12 | AUGUST 5 • 2021 

PURELY COMMENTARY

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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. 

