ISRAEL

444

MA

MICHAEL EGREN
Dinner Co-Chairman

DR. DAVID JACKNOW
Dinner Co-Chairman

424a

LOUIS MILGROM
Dinner Co-Chairman

tepkvieq,.eit

Calm

Continued from preceding page

chemical weapons. One ex-
planation, offered by clinical
psychologist Yaron
Friedlander, is that "it's a
simple case of denial. As
with road accidents, people
have convinced themselves,
`It won't happen to me' and
they choose to turn a blind
eye to the issue."
But Haaretz columnist Gi-
deon Samet sees the picture
very differently. "Don't tell
us that the public hasn't
been alarmed by the
distribution of the gas
masks," he writes in a piece
entitled "The Panic Is Al-
ready Here."
"You can't expect the
Israelis to go into an old-
style panic anymore. But the
fear is there, inside, and we

shall yet eat its bitter fruit
when people again start
talking about negotiations
with the Palestinians.
"Disaster kits in the closet
do something profound and
strange to the members of a
household. People who go to
sleep not knowing whether
they'll wake up to the sound
of sirens and have to put gas
masks on terrified children
become very suspicious folk.
It's easier for them to iden-
tify with simple terms, like
power, than with the com-
plex arguments in favor of a
settlement.
"Danger, like the gallows,
sharpens the senses. Alas
those senses now being
sharpened by the panic that
ostensibly isn't there." ❑

74 Da44,44€/.1,

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AI-Aksa Mosque
Site Of Tensions

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MARC H. TANENBAUM

Special to The Jewish News

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1:1S yam,,. D,z4A4A€/),
Co4Avva: $12S fee/1,144404v

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Centel'

42

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he riots on the Temple
Mount and the site of
the Aksa Mosque in
Jerusalem Oct. 8 were trig-
gered, many believe, by
Saddam Hussein and his
Pancho Villa, Yassir Arafat
of the Palestine Liberation
Organization, in order to di-
vert attention to Israel and
away from the rape of
Kuwait.
The impression seems to
be emerging that Israel is
the unique demon responsi-
ble for the inflamed Middle
East conflict with the
Moslems. If there were no
Israel, the propaganda sug-
gests, there would be no con-
flict.
The history of Al-Aksa in-
dicates otherwise. First, it
was the setting for massive
rivalries between various
Moslem dynasties. Later,
major conflicts raged bet-
ween Christian crusaders
and the Arab Moslems, with
Jews tragically caught in
the middle of their Chris-
tian-Moslem hostility.
Caliph Al-Malik, who rul-
ed at the end of the seventh
century, presided over the
building of the Dome of the
Rock and the Aksa Mosque
in Jerusalem. Scholars
report that the mosque was
formerly a Byzantine church
converted into a Moslem

Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum is
immediate past chairman of
the International Jewish.
Committee for Intel-religious
Consultations.

house of worship. Malik was
eager to erect an imposing
building vying with the
Byzantine Christian chur-
ches.
Al-Malik had been
challenged for some time by
a rival caliph, Abdullah Ibn
Zubayr, who possessed au-
thority over Mecca and drew
heavy revenues from
pilgrims who came from Al-
Malik's lands to Mecca.
Pilgrimages to the Dome of
the Rock were organized as a
counter to the pilgrimages to
Mecca, which Mohammed
himself proposed as the
primary sanctuary. In addi-
tion to revenues, Al-Malik
feared that Ibn Zubayr
would incite pilgrims to
Mecca against him and win
their support.
The Byzantine Empire was
regarded as the sworn foe
and the most dangerous
rival of the Moslem world at
that time. On the cupola of
the Dome of the Rock,
polemic quotations from the
Koran directed against
Christianity testify to that
long-brewing hostility and
distrust of the Christian
world.
That conflict-ridden histo-
ry peaked with the four
Christian crusades to
redeem the Holy Land from
the "infidel" Moslems.
Beginning with the first
crusade in 1099, the Chris-
tians launched a holy war,
conquered Al-Aksa, con-
verted it into a stable for
their horses and turned
many other mosques into
churches.
Thus, the history of inter-

