Juan Cole, Deception, and Temple Mount Politics

In an extremely misleading post on the recent uproar over a planned rally on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, Juan Cole blames the American media for not properly explaining the Palestinian position: that they needed to defend the Al-Aqsa mosque because they thought that Jewish extremists were going to blow it up. If anyone needs their memory refreshed, a rightist Israeli religious group called Revava planned a rally of Jews to ascend to the Temple Mount for prayer, and to show that they "will not compromise on the holiest place in Judaism" (Revava Website). The Temple Mount is the site in Jerusalem where the First and Second Jewish temples mentioned in the Bible stood. In the Quran, the Prophet Muhammad is mentioned as having taken a night journey to the "farthest mosque" ("al-aqsa"), which some Muslim scholars have speculated was on this same spot in Jerusalem (although the city of Jerusalem itself is not mentioned at all in the Quran). The 9th Caliph built the Dome of the Rock mosque on this site between 687-691; there is another mosque, actually called the "al-Aqsa" mosque, that has been built on the site as well.

This rally by Revava was rightly seen by most Israelis as an unnecessary and dangerous provocation. Israeli public security minister, Gideon Ezra declared, "I think it's the most sensitive place in the Middle East, and we'll do everything we can to prevent a provocation." The government barred all Israeli Jews from entering the Temple Mount area; hundreds of Israeli police converged on the Old City of Jerusalem to enforce the ban.

Nevertheless, these measures did not stop Palestinians and Muslims from all over Israel and the Palestinian territories from calling for masses of Muslims to "defend" the Al-Aqsa mosque from the Jewish extremists. Hundreds of Palestinians, including a Hamas leader, came to the mosque compound to defend it, while about 50 or so Revava activists were prevented by Israeli police from entering.

Now, in his post, Cole, humorously enough, admits that "maybe Revava never threatened to destroy the mosque. I don't know," at the same time that criticizes the American media for not reporting on the threat. He wouldn't be surprised if they did, though, because "They don't appear to be humane, level-headed people." (As if the Hamas members gathered that day must be perfectly humane and level-headed, even though their group's own charter proclaims that the day will come when the trees will announce "oh Muslim there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.") Is Juan Cole advocating that the media report on a threat that hasn't even been made? Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he just wanted the entire story to be reported, recognizing that these Palestinian fears were an integral part of that story. Well, in that case, shouldn't he mention that this spot is actually the holiest spot in the entire world for Jews, akin to Mecca's importance in Islam? It is also mentioned hundreds of times in the Jewish prayers and Bible; every Jew who has ever uttered a Jewish prayer has faced towards it while praying. In any kind of fair context which states that this spot is the third holiest place in the world for Muslims, its importance to Jews should be included as well, shouldn't it?

Juan Cole doesn't think so. He tries to undercut Jewish claims to the area by mentioning that the Jewish King David, who ruled the area hundreds of years before the birth of Islam, was "for all we know actually a Bedouin chieftain later mythologized into a king with a city." Again, see Across the Bay's refutation of Juan's "scholarship" on that issue here.

The Jewish connection to Jerusalem would seem pretty obvious because even the Quran acknowledges it when speaking of the change in the direction of prayer (qibla) from Jerusalem to Mecca. Of the Jews, the Quran notes: "They would not follow thy direction of prayer (qibla), nor art thou to follow their direction of prayer; nor indeed will they follow each other's direction of prayer... "(Quran, Sura 2:145, "The Cow").

All Quranic commentators explain that "thy qibla" is obviously the Kaaba of Mecca, while "their qibla" refers to the Temple Mount area in Jerusalem.

Cole also fails to mention that it was not really the Muslims that came to the Mosque who actually defended it, but rather the Jewish Zionist police and Israeli government who prevented the puny 50 or so members of Revava from ascending the mount at all. Perhaps Cole was right in saying that this issue deserves especially nuanced reporting, yet if all the nuances of the issue were taken into account, the outrage at Israel would have been much less and not much more as Cole claims.