Palestinians, Not Israeli Police, Are Desecrating al-Aqsa Mosque

April 18 2022

Listening to National Public Radio or the British Broadcasting Company, one might be aware that Israeli security personnel entered the Muslim sanctuaries on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Friday, were involved in “clashes” that left over 150 people injured, and arrested some 500 Palestinians. One might not realize, however, that the trouble began when Palestinians started throwing rocks and otherwise attacking nearby Jewish worshippers and Israeli police. But there is even more to the story, as David Horovitz explains:

Tens of thousands of Palestinian Muslim worshippers, including many from the West Bank, gathered at the Aqsa compound atop the Temple Mount, said their midday prayers, and headed quietly back home again on Friday in the early afternoon.

The difference, it should not need saying, is that the midday worshippers had genuinely gathered to say their prayers on the second Friday of Ramadan, and that’s what they did. The young Palestinians who rioted hours earlier, by contrast, had come to fight.

They had assembled piles of rocks and stones and barricaded themselves inside al-Aqsa mosque in preparation for the violence. Some had Hamas flags with them—incited by and affiliating themselves with the Islamist terror group that, with similar cynicism and indifference to true faith, has used Gaza’s mosques to store rockets when engaged in conflict with a Jewish state it openly seeks to destroy. And as with Hamas in Gaza, while ostensibly guarding their religion and its third-holiest shrine, the rioters were actually dishonoring it.

You only had to look at their feet: the stone-throwers who clashed with Israeli security forces in and around al-Aqsa Mosque had their shoes on—in breach of the Islamic tradition to remove impure footwear when entering the house of prayer.

Read more at Times of Israel

More about: Al-Aqsa Mosque, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Palestinian terror, Ramadan

Libya Gave Up Its Nuclear Aspirations Completely. Can Iran Be Induced to Do the Same?

April 18 2025

In 2003, the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, spooked by the American display of might in Iraq, decided to destroy or surrender his entire nuclear program. Informed observers have suggested that the deal he made with the U.S. should serve as a model for any agreement with Iran. Robert Joseph provides some useful background:

Gaddafi had convinced himself that Libya would be next on the U.S. target list after Iraq. There was no reason or need to threaten Libya with bombing as Gaddafi was quick to tell almost every visitor that he did not want to be Saddam Hussein. The images of Saddam being pulled from his spider hole . . . played on his mind.

President Bush’s goal was to have Libya serve as an alternative model to Iraq. Instead of war, proliferators would give up their nuclear programs in exchange for relief from economic and political sanctions.

Any outcome that permits Iran to enrich uranium at any level will fail the one standard that President Trump has established: Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Limiting enrichment even to low levels will allow Iran to break out of the agreement at any time, no matter what the agreement says.

Iran is not a normal government that observes the rules of international behavior or fair “dealmaking.” This is a regime that relies on regional terror and brutal repression of its citizens to stay in power. It has a long history of using negotiations to expand its nuclear program. Its negotiating tactics are clear: extend the negotiations as long as possible and meet any concession with more demands.

Read more at Washington Times

More about: Iran nuclear program, Iraq war, Libya, U.S. Foreign policy