the entire Temple Mount complex.”
Officials explain the
Temple Mount holds the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, but the Western
Wall “has absolutely no Muslim connection whatsoever.”
However, the U.N. refers
to that location as “al-Buraq Plaza,” the news agency said. WND
reported in 2015 when Jordan said it
wanted its soldiers to “patrol” the area. The move was rejected by Israel
immediately.
Jews and Christians are
actually barred from the mount during most hours of the day and are never
allowed to pray at the site or carry holy objects.
Most Palestinian leaders
routinely deny well-documented and historical Jewish ties to the Temple Mount. Speaking
to WND in a 2007 interview, Waqf official and chief Palestinian Justice Taysir
Tamimi alleged the Jewish Temples are fiction. “About these so-called two
Temples, they never existed, certainly not at the Haram Al- Sharif (Temple
Mount),” said Tamimi, a top Palestinian cleric.
“Israel started since
1967 making archaeological digs to show Jewish signs to prove the relationship
between Judaism and the city, and they found nothing. There is no Jewish
connection to Israel before the Jews invaded in the 1880s,” said Tamimi.
He rejected the fact that
there have been dozens of digs verified by experts worldwide revealing Jewish
artifacts from the First and Second Temples, tunnels under the Temple Mount and
more than 100 ritual immersion pools believed to have been used by Jewish
priests to cleanse themselves. The cleansing process is detailed in the Torah.
Asked about the Western
Wall, Tamimi said the structure was a tying post for Muhammad’s horse and that
it is part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, even though the wall predates the mosque by
more than 1,000 years.
The Palestinian media
also regularly state the Jewish Temples never existed. It actually is
considered the holiest site in Judaism. The First Temple, built by King Solomon
in the 10th century B.C., was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The
Second Temple was built in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian
captivity. That temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire in A.D. 70. Each
temple stood for several centuries.
According to the Talmud,
the world was created from the foundation stone of the Temple Mount. It’s
believed to be the biblical Mount Moriah, where Abraham fulfilled God’s test of
his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac.
The Temple Mount has
remained a focal point for Jewish services for thousands of years. Prayers for
a return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple have been uttered by
Jews since the Second Temple was destroyed, according to Jewish tradition.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque was
constructed in about A.D. 709 to serve as a shrine near another shrine, the
Dome of the Rock, which was built by an Islamic caliph. Al-Aqsa was meant to
mark what Muslims came to believe was the place at which Muhammad, the founder
of Islam, ascended to heaven to receive revelations from Allah.
Jerusalem is not
mentioned in the Quran. It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible 656 times. According
to Islamic tradition, Muhammad took a journey in a single night on a horse from
“a sacred mosque” – believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia – to “the
farthest mosque.” From a rock there, according to the tradition, he ascended to
heaven. The farthest mosque became associated with Jerusalem about 120 years
ago.
Israeli author Shmuel
Berkovits’ research shows Islam historically disregarded Jerusalem as being
holy. Berkovits points out in his book “How Dreadful Is This Place!” that
Muhammad was said to loathe Jerusalem and what it stood for. He wrote that
Muhammad made a point of eliminating pagan sites of worship and sanctifying
only one place – the Kaaba in Mecca.
As late as the 14th
century, Islamic scholar Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya, whose writings influenced
the Wahhabi movement in Arabia, ruled that sacred Islamic sites are to be found
only in the Arabian Peninsula and that “in Jerusalem, there is not a place one
calls sacred, and the same holds true for the tombs of Hebron.”
A guide to the Temple
Mount by the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem published in 1925 listed it as
Jewish and as the site of Solomon’s Temple. The Temple Institute acquired a
copy of the official 1925 “Guide Book to Al-Haram Al-Sharif,” which states on
page 4: “Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute.
This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which David ‘built
there an altar unto the Lord.’”
http://www.wnd.com/2016/07/israels-sanhedrin-takes-on-u-n/
