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We were chased out of the courtyard – escorted by representatives of the Islamic Waqf who lectured us about the entire site being an exclusively Muslim holy place.
What seemed to bother them most was a reference by messianic rabbi Jonathan Cahn, my partner in the annual tours we conduct, to the Temple Mount being the site where history tells us the First and Second Temples rested.
This kind of spiritual revisionism and coercion offered a microcosmic view of what life under Islamic Shariah law would be like for non-Muslims.
Keep in mind, Israelis captured the Temple Mount and all of Jerusalem in 1967 from the Jordanians who empowered the Waqf to administer affairs on the site. It was only a goodwill gesture by Israeli leadership that permitted to the Waqf to continue to play a role there, given the existence of the Dome of the Rock shrine and the al-Aqsa Mosque – ensuring continued access to Muslims.
But, as I have written before, give the Muslims an inch and they take a mile.
Under their rules for the Temple Mount, neither Jews nor Christians are permitted to pray on a site that is holy to Judaism and Christianity and one that pre-existed Islam by more than 1,000 years.
Jews and Christians were not even welcome as visitors before the Israeli government opened up the site to them. Not wishing to provoke violence or mayhem, Israelis have tried for decades to take a middle-ground approach – opening up the Temple Mount to all.
I can recall in the 1980s and early 1990s being pummeled with stones by Waqf officials when I tried to visit the Temple Mount.
Unfortunately, all too often, this is the kind of behavior we have come to expect when Muslims have any authority – even limited authority – over real estate.
When they have total authority, the situation can be much worse.
In Mecca, non-Muslims are not permitted at any time.
In Saudi Arabia, no churches or synagogues are permitted to be built, Bibles are not allowed, and Christian and Jewish prayer is forbidden.
Throughout the Islamic world, Christians and Jews are considered, at best, to be second-class citizens, subject to the rulings of Islamic law, taxed to support the Islamic system and regularly, routinely and arbitrarily subjected to harsh treatment and court rulings. The situation can even be worse for others who are not “people of the book.”
Keep in mind, Islam is a minority religion in Israel – as it is in the United States.
This should be reason for concern when you see wealthy, oil-rich Islamic powers buying influence in non-Muslim countries like the U.S., a nation founded on the principle of Judeo-Christian pluralism.
Major, money-hungry universities are accepting hundreds of millions of dollars to create Islamic studies departments, with the professors and deans hand-picked by radical jihadists from Saudi Arabia.
They are also buying their way in to positions of great influence in the U.S. media.
Mosques are springing up all over the country.
We’re even subsidizing with our tax dollars the recruitment of Muslim “refugees” into the West by the hundreds of thousands.
This isn’t multiculturalism, as it is often branded. It’s national suicide, as we have seen throughout Europe, where the Muslim population is reaching the tipping point at which effective control of formerly Christian nations becomes a reality.
Does this sound like Islamophobia?
Open your eyes.
Islam is more than a religion. It is a complete, systematic way of life. If you want to live under it, there are dozens of nations you can travel to, even immigrate to, to be a part of its rigid lifestyle, which denies the inherent rights of women and religious minorities.