 
Inside the temple mount
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By Samuel Sokol
Published on Thursday, October 22, 2009 -
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I met Adnan Husseini in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem. He did not look like a powerful or influential man by any stretch of the imagination. He looked like a retired blue-collar worker, the type one sees in documentaries on the Arab world, sitting at a sidewalk café playing backgammon and listening to the radio.
In reality, Husseini is Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s advisor on Jerusalem affairs and former director of the Waqf, the Islamic trust in de-facto civil control of the Temple Mount. As such, he bears responsibility for the calls to jihad issued from within the Al-Aqsa mosque, and is, in the eyes of many Israelis, at least somewhat culpable for the recent violence against Jews in and around the Old City of Jerusalem.
As we sat, he introduced me to his associate, Daoud. A big, burley man with a Palestinian Authority flag lapel pin, he looked every inch hired muscle. Adnan and I discussed his views on the stalled peace process, recent violence on the Temple Mount, and the moral probity of memorializing terrorists that murder Jews.
Coming from the famous Husseini clan, Adnan has impeccable terrorist credentials. Husseinis were among the original founders of al-Fatah. Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem during the time of the British mandate, is infamous for meeting with Adolf Hitler and for organizing Muslim units within the SS.
Recently, there has been a wave of violence against Jews in Jerusalem, egged on by the Palestinian Authority, which has claimed that the Al-Aqsa mosque is under attack by “extremists.” They have also claimed that the Israeli government is planning on undermining the Temple Mount through the digging of tunnels.
The violence began when a large group of Jewish pilgrims ascended to the mount in preparation for the Yamim Nora’im, the Jewish days of repentance. Arabs pelted the Jews with rocks, later found by police to have been prepared in advance, and caused multiple injuries.
This led to a closure of the mount to Jews and lesser limits on Muslim access as well. Since then, there have been multiple firebombing and rock-throwing attacks throughout East Jerusalem and the Old City.
Husseini began our interview by complaining that Israel was holding the Palestinian Authority to its obligations under the Oslo accords by banning the PA from holding official activities within the Israeli capital.
“I am being here since 900 years. The people who ask me not to do, they are very early people coming a few years ago so they don’t have the right to stop me, and this is an impression about the failure of the Israel government to control Jerusalem and to do something for the benefit of peace.”
“This is my answer about when they interfere and asking us not to do any events, not to participate. This is nonsense. We told [foreign diplomats that] this is part of the measure that they are taking for people who are asking for peace.”
The PLO did not ratify the Oslo accords as signed by Yasser Arafat.
When asked about Israeli measures to bring about peace, Husseini replied “They are not doing anything. They are just speaking.”
“They should do, at least some kind of freedom, liberty. Freedom of behavior, you know. Their way of peace can never be accepted by us . . . they demolish this and evacuate this, and this is the peace.”
Israel has recently removed hundreds of earthen checkpoints and released 20 female prisoners. During the most recent Fatah convention in Bethlehem, the use of “resistance” was reaffirmed as a legitimate tactic in negotiating with Israel.
Regarding the recent Temple Mount violence, Husseini became very firm and resolute. “We have been warning that extremists, if they allow them to do everything, one day there will be a hospital in front of the government. What they are doing now in Jerusalem, the West Bank, they are threatening even the security of Israel.”
If the government wanted to deal with those that he considered “extremists,” Husseini stated, it would be incredibly difficult. “They have very extreme thinking that is not accepted in the international community, and this is the government that wants to deal with the international community.”
He then called for pressure to be put on the Israeli government. “[The settlers come to] the Temple Mount, they come, they start to shout, ‘Go to Mecca, this is our country . . . We have to demolish the Dome of the Rock.’”
Husseini denied that rocks had been prepared in advance and claimed that the attacks were a spontaneous reaction to outrageous provocation and were taken in self-defense.
I asked Husseini where he believed Jews should go to pray. Jewish prayer is currently barred on the Temple Mount by the Israeli police and the Waqf. Husseini replied that the Jews have the Kotel plaza. However, Husseini has previously gone on the record calling the Western Wall a Muslim site. Husseini said to Israeli news site NRG, “This is part of Islamic heritage that cannot be given up, and it must be under Muslim control.”
During my recent trip to Shechem, I saw posters memorializing terrorists who killed Israeli citizens. I asked Husseini if he views such posters as incitement and a breach of the Oslo accords.
“Those people . . . died in some confrontation here in the area and, you know, they are from some movement, and the movement always try to commemorate them. It is a part of a process everywhere, you know.” He went on to say that it is comparable to Israel making memorials to David Ben-Gurion.
Husseini also defended the recent Fatah decision to retain their “right” to engage in “resistance” to the Israeli presence in areas claimed by the Arabs.
Meanwhile, the Information Ministry of the Palestinian Authority has accused Israel of attempting to “implement a new series of organized state terror” in Jerusalem.
The Information Ministry further stated, “Extremist Zionist groups announce[d their intention] to storm the mosque in order to perform religious rites in the occasion of the so-called ‘Yom Kippur.’
“Accordingly, the Ministry of Information calls upon our people to gather at the mosque and to stand in the face of extremist Jewish groups. Furthermore, it calls upon the masses of Arab and Islamic nations and lovers of justice in the world to protest the crime and to refuse it by all legitimate means.”
The “legitimate means” mentioned have led to dozens of injuries and increased violence against Jews. ♦
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