Attack near Temple Mount: On Friday, Palestinian terrorists gunned down two Israeli policeman, Advanced Staff Sergeant Major Kamil Shanan and Advanced Staff Sergeant Major Hail Sattawi. The murders took place near the Gate of the Tribes, one of the entries to the Temple Mount, where the Jewish Temple stood in ancient times, and now home to al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. The perpetrators than fled into the holy site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, where they were killed by Israeli security forces.
In the wake of the tragedy, Israeli security forces closed the Temple Mount in order to search for weapons. This was the first time the al-Aqsa Mosque was closed for Friday prayers since 1969, when Denis Michael Rohan set fire to the pulpit. Mr. Rohan, who was an Australian Christian, believed that if he destroyed the mosque, it would enable the Jews to rebuild the Temple in its original location, which would hasten the Second Coming of Jesus. When tried, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
As I’ve discussed previously, the status of the Temple Mount is a flashpoint with Palestinians, who fear, somewhat irrationally, that the Israelis partially share Mr. Rohan's objectives, and plan to tear down al-Aqsa to rebuild the Temple. It was inevitable, therefore, that there would be repercussions over the killing of the terrorists on the site and the subsequent closure. Several hundred Jordanians demonstrated in Amman on Saturday to protest the closure.
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Radiohead under fire over Israel gig: Speaking of Israel, the band Radiohead has become the last target of the BDS movement (not to be confused with BDSM) over its plans to play a concert there next week. The most recent attack has come from filmmaker Ken Loach. “By playing in Israel,” he wrote in an open letter, “you’ll be playing in a state where, UN rapporteurs say, ‘a system of apartheid has been imposed on the Palestinian people.’” (I never head of Mr. Loach, so I looked him up on IMDB. He has director credits for 51 films, but I never heard of any of them either.)
Radiohead front man Thom Yorke replied via tweet, “Playing a country isn't the same as endorsing its government.”
Mr. Yorke may be unwilling to endorse the Israeli government but I am. It has shown admirable restraint in the face of chronic terrorist attacks by Palestinians, and anti-Semitic libels, including that one about apartheid, from Palestinian sympathizers. Radiohead should be proud to play there. As for Mr. Loach, he should acquaint himself with that great saying from the music business, “A gig’s a gig.”
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“Green Burger” trending in Egypt: On the lighter side of the news, the hashtag “Green Burger” trended on Twitter this week, as many Egyptians took to using the term to refer to falafel. According to the BBC, others “pointed the finger [of ridicule] at ‘high class’ people, accusing them of inventing English terms for things so as to sound cool.”
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Michael Isenberg writes about the Muslim world, medieval and modern. His forthcoming novel, The Thread of Reason, is a murder mystery that takes place in Baghdad in the year 1092 and depicts the battle for the Muslim soul between those who embrace science and tolerance, and those who would throw in their lot with mysticism and persecution instead.
Photo credit: al-Jazeera, PressTV
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated incorrectly that the perpetrator of the 1969 arson at the al-Aqsa mosque was a "Jewish extremist." Serves me right for not fact-checking something I read on al-Jazeera, especially when it appears in the Arabic version of the article, and not the English one.
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