Every day, Israeli settlers openly disrespect Islam and Muslims by entering the al-Aqsa Mosque Compound and the Haram al Ash-Sharif near the Dome of the Rock to rally and protest and chant that they will one day destroy these Holy Sites and replace them with their own. And Muslims around the world do nothing about it. Would they do nothing if Israel took control of the Kaaba?
By Ray Hanania
covering Chicago
City Hall
(1976-1992)
There are more than 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, representing one quarter of the Earth’s population. And yet in the face of the daily vandalism and the continual disrespect of Islam’s Holy Sites like the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque by Israeli soldiers and worse, Israeli settlers, most Muslims sit back quietly and do little.
The only Muslims who standup to defend the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque, in the heart of occupied Jerusalem, are Palestinians who are brutalized by Israel’s soldiers who have placed these two significant Islamic icons under virtual imprisonment.
The disrespect and vandalism of the sites by Israeli settlers and soldiers is so “routine,” that it rarely gets much attention and is buried if it is even reported in the news media of the Arab and Muslim World, except in Palestine where the beating, incarceration and killing of Palestinians defending the sites has become just as routine. Here’s one story from the Palestine News agency, WAFA.
I wonder if the Muslim World has simply surrendered to Israel’s power. Muslims just don’t want to standup and defend their religion any more. Maybe Judaism is a stronger and more powerful religion than Islam. I know it is stronger than Christianity which cowers in fear in the West in the face of constant Israeli bullying.
The only warring going on in the name of Islam and the Prophet Muhammed seems to be the insanity of Daesh, or ISIS, which has focused its Nazi-like violence not against “infidels” and Israelis, but rather against other Muslims, and Christian Arabs, too, who have stubbornly refused to be pushed out of the Arab and Islamic World by force.
Maybe one day Israel will take over the Kaaba (Ka’aba), the Holy Site where Muslims go to perform the Haj located not in Palestine or Jerusalem, but in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca. Every year, millions of Muslims travel there to pray and recommit themselves to their faith, spending thousands of dollars on the industry that services the Holy Shrine. During Ramadan, Muslims prayed towards the Kaaba in Mecca — although originally, Muslims prayed towards the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
Things change.
Imagine, if Israel took over the Kaaba, which is today the most important shrine in Islam. Would Muslims even care? Would the leaders of the Arab World do what they have done with Jerusalem, and just sit back and shrug their khanduras as Israel slowly erodes the Arab and Muslim identity in the Holy City?
Worse, what would happen if Daesh or ISIS actually attacked Saudi Arabia and sought to takeover the Kaaba? Certainly, no Arab country is capable of defending the Holy Shrine from a terrorist attack from Daesh or ISIS, as they are incapable of defending any Arab or Muslim from a terrorist attack from Israel. And Israel doesn’t just strike in the Gaza Strip where the people have been abandoned by the Arab World and left as sitting ducks for an Israeli carnival sharp shooting gallery.
Israel has attacked the West Bank, too. And they have attacked targets in Jordan, once the keeper of the Holy City of Jerusalem. (Big title with little substance apparently.) And Israel has attacked Syria and even crossed over into Egypt, attacking targets there. Lebanon is a constant war zone for Israel. And Israel’s war mongering Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who probably understands the Arab and Muslim people better than the Arabs and Muslim people understand themselves, has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran because Iran is building nuclear driven energy and Netanyahu is afraid one day they will have nuclear weapons, like Israel has. (Israel has more than 250 armed nuclear weapons in its stockpile of weapons of mass destruction and no one will do anything about that.)
Of course, some say Israel already controls the Kaaba in spirit, through its behind-the-scenes, secret deals with the Gulf Arab State leaders who shower paper money on their people like a hallucinate to keep them quiet, in an uncaring coma, while they slowly trade away Arab pride to Israeli cunning.
I’ll bet if an Arab stood up at the Kaaba and prayed out loud asking the Lord to punish Israel for its crimes, the Kaaba police would step in and arrest him, removing him, imprisoning him and even torturing him.
The Arab and Muslim World complained loudly about the torture at Abu Ghraib under the direction of American soldiers, but the truth is that the Arab and Muslim governments worked on the orders of the United States to use more brutal torture techniques against Arab and Muslim prisoners. Yes, the Arab and Muslim World’s governments served as gulags for the United States so they could apply worse torture on the “prisoners,” many of whom were innocent and basically being held by American soldiers simply because they were Arab or Muslim.
Maybe the Kaaba is under Israeli control already.
At one time, Muslims prayed to the Dome of the Rock, believing it was the spot where the Prophet Muhammed ascended into Heaven with the Angel Gabriel. Some believe that happened nearby at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is considered the Third Most Important site in Islam, although it is certainly not treated that way by Muslims outside of Palestine.
I pretty much have given up on the hope that Christianity would wake up from its Israeli captivity. The truth is most Christians have abandoned the Holy Sites of their religion like the Church of the Nativity where Jesus was born, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus was crucified. Those two significant Christian Icons are not trampled under the leather boots and the automatic weapons of Israeli occupiers.
The Christian presence in Palestine is almost gone, mainly because the Christian religion has sifted its focus from historical religious significance to more contemporary goals like economic liberty, and commercialism driven by Christian consumerism. Without a Christian App on the iPhones to help them pray, most Christians today wouldn’t be Christians at all.
I wonder if the Arab and Muslim worlds need to see a change in their governments, who have acquiesced to Israeli colonization of most of the Arab and Muslim World through military occupation, military bullying and constant missile strikes, and through backdoor secret deals in exchange for … actually for what? What have the Arab and Muslim Governments received from Israel that they don’t already have?
The Arab and Muslim World is the wealthiest community on this planet — well at least their governments and leaders are the wealthiest on this Earth. The Arab and Muslim masses live either as recipients of welfare from their governments or in utter poverty, strewn across the Arab and Muslim landscape with barely a cloth to protect them from the brutality of the world.
Maybe the Arab and Muslim governments have cut deals with Israel because they are just plain and simple, weak. They are afraid that Israel might attack them. They are afraid that the United States will stop giving them money and military support — all Israel has to do is flip the switch and the billions sent to Arab countries like Jordan and Egypt would turn off just like a little light bulb switched off from the wall. Cowardly. Afraid. Fearful. How can they oppress their own people if they are oppressed by Israel? Who would pay for the gold plated faucets in their bathrooms?
Maybe the Arab and Muslim world needs to wake up, or they might end up like the Christians who have forgotten where they came from. Maybe Arabs and Muslims will forget where they came from, if they have not already forgotten.
And in that case, the next Haj to the Kaaba in Mecca will be led by Israeli settlers.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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I have watched and heard about the way Israeli soldiers desecrated the al Aqsa mosque to the point of actually shitting in it – I despair, I don’t even believe in God anymore but would love to see the Holy places and shrines of the Palestine lands including Jerusalem. Not while Israeli hard right occupy it though. No-one dare stand up to Israel, the UN is dictating to the UK and other countries on trifling matters while the real obscenities are allowed to continue in Israel, nothing changes. Thanks for the article, it was a sad indictment of Islam and the rest of the world.