Page 40 - Satan in the Sanctuary

42 Satan in the Sanctuary

in the United Nations, where it remained, for all practical
purposes, disconcertingly unsolved.
The Jerusalem Post followed the entire saga of disagree-
ment and protest very closely, running weekly articles. The
reportage began with a story on the Arab rioting immediately
following Magistrate Or's decision:

TEMPLE MOUNT PROTEST—8 HELD
JERUSALEM POST STAFF tion. A previous protest by 400
youths on Saturday ended peace-
Police on Sunday broke up a fully.
demonstration of some 500 East The youths were protesting a
Jerusalem Arab high school pu- decision two weeks ago by Mag-
pils on the Temple Mount who istrate's Court Judge Ruth Or
were protesting against the ac- that Jews have the right to pray
quittal of Jewish youth arrested on the Temple Mount, the site
nine months ago for praying on of the second Temple, destroyed
the sacred site. by the Romans in 70 CE and
A police spokesman said 12 now occupied by the Dome of
demonstrators were arrested af- the Rock and Al-Aksa (consid-
ter the mob pelted security forces ered the third holiest site in Is-
with stones, injuring one police- lam, after shrines in Mecca and
man. Medina).
The pupils gathered on the Police Minister Shlomo Hillel
Temple Mount near the Al-Aksa subsequently said that the ban
mosque, shouting anti-Israel slo- on Jewish prayer on the Mount
gans and waving the flag of the would continue, citing a Su-
1
Palestine Liberation Organiza- preme Court decision of 1970.

Indeed, the Israeli Supreme Court, in 1970, banned Jewish
prayer on the mount, as the article alludes. This may have
been done both in deference to halacha, the Jewish law, and
to keep the peace. But the Supreme Court's decision had
been tested before the inflammatory incident of 1975. In
1973, just previous to the Yom Kippur War, two Israeli cit-
izens of note met for prayer on the mount on the holy day of
Tisha B'Av (the Ninth of Av). The day was particularly