FASTING AND INTRASPECTION

Today is the fast of Tisha b’Av, or the ninth of the month of Av, through this fast we mourn the destruction of the ancient Jewish Temple – a double destruction in fact, the first time by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and and the second by the Romans in 70 CE which saw the Jewish people exiled from their homeland of Israel. So writes Melanie Philiips (A Day To Teach the World)

The Temple, sited on the Temple Mount, the one that the Arab Muslims deny ever existed. The one on whose ancient site on Temple Mount Jews are barred from praying in case this is used as a pretext by the Arab and Muslim world to start World War Three. The one which the Arab Muslims have turned into a battleground.

The Arab Muslims claim there never was a Jewish Temple there. Their denial that the land of Israel was ever the Jewish homeland is centred on their claim that there never was a Temple in Jerusalem, only the al Aqsa mosque. Yet when illegally excavating an area for another mosque on the site they disposed of tons of earth containing artefacts proving the existence of the temple.They wanted to conceal this because their war of extermination against Israel is based on the lie that the Muslims are the original inhabitants of the land. But they have not succeeded.

What the fast of Tisha b’Av itself also tells the world is that the Jews were in Jerusalem before the Babylonians, before the Romans, before the Christians and most certainly before the Muslims. What Jews mourn on Tisha b’Av is an actual historical event.

And, states Melanie, “that’s what so many in the west also don’t grasp – that the Jews alone are the indigenous people of the land, and that Judaism is based on an actual nation which practised its religion in the actual historic kingdom of Judea”.

“But because Islam holds that any territory ever occupied by Muslims remains Muslim for ever and can be ruled by no-one else, the Muslim world will not accept this. That’s why the war over Temple Mount is not being waged in the name of the Palestinians or even the Arabs but – according to Mahmoud Abbas amongst others – all Muslims”.

Tisha b’Av is day of mourning and it’s still relevant today. For those wanting to destroy us are still with us, the Temple Mount is still occupied and the stones are still being hurled down from it. The only difference is that instead of the Romans, today it is Arab Muslims.