Third Temple - a Goal
of Secular Jews, not just Fundamentalists
Newsletter published on April 1, 2019
(1) Third Temple - a
Goal of Secular Jews, not just Fundamentalists
(2) Hillel Schenker
dismisses my claim that the main aim of Zionism is to build the Third
Temple
(3) Moses Hess
combines Communism with Zionism, endores Messianism and Third Temple
(4) US Ambassador to
Israel, David Friedman, posed with photo of 3rd Temple in place of Dome & Al
Aqsa
(5) Mike Pompeo
posted a twitter video showing model of 3rd Temple in place of Dome & Al
Aqsa
(6) Dimona = 3rd
Temple
(7) Moshe Dayan: if
Israel loses the 1973 war, "This is the end of the Third Temple"
(8) The Messiah as
Ruler of the World
(9) Destruction of
al-Aqsa is no conspiracy theory - Ilan Pappe
(10) Religious Public
Schools Teach Children to 'Long for the Third Temple' - Haaretz
(11) Minister calls
for Third Temple to be built (2013)
(12) Destruction of
al-Aqsa mosque is Israeli groups' ultimate goal - Ali Abunimah
(13) Third Temple
party may enter Knesset by campaigning for Cannabis legalisation
(14) Jainism - an
Atheistic Religion
(1) Third Temple - a
Goal of Secular Jews, not just Fundamentalists
by Peter Myers, April 1, 2019 (this is not an April Fool's
joke; I wish it was)
In my commentary on the Christchurch massacre, I stated that
the main aim of Zionism is to build the Third Temple; and that Judaism envisages
the Messiah ruling the world from there.
Israel Shamir posted my newsletter to his mailing list, and
there were some responses. In particular, Hillel Schenker, of Tel Aviv, said I
was wrong about the Third Temple and Jewish Messianism. His response is at item
2.
The difference between Secular Jews and Fundamentalist Jews
as regards the Third Temple is one of degree. The former are more patient, the
latter more insistent.
It's easy to assume that Israel is not a religious state,
because most Jews there (and worldwide) are 'secular' or 'atheistic'.
But a religion can be atheistic. Original Buddhism was so;
and the Jain religion of India is still so. See item 14.
Judaism, too, has an atheistic version; it was articulated by
Spinoza. His atheistic Judaism is the religion of Jewish Communists such as
Moses Hess and David Ben-Gurion.
Albert Einstein, in his writings about Cosmic Religion, pays
tribute to Spinoza's re-definition of God in non-anthroporphic terms.
Moses Hess, an associate of Marx and Engels, was one of the
main founders of Zionism. He introduced both Marx and Engels to Communism,
before coming out as a Zionist (Hess was both).
Hess accepted that his return to Judaism meant accepting
Messianism, the Third Temple, and even the restoration of animal sacrifices, if
this was required to maintain Jewish unity. See item 3.
David Ben-Gurion and Harry Waton, like Hess combining
Communism and Zionism, similarly portrayed Spinoza as a major thinker.
Ben-Gurion denied that God choose the Jews; rather, they
chose Him and invented him:
"as one who is non-religious, I believe that theology
reverses the true sequence of events. To me it is clear that God was 'created'
in the image of man as the latter's explanation to himself of the mystery of his
own earthly presence." (Recollections, p. 19)
If there's no Chooser - no Yahweh - how can there be a Chosen
People? Nevertheless, Ben Gurion also affirmed
that the "The Bible is Our Mandate".
He made this statement to the British Royal Commission of 1936.
(Recollections, p. 107}
Israeli newspapers bear two dates. Yesterday's Harretz, bears
the date
"Sunday, March 31, 2019.
Adar II 24, 5779"
and yesterday's Jerusalem Post bears the date
"MARCH 31 2019 | ADAR II, 24, 5779"
The second date in each case is from the Hebrew creationist
Calendar, based upon approx 6000 years from Creation.
Secular Jews would ridicule any major US newspaper which bore
a Creationist date; yet they maintain stony silence about the Hebrew Calendar's
official status in Israel. How secular is Israel, really?
On September 26, 2000, the Sydney Morning Herald reported
that Ehud Barak was considering placing the Temple Mount in United Nations
hands.
"UN Mooted as Guardian of Sacred Temple Mount": http://mailstar.net/smh000926.jpg
Ariel Sharon was out to stop it - atheist or not. He visited
the Temple Mount with 1000 armed riot police on September 28, 2000. In
consequence, an intifada began at Al Aqsa mosque.
Samuel Huntington called the clash "civilizational"; but he
was led to that formulation by Bernard Lewis, a Zionist. It's more accurately
called a "religious" clash, even if the Israelis are mostly atheistic.
The US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, recently posed
with a photo showing the Jewish (Third) Temple in place of the Dome of the Rock
and Al Aqsa Mosque. See item 4.
Just a week or so ago, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
posted a twitter video showing a model of the 3rd Temple (in place of the Dome
of the Rock & Al Aqsa Mosque). See item 5.
(2) Hillel Schenker
dismisses my claim that the main aim of Zionism is to build the Third
Temple
From: "israel shamir israel.shamir@gmail.com
[shamireaders]" <shamireaders-noreply@yahoogroups.com>
Hillel Schenker <hillels2000@gmail.com>
[shamireaders]
I assume that the Pete Meyers who wrote the explanations
below is not the Pete Meyers who played for a while (not very effectively) for
the New York Knicks in the late 80s-early 90s. But really - the Mossad was behind 9/11, leading to the
Iraq War, which strengthened Iran and created ISIS? Was that an Israeli interest?
As for "The main aim
of Zionism is the build the Third Temple - from which, they believe, the
Messiah will rule us all (but for Christians, he will be the AntiChrist)..
However the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque stand in the way. To remove them
means war with Islam. The war - between Judaism and Islam - must come either
before or after the demolition.It's not a war between Christians and Islam, but
Christians are being suckered into it."
Come on, anyone who knows anything about the history of
Zionism knows that it was a Jewish
secular rebellion against the Jewish Orthodox religious "waiting for the
Messiah" philosophy, taking the fate of the people into their own
hands. Jerusalem, the Old City and the
Temple Mount/Al Aqsa never played an important role in Zionist thought, from
Herzl, Weizmann, Ben-Gurion etc. Today
there are some right-wing crazies in Israel who want to build a Third Temple, a
few of whom are in the Knesset, but that's about it.
The danger comes from
fundamentalist Evangelical Christians in the U.S., President Trump's base
represented in his government by Vice President Pence and Secretary of State
Pompeo, who pushed him to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem. What is needed is an alliance between
rational liberal Jews, Muslims and Christians to fight against that policy, for
the sake of all of us.
Hillel Schenker, Tel Aviv
(3) Moses Hess
combines Communism with Zionism, endores Messianism and Third Temple
by Peter Myers, April 1, 2019
Both Shlomo Avineri and Isaiah Berlin, in their writings
about Moses Hess, affirm that he was simultaneously a Communist and a Zionist.
Hess was the founder of Israeli National Socialism, the
inspirer of the kibbutz movement and of the Histadrut as a vehicle for public
(socialized) ownership of the economy: http://mailstar.net/nat-soc-isr.html
In his book Rome and Jerusalem, Hess lavishes praise on
Spinoza. He noticed that Spinoza even endorses Zionism. In the
Theological-Political Treatise, Chapter 3, Spinoza writes:
"The sign of circumcision is, as I think, so important, that
I could persuade myself that it alone would preserve the nation for ever. Nay, I
would go so far as to believe that if the foundations of their religion have not
emasculated their minds they may even,
if occasion offers, so changeable are human affairs, raise up their empire afresh, and that God
may a second time elect them."
Shlomo Avineri commented, in his book Moses Hess: Prophet Of
Communism And Zionism:
{quote}
To Hess, Spinoza was
the "true prophet" of the messianic movement in a double sense: as the
founder of modern philosophy, but also as a person who viewed the Jews as a nation, not merely as
a religion, and even postulated the
possible resurrection of the Jewish polity. Mentioning the one oblique
reference in Spinoza to the possibility of Jewish political revival, Hess
says:
'Spinoza still saw Judaism as a nationality and viewed
(towards the end of the third chapter of his theological tractate) the re-establishment of the Jewish
commonwealth as dependent exclusively upon the courage and disposition of
the Jewish people.'
{endquote; pp. 210-1}
Avineri further notes, with regard to the Spinoza quote 'God may a second time elect them':
'Of course Hess read into this passage more than its
tentative argument allows, but this
passage became very popular among Zionists who used it-as did David Ben
Gurion-for a vindication of the "apostate" Spinoza within a modern Jewish
national ideology. To the best of my knowledge, Hess was the first modern
Jewish thinker to draw attention to this passage.' (op. cit., footnote 60 on p.
240)
Hess, reconverted to Judaism, committed himself to
Messianism:
"We, the Jews, have preserved from the very beginning of
history the belief in the messianic
age, and we always carried it with us." (Rome and Jerusalem, Tenth Letter,
as quoted by Avineri, op. cit. p. 214)
Waxman's translation is "We Jews have always, from the beginning of
our history, cherished the faith in a future Messianic epoch"
Assuming that the Third Temple would be built, Hess
considered, in Rome and Jerusalem, whether he would accept the restoration of
animal sacrifices, as Fundamentalists demand.
Avineri comments:
"The issue of solidarity is reintroduced in a slightly
curious form towards the end of Rome and Jerusalem when Hess turned to discuss the question of
Jewish sacrificial rites in the Temple." (p. 233)
"Consequently, Hess was aware that the very orthodox would
not be able to identify with an attempt at the resurrection of Israel if it would not be
combined with the restoration of the rites traditionally connected with the
messianic age in the religious
consciousness. Hess opens his Eleventh Letter by referring to a comment made by
his lady correspondent that orthodox
Jews would not join Hess' effort of restoring Jewish independence if it would
not be connected with the rebuilding of the
Temple on Mount Moriah. Surely, his lady correspondent writes to him,
he-as a modern person-could be counted on not going along with the revival of
such barbarous customs as the reinstitution of animal
sacrifices in a rebuilt Temple of Solomon." (p. 234)
"Continuing his response to the lady correspondent on the sacrifices, Hess admits that for all
the allowances he can make for their historical emergence, they do cause him
much unease, and he would be most happy if the whole issue would disappear. But
then he continues: 'Real love ... is in
actuality blind. ...'
"Beneath the romantic and sentimental language lies an
excruciating problem of identity and solidarity. Spinoza-Hess' model of a modern thinker
and a modern Jew-coined the expression "Nihil humanum A me alienum puto"
("Nothing human is alien to me"). From
Mazzini, Hess had learned that humanity comes in nationalities, that the universal is reached through
particularity, that humanity is vindicated through the mediation of nations
and nationalities. Only through working for his own people, Hess was firmly
convinced, can he work for all of humanity. Spinoza's dictum necessarily also came
to mean, in real and concrete life, that
if as a socialist nothing human could be alien to him, then nothing Jewish could
consequently be alien to him either." (pp. 236-7)
Thus Hess was prepared to accept animal sacrifices in the
Third Temple, if Jewish unity required it.
(4) US Ambassador to
Israel, David Friedman, posed with photo of 3rd Temple in place of Dome & Al
Aqsa
The US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, recently posed
with a photo showing the Jewish (Third) Temple in place of the Dome of the Rock
and Al Aqsa Mosque.
A photo of him posing, from The Times of Israel, is at https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2018/05/Dd0K7xUUQAA28jw-e1527013898463.jpg
and I uploaded it to my website at
The Times of Israel report is at https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-embassy-image-of-jewish-temple-thrust-in-front-of-envoy-friedman-for-photo/
Other agencies reported it more objectively, eg RT:
{quote}
Pictures don’t lie? US envoy accepts fake photo with
Jerusalem mosque replaced by Jewish temple
23 May, 2018
Tensions surrounding Jerusalem just got worse, thanks to a
bit of make believe and Photoshop. The US ambassador was thrust into controversy
after accepting a picture of the city which replaced a mosque with a third
Jewish temple.
US Ambassador to
Israel David Friedman was all smiles as he accepted the aerial photo of
Jerusalem during a tour of the city of Bnei Brak held by the ultra-Orthodox
Achiya organization, which aids children suffering from learning
disabilities.
The IMEU @theIMEU
What's missing in this photo of Jerusalem that US Ambassador
to Israel David Friedman is looking at? The Dome of the Rock & Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Removing the Islamic holy sites is a long-term goal of far-right Israeli Jewish
extremists who want to erase Palestinians from Jerusalem.
{endquote}
(5) Mike Pompeo
posted a twitter video showing model of 3rd Temple in place of Dome & Al
Aqsa
Mike Pompeo posted a
twitter video showing a model of the 3rd Temple (in place of the Dome of the
Rock & Al Aqsa Mosque)
Pompeo’s VIDEO Shows ‘Third Temple’ Model, Sparks Fears Over
Biblical End Times
The video also shows US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
singling out President Trump’s decision to recognise Israel’s sovereignty over
the Golan Heights; the occupied Syrian land was described by Pompeo as
“hard-fought real estate”.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has published a video of his visit to Israel
on his Twitter page, which omits Muslim shrines in Jerusalem but includes a
model of the Third Temple there.
The footage shows Pompeo visiting the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre and the Western Wall in Jerusalem, which is followed by a model of the
Third Temple.
Some Jewish groups want to erect the structure on the Temple
Mount and have triggered concerns that Muslim sites such as the Dome of the Rock
and Al-Aqsa mosque would be affected. The Temple Mount is one of the holiest
sites in the world for Muslims, Christians and Jews. ... ==
in Pompeo's twitter video, the model of the 3rd Temple (in
place of the Dome of the Rock & Al Aqsa Mosque) appears at 1:00
Secretary Pompeo ? Verified account
@SecPompeo Mar 22 More
Great visit to #Israel to meet with good friends @netanyahu
& @PresidentRuvi. Built upon our strong partnership for peace, security, and
prosperity in the region. My deepest thanks to @USAmbIsrael for hosting me!
== it's also at 1:00 here:
== or, in a longer video including Pompeo at the Western
Wall, the model of the Third Temple is at 3:38:
Pompeo Tour In Israel Included The Third Temple Plans and the
Underground Sanhedrin Synagogue
TyGreen
Published on 22 Mar 2019
(6) Dimona = 3rd
Temple
Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israel intelligence officer,
relates in his book Profits of War:
'Minister Without Portfolio Yisrael Galili, a leftwing powerbroker who
directed the intelligence and security services, took upon himself with
Ben-Gurion's blessing the cabinet-level supervision of the program. ... In a
memorable speech after the groundbreaking for the supersecret Dimona nuclear
plant, the usually subdued Galili stood
up in a Mapai Party meeting and, with his chest proudly pushed out, declared,
"The third temple is being built!".' (p. 205)
The point is, in Israel, military force has a religious goal:
Israel is a religious state. The Jews are a religion, not a race or a nation.
And the response has been the creation of Islamic fundamentalism.
We must now decide whether we are going to let ourselves be
dragged into someone else's world war, a religious war led by fundamentalists on
both sides.
(7) Moshe Dayan: if
Israel loses the 1973 war, "This is the end of the Third Temple"
In the following report from UPI of September 16, 2002, note
Moshe Dayan's statement that, if Israel
loses the 1973 war, "This is the end of the Third Temple."
The point being, that religion is the whole purpose and being
of the Jewish state.
Yom Kippur: Israel's 1973 nuclear alert
By Richard Sale UPI Terrorism Correspondent From the
International Desk Published 9/16/2002 10:17 PM
During the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Israel came close to making a
nuclear preemptive strike when it seemed to be facing defeat at the hands of
Syrian armor, according to a half dozen former U.S. diplomats and intelligence
officials familiar with the still-classified incident.
On Oct. 5, Yom Kippur, -- the Day of Atonement and the
holiest day of the year for Jewish people -- the armies of Egypt and Syria
attacked Israel from two directions and made rapid gains.
According to a former senior U.S. diplomat, by Oct. 8,
Israel's northern front commander, Maj. Gen. Yitzak Hoffi, had informed Israeli
Defense Minister Moshe Dayan that he couldn't hold out much longer against the
14,000 Syrian tanks rolling through Israeli defenses on the Golan Heights.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that
Dayan was "attacked by acute panic" and declared to advisers: "This is the end
of the Third Temple."
But if Israel was to perish, it would take Damascus and Cairo
with it. ...
(8) The Messiah as
Ruler of the World
Ben-Ami Shillony's book The Jews and the Japanese explains
Judaism for Japanese readers:
'The peaceful world
that the Jewish prophets envisioned was to be ruled over by a scion of the House
of David, later called the Messiah. The Jews ... were always inspired by the
belief that in the future world of peace and justice they would serve as
spiritual leaders.' (p. 32).
(9) Destruction of
al-Aqsa is no conspiracy theory - Ilan Pappe
Destruction of al-Aqsa is no conspiracy theory
Ilan Pappe
he Electronic Intifada
10 November 2015
Groups calling for the destruction of the al-Aqsa mosque
compound are part of Israel’s political establishment. Oren Ziv ActiveStills “It
is useless,” asserts the colonizer in Albert Memmi’s classical tract, The
Colonizer and the Colonized, “to try and forecast the colonized’s actions (‘they
are unpredictable! ‘With them, you never know!).” It seems to the colonizer that
“strange and disturbing impulsiveness controls the colonized.”
The only explanation official Israel and its supporters could
give for why Palestinians have risen up lately is that they were influenced by
Islamic propaganda. That propaganda so easily incited the “impulsive and
unpredictable” Palestinians in recent weeks, according to Israeli spin.
Generally speaking, Western commentators have been more
willing to place the resistance in the wider context of the oppression faced by
Palestinians.
Yet this Western approach, articulated mainly by liberal
academics and journalists, has something in common with the Israeli one: it
regards as baseless and irrelevant the allegations that Israel plans to demolish
al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem or build a “Third Temple” on the Haram al-Sharif,
the surrounding compound. The allegations appear in the western media as a mere
pretext which have only incidentally triggered Palestinians to rise up.
There is no denying that after nearly 50 years of brutal
colonization one does not have to look too far to understand the depths of
despair and levels of rage felt by Palestinians.
However, this understandable impulse to act against
oppression should not lead us to ignore Israel’s plans towards Haram al-Sharif.
Nor should we accept that Arab and Palestinian apprehensions about Israel are
figments of the oriental imagination and not rooted in reality. In fact, they
can be substantiated.
It is, therefore, crucial to ask, whether you are religious
or secular: is al-Aqsa in danger? If it is, then its precarious future is not
just an offense to Islam but also a further indication of how far Israel’s
settler-colonial project could go.
Archaeological crime Demolishing Arab and Islamic sites in
Jerusalem is not unknown in Israeli policy and attitudes. In 1967, Israel razed
the Moroccan Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem.
This was an architectural gem of Islamic civilization dating
back to the late 12th century and had hosted some of the most important Islamic
religious orders.
When Zionism appeared in Palestine, its leaders were not only
trying to purchase land for settlement but also to buy what they considered to
be Jewish Jerusalem.
Baron Edmond Rothschild attempted to buy the quarter at the
end of the 19th century, as did the Zionist leadership under the British Mandate
— to no avail. When purchasing did not work, it was taken by force during the
1967 War and demolished.
The demolition included the destruction of the Sheikh Eid
mosque built by a son of Salah al-Din al-Ayubi, who liberated Jerusalem from the
Crusaders. When learning about the destruction years later, Benjamin Kedar, a
historian and vice president of the Israeli National Academy of Sciences,
declared to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that “it was an archaeological
crime.”
The destruction of mosques was not a new practice, or one
limited to Jerusalem. Zionist forces left intact only very few mosques in the
destroyed Palestinian villages and towns during the Nakba — the ethnic cleansing
operation of 1948. The Israeli authorities then turned many of the remaining
mosques into clubs, restaurants and animal enclosures.
Geography of destruction Thus, neither historical monuments
in Jerusalem nor mosques around Palestine were immune from the destructive
policies of the colonizer. This ruination of the country’s Islamic heritage is
deeply engraved in the Palestinian collective memory.
Palestinians also frequently witness Israel destroying
buildings with armored D-9 bulldozers, supplied by the US firm Caterpillar.
However, it is not only this vivid memory of the Israeli
geography of destruction that plants fears among many about the future of
al-Aqsa. It is a realistic analysis of the ideology of some of the potent
political forces today in Israel, who are represented in Benjamin Netanyahu’s
current government.
The most important of them is the ever-growing religious
nationalist movement. It used to be a marginal force, but today it is part of
the establishment.
As Or Kashti of Haaretz revealed recently, part of the
curriculum of that movement’s school system (Israel runs three systems: a
secular Jewish one, a national religious one and the “Arab” system) is a program
that advocates the building of the “Third Temple.”
Building the temple is the ambition of humanity as a whole,
pupils are told. Kashti talked to experts who read the program and although he
stresses that the program does not have a direct reference to blowing up
al-Aqsa, the pupils are inoculated with the idea that they are on the verge of
the Jewish redemption (Geula) of the mount.
This program is supported by Naftali Bennet, the education
minister. Along with his colleague, Uri Ariel, Bennett is part of the Jewish
Home party, which is committed to replacing al-Aqsa with a Jewish temple.
Following the election earlier this year, Ariel was appointed
agriculture minister. In his previous role as housing minister, he called
explicitly to build the new temple over al-Aqsa. He is not a marginal
politician, and neither is his party.
The Israeli government supports with money and other means
several organizations that call openly for a similar plan. The most important of
them is The Temple Institute in Jerusalem, founded by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel. Its
funding has been investigated by the Haaretz reporter Uri Blau.
The institute’s main goal, according to its website, is “to
see Israel rebuild the Holy Temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem [al-Aqsa mosque
compound], in accordance with the Biblical commandments.”
There is nothing ludicrous or unimaginable in assuming that a
zealot Zionist will one day carry out such plans.
The author of numerous books, Ilan Pappe is professor of
history and director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the
University of Exeter.
(10) Religious Public
Schools Teach Children to 'Long for the Third Temple' - Haaretz
Religious Public Schools Teach Children to 'Long for the
Third Temple' Researchers fear the mandatory social studies curriculum could
drive students to take violent actions to advance the building of the Third
Temple.
Or Kashti
Nov 01, 2015 4:04 AM
Several days after the beginning of the new school year,
Jerusalem resident Nadav Berman Shifman’s daughter received an agenda from the
religious elementary school where she studies. The agenda contains a section at
the back with a list of topics including “Love of the Land and the Temple” – a
reference to the Temples that stood on Temple Mount in ancient times.
The students are asked to indicate the extent to which they
have met the demands detailed in the list, including “Prayer from the bottom of
my heart for the Temple to be rebuilt” and “to have the privilege of carrying
out [ritual animal] sacrifice there."
The list was not a private initiative. Its elements are based
on the official curriculum of the state religious school system – the public
education system that operates alongside the state secular schools and
semi-official ultra-Orthodox schools in Jewish areas of the country.
Since the beginning of the school year, it should be noted,
Muslim claims that Israel is trying to change the status quo on the Mount, which
is now the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, have been the backdrop for a
wave of Palestinian violence. Israel denies any effort to change the status quo,
which grants only Muslims the right to pray at the site and other religions the
right to visit at certain hours.
(11) Minister calls
for Third Temple to be built (2013)
Minister calls for third Temple to be built
Potentially explosive statement by Jewish Home’s Uri Ariel
breaks taboo against damaging status quo on Temple Mount
By TOI STAFF
5 July 2013, 10:20 am
A government minister from a nationalist religious party
called Thursday for the Jewish Temple to be rebuilt on the Temple Mount in
Jerusalem.
The statement from Housing and Construction Minister Uri
Ariel (Jewish Home) breaks a long-standing taboo on high-ranking government
officials speaking about changing the fragile status quo on the holy and
contested esplanade, and will likely draw ire from official Israeli circles and
anger the Arab and Muslim world.
Speaking at an archaeological conference next to the West
Bank settlement of Shilo and quoted by Maariv, Ariel called for a third Temple
to be built on the site, which today is home to the Dome of the Rock and the
al-Aqsa Mosque and is considered Judaism’s holiest site and Islam’s third
holiest.
“We’ve built many little, little temples,” Ariel said,
referring to synagogues, “but we need to build a real Temple on the Temple
Mount.” ...
(12) Destruction of
al-Aqsa mosque is Israeli groups' ultimate goal - Ali Abunimah
Destruction of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque is Israeli groups’
ultimate goal
Ali Abunimah
15 September 2015
Over the last three days, Palestinians have come under fierce
attack as they attempted with their bare hands, sticks and stones to deter and
prevent repeated violent assaults by Israeli occupation forces into Jerusalem’s
al-Aqsa mosque compound.
The violence comes as Israeli-backed groups bent on replacing
the mosque with a Jewish temple are asserting their presence ever more
aggressively.
Dozens of Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces who
fired stun grenades, tear gas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets at
worshipers, Ma’an News Agency reported.
Early on Monday, Israeli forces forcibly expelled
Palestinians from the Bab al-Silsila entrance to the compound in occupied East
Jerusalem, activist Khadija Khuwais told the local news agency Q Press. ...
Jewish temple plans
he increasingly violent Israeli incursions at one the most
revered holy sites for Muslims have accompanied the rise in recent years of
so-called “Temple activism” groups.
These are organizations whose ultimate and clearly stated
goal is the construction of a Jewish “Third Temple” to replace the currently
existing structures that make up al-Aqsa mosque.
A 2013 report by the Israeli research organization Ir Amim
noted that “the Jerusalem Municipality and other government ministries directly
fund and support various activist organizations driven by the mission to rebuild
the temple.”
The Temple Institute, the leading extremist organization of
its kind, has already formulated detailed blueprints for the new Jewish
temple.
A leading figure in the Temple movement is Yehuda Glick, an
American settler who was shot and injured by an unidentified gunman after he
spoke last October at a conference titled “The Jewish people return to the
Temple Mount.” [...]
(13) Third Temple
party may enter Knesset by campaigning for Cannabis legalisation
Israeli Third Temple party gains traction
Shlomi Eldar March 13, 2019
Whether the upcoming government will be formed by Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or by Blue and White head Benny Gantz, one thing
seems clear: The next Knesset will
likely have a respectable representation of the Temple Mount Faithful movement,
whose vision is to establish the Third Temple in Jerusalem.
According to recent polls, former Knesset member Moshe
Feiglin’s Zehut party, which means identity in Hebrew, will pass the electoral
threshold and may well constitute the surprise of the elections. Feiglin
promises his voters that he will act on behalf of legalizing cannabis, causing
many youths to join him. If the momentum continues, Feiglin and his messianic
movement may be the party that tips the scales to determine who will assemble
the next government. Therefore, Feiglin is now keeping his views regarding the
rebuilding of the Temple and transfer of Arabs to himself. Instead, he raises
the banner for cannabis legalization — at least until after the elections, of
course.
But in his party’s election platform — probably unread by
Feiglin’s cannabis voters — the political program is black and white. In the
first stage, Feiglin proposes to abolish the Oslo Accords. After that, Israel
could re-take control of the West Bank and extend its full sovereignty. The
Feiglin plan offers non-Jewish residents of the West Bank either assistance in
emigration (in other words, transfer); a status of permanent residency in the
Jewish Halachic state (i.e., Israel governed by Jewish religious law); or
citizenship. Citizenship will be granted only to those who wish to be loyal
citizens and serve in the army. They will receive full citizenship after a "long
and thorough examination track."
But the highlight of this agenda is the Temple Mount: Feiglin proposes dismissing the waqf
(Muslim custodian) and transferring management to the Chief Rabbinate. The
Israeli police would still have a permanent presence there. In addition, “a
Jewish synagogue will be built on the Mount. Similarly, the Temple Mount will be
opened to archaeological research without the limitations in place today.”
Feiglin does not use the term “temple,” so as to avoid scaring off potential
voters, but the “synagogue” mentioned above is only a euphemism for his real
goal: a temple on the hilltop, with everything that entails. [...]
In the next Knesset, Feiglin will not be alone. In a
controversial political stunt orchestrated by Netanyahu, three right-wing
parties united, including radical right-wing Rabbi Meir Kahane’s disciples from
the Otzma Yehudit party. Netanyahu promised the Union of Right-Wing Parties two
portfolios in his next government, and even a spot on the Judicial Selection
Committee. [...]
Yehuda Etzion and Natan Natanzon, the series’ key
interviewees, do not hide that they aspire — even today — to establish the Third
Temple on the Temple Mount. Soon they will receive reinforcement from Otzma
Yehudit and Moshe Feiglin.
We can safely assume that the Zehut supporters, and evidently
the more moderate supporters of HaBayit HaYehudi (which is currently part of the
Union of Right-Wing Parties), will argue that blowing up Al-Aqsa Mosque is
absolutely not on the table anymore and that the building of the Third Temple
and expulsion of Arabs from Jerusalem and the territories is only a dream. But
let’s remember that no one in the 2015 elections spoke seriously about the
annexation of the territories and the establishment of a binational state. For
Kahane’s successors, territorial annexation of the territories is now on the
table. There is wall-to-wall agreement for implementing this annexation on the
parts of all the right-wing parties and large swaths of the Likud as well. Who
knows, perhaps the next stage is the Temple Mount!
Even if they do not succeed in transforming this
hallucinatory idea into reality, the
very fact that people talk about the establishment of a Third Temple (on the
ruins of Al-Aqsa Mosque or next to it) constitutes a religious declaration of
war.
In the series on the Jewish underground, Gillon sadly called
the protagonists “crazy” and “messianic” and was angry that they had been turned
into cultural heroes with the power to influence the decision-making process.
This series was filmed before he could know that eventually, they would even
become part of Israel’s legislative body. One does not need a developed
imagination to realize how Israel will appear in the eyes of the “sane citizen”
and the eyes of the entire world in another few months.
(14) Jainism - an
Atheistic Religion
by Peter Myers, April 1, 2019
In 2008, I visited Sonagir, a Jain village in India with over
100 Jain temples, where I met naked Jain monks.
Like Buddhism, the Jain religion sees all living beings as
souls. Jainism is strictly vegetarian, and forbids eating root crops lest
insects in the soil be killed by ploughs etc.
I also visited Khajuraho, site of world-heritage sex temples
but also an amazing Jain temple devoted to renunciation: http://mailstar.net/Khajuraho-Jain-temple.jpg
The Jain temple contains a statue of the founder, Mahavira.
He is always depicted nude, with pendant penis (unlike Siva): http://mailstar.net/Khajuraho-Mahavira.jpg
The Jains don't believe in a big-g God; but they call their
monks "gods". By leading a life of renunciation, one can attain Godhood.
They believe in an eternal universe - without a Creation or
an End.
A plaque at the temple sets out the principles of Jainism: http://mailstar.net/Khajuraho-Jain-plaque.jpg
{quote}
Every soul is independent. None depends on another. {this is
a rejection of Monism}
All souls are alike. None is superior or inferior.
Every soul is in itself absolutely omniscient and blissful.
...
All human beings are miserable due to their own faults
...
There is no separate existence of God. Everbody can attain
Godhood by making supreme efforts in the right direction.
Know thyself; recognize thyself; be immersed in thyself'-you
will attain Godhood. ...
{endquote}
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