‘To Al-Aqsa we march – martyrs by the millions’

For a century the Arabs of Palestine — now known as Israeli Arabs, if behind the Green Line, and Palestinians if outside the Green Line — were whipped up by the baseless charge that “Al-Aqsa is in danger,” that Haj Amin al-Husseini was the first to exploit. That charge was then spread beyond the borders of Palestine by Sheikh Abd al-Qadir al-Muzaffar. And it has taken on a malevolent life of its own, being brought up whenever some Palestinian leader feels the need to whip up his followers against the hated Israelis. This article from mid-May contains enduringly relevant information: “‘Al-Aqsa Is in Danger’: The Anatomy of a Lie,” by Chaim Lax, Honest Reporting, May 18, 2023:

Again, in 1996, following the opening of an exit for the Western Wall Tunnels in the Christian Quarter of the Old City, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority accused Israel of purposely endangering the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This led to three days of rioting, during which 17 IDF soldiers and about 100 Palestinians were killed. 

The opening of an exit for the Western Wall Tunnels that led into the Christian Quarter was not under the Al-Aqsa Mosque and could not possibly have weakened the structure, but that didn’t matter to Yasser Arafat or the Palestinian Authority. It was time, they felt, for a renewal of the false charge of a “threat to Al-Aqsa.” This time, the putative threat was not that the Israelis would raze Al-Aqsa, but that their construction of an exit to the Christian Quarter from the Western Wall tunnels would cause the Mosque building to collapse. Israeli engineers and architects attempted to set the record straight, but once the Palestinians had whipped themselves up into their accustomed frenzy, they were indifferent to the truth. The rioting went on for three days and was most violent: 17 IDF soldiers were killed, as were close to 100 Palestinians. And after the Arabs calmed down, they could see that the foundations under Al-Aqsa stood solid; their alarm was baseless. Baseless until, of course, the next time they are to be whipped up on some renewed claim that “Al-Aqsa is in danger.”

Around the mid-1990s, the “Al-Aqsa is in danger” libel gained more traction in Arab society when it was picked up by Sheikh Raed Salah and the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel.

For Salah, also known as “Sheikh Al-Aqsa,” the libel is both a matter of fact and a means of popularizing his vision of a global caliphate with Jerusalem at its center.

One of the most popular ways that Salah has successfully spread this dangerous conspiracy is by establishing “Al-Aqsa is in danger” rallies in the northern Israeli city of Umm al-Fahm during the mid-1990s.

Sheikh Raed Salah made “Al-Aqsa is in danger” the exclusive theme of his sermons, and of all his rallies in the Israeli Arab city of Umm al-Fahm. And by the end of the 1990s, he could broadcast his views on social media that allowed him to spread his warnings throughout the Arab and Muslim world. Many Arabs, who were thousands of miles from Al-Aqsa, and from the Israeli Jews who supposedly threatened it, had no way of judging for themselves, much less disproving, the claim that “Al Aqsa is in danger.”

Some of the Palestinian terrorists who have attacked Israelis have attended these rallies and have been influenced by the message that they are needed to defend Al-Aqsa against the Jews and the State of Israel.

None of those Arabs whipped into hysteria ever stops to ask just what it is that “the Jews” are doing, or have ever done, to take over, or damage, or destroy Al-Aqsa. What has been done to Al-Aqsa since 1967, when Israel came into possession of the Old City and the Temple Mount? Nothing has changed Al-Aqsa physically; nor have any limits been placed on Muslim access to the mosque. It is the Jews who have had to endure strict limits on when they can visit the Temple Mount, and on what they are allowed to do – not much, it turns out, except to walk around the perimeter of the esplanade – when they do visit the holiest site in Judaism.

In September 2000, then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon toured the Temple Mount with a large contingent of police officers as part of a visit to Judaism’s holiest site. 

Soon after, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority used Sharon’s visit as an excuse to launch the Second Intifada (also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada).

The “Al-Aqsa is in danger” libel was one of the means by which the Intifada’s instigators were able to inspire Palestinians to commit violence and terrorism against Israeli targets. 

During this time, a popular chant at Palestinian rallies was “To Al-Aqsa we march – shaheeds (martyrs) by the millions.”

A decade after the Second Intifada, during the rise in Palestinian violence and terrorism between summer 2014 and summer 2016, many of those who engaged in violence were inspired by the allegations that Al-Aqsa Mosque was under the threat of destruction by Jews and the State of Israel.

According to one study, 67 of the 71 Palestinians who committed terror attacks between August 2014 and May 2016 in Jerusalem were influenced by this libel….

The Al-Aqsa libel is clearly a powerful prompt — one of the most powerful — to terror attacks by Palestinians.

The Jews are described in the Palestinian media as greedy, grasping, manipulative, and above all, secretly powerful, as they plot, among other things, to take over Al-Aqsa, raze it, and build a Third Temple – not that anyone should believe that there was ever a First or Second Temple – in its place.

The fact is that Israel has never tried to move a single stone of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and it has gone out of its way to avoid offending Muslim sensibilities on the Mount. It forbids Jewish visitors to the Mount from saying prayers publicly or even silently, and enforces a ban on Jews bringing prayerbooks, prayer shawls, and tefillin with them onto the Mount. It forbids Jews from visiting the Mount on Fridays, which is the Muslim holy day. It allows Jews to visit only on five days of the week, and then only on three hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon; Muslims have no such restrictions. None of this has made an impression on Palestinian minds. They prefer the fable that whips them, and other Arabs, too, into a rage about the need to “defend Al-Aqsa.”

If Israel wanted, it could today allow its police and soldiers to take over the Temple Mount. It has no desire to do so. The Israeli police on the Mount are there to do two things: first, to prevent the Palestinians from attacking Jewish visitors, both those on the Mount and those praying at the Western Wall far below; second, to prevent Jewish visitors from violating the prohibition on Jewish prayers and on prayerbooks, prayer shawls, and tefillin. The archeological digs in the Old City are not part of a plot to undermine the Al-Aqsa building, causing it to collapse. The Jews of Israel can well imagine what would happen to them if they were responsible for the collapse of Al-Aqsa.

The Israelis have to keep sweeping back the tide of nonsense and lies, have to keep telling the Palestinians, and the world, that there is not now, and never has been, a Jewish plot to destroy or replace the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It’s doubtful it will have any effect on the True Believers, the fanatical Muslims always ready to see Jewish conspiracies round every corner. But Israelis, and especially such perfectly sane Arabs as Khaled Abu Toameh, Bassam Eid, and Hassem Chalgoumi, can chip away this madness, and by constant refutation of the baseless claim, reduce its sinister appeal.