12 | AUGUST 5 • 2021

PURELY COMMENTARY

CAMPUS from page 10
SUPPORT from page 8

attack everything you write
and, ultimately, prevent me
from attaining the editor’s
position?
I was alone in 1985, but
today, Jewish students
can find solace in online
communities. Julia Jassey,
a student at the University
of Chicago, is emerging as a
leader among young people
on campus fighting back
against antisemitism that
masquerades as antizionism.
She runs a group called
Jewish on Campus, and you
can find them on Twitter,
Instagram or you can
write to them at connect@
jewishoncampus.org.
Of course, none of those
things were available to me
in 1985, so I did the next
best thing: I interned for the
Detroit Jewish News, which
also ran a version of my
story about the Protocols.
This unexpectedly led to
my career as a “Jewish
journalist” and, eventually,
years later, as managing
editor at JTA.
Today, my college
experience is wrapped into
a lifetime of experiences
in recognizing the various
shades of antisemitism. It is
difficult, I know, for college
students. But I am also
optimistic that, even though
it looks worse than it was
“in my day,” young Jewish
communities are being
formed to help define and
fight the problem of campus
antisemitism.

Howard Lovy is an editor and writer

based in Traverse City. He is the

former managing editor of the Jewish

Telegraphic Agency. You can find him

at howardlovy.com or on twitter

@howard_lovy.

unreasonably believed that
the alternative was a bloody
religious conflict that would
undermine Israel’s efforts to
normalize relations with the
rest of the Arab world and
provide fodder for the Jewish
state’s critics in the West.

POSSIBLE
RAMIFICATIONS
That decision was easy to
stand by as long as the Israeli
public was largely indiffer-
ent to Jewish rights on the
Mount. That was backed
up by the opinion of some
in the Orthodox world that
held that Jews should stay off
the Mount since the exact
location of the Temple’s Holy
of Holies was unknown and
thereby avoid profaning a
place that only the High
Priest was allowed to enter
while it still existed. But in
recent years, more support for
the rights of Jews to pray on
the Mount has been building,
especially among the right-
wing and religious parties.
It appears that some Jewish
prayer has been going on in
the last two years. In 2019,
there was a report that some
Jews were praying aloud there
regularly in a minyan con-
ducted openly without police
interference. But the abridged
informal services being
held did not involve partici-
pants wearing prayer shawls
or tefillin, so it somehow
escaped much notice. But
once Israel’s Channel 12 news
reported the policy shift, it
was enough to prompt vio-
lence from Arabs.
At this point, it remains to
be seen what the implications
of that shift and Bennett’s
public expression of support
for “freedom of worship for
Jews” on the Mount — words

that never passed the lips
of Netanyahu during his 12
years in power, despite his
being labeled as a hardline
right-winger in the interna-
tional press — will be.
It’s possible that Abbas
and his Hamas rivals, whose
firing of 4,000-plus rockets
and missiles into Israel in
May was rationalized as an
expression of opposition to
Israeli policies in Jerusalem,
will use it to escalate the
conflict again. Arab states,
including those with relations
with Israel, such as Jordan,
will also feel obliged to make
an issue of it as well, possibly
endangering the normaliza-
tion of relations with the Gulf
States.
Nor is anyone expecting
the United States — let alone,
Europe — to express support
for the right of Jewish wor-
ship on the Temple Mount.
That will create problems
for Bennett and the incongru-
ous coalition he leads. He will
likely be pressured to walk
back his statement from both
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid
and the Ra’am Arab party that
provides the government with
its slim majority.
Whatever the cost he must
pay for having said those
words, Bennett cannot take
them back without doing
incalculable damage to him-
self and Israel.
This dispute is dismissed
by some as an unnecessary
conflict that is harming
Israel’s security merely to sat-
isfy the wishes of extremists.
But the Palestinian claim that
Jews have no rights on the
Temple Mount is inextricably
linked to their unwillingness
to recognize the legitimacy
of the Jewish presence and
sovereignty anywhere in the

country.
That Abbas and his “mod-
erates” claim there were no
Temples on the Mount or
the historical nature of the
Jewish claims to this land
isn’t merely rhetoric that
enables them to compete
with Hamas. It goes to the
heart of their long war against
Zionism that they still refuse
to renounce. A Jewish state
that would officially renounce
Jewish rights on the Mount
would be sending a message
to the Palestinian street that
the extremist belief that Israel
will disappear isn’t a pipe
dream that they must aban-
don if they want a peaceful
future.
Those who are still trying
to pressure Israel to accept
a two-state solution that the
Palestinian Authority has
repeatedly made clear it has
no interest in pursuing need
to understand that peace
can’t be built on the denial
of Jewish rights, especially in
Jerusalem.
Israel has no desire to
interfere with the mosques
on the Temple Mount
or stop Muslim (or any)
worship there. Those who
circulate this lie, whether
among the Palestinians or
their American cheerlead-
ers, like Rep. Rashida Tlaib
(D-Mich.), are opponents of
peace, not people working
for coexistence. That even
some of those who claim to
be Israel’s friends think it is
reasonable to deny “freedom
of worship” for Jews at their
most sacred site are giving
unwitting aid and comfort to
the very extremist forces that
make peace impossible.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of

JNS—Jewish News Syndicate.