A CHALLENGE TO YOU

17 Menachem Av 5773

Muslim Anger over Virtual ‘Third Temple’
A website with a simulation of a Third Temple has been met with an angry backlash from the Arab and Muslim world.

A Jewish website that aims to teach Israelis about the Temple has been met with an angry backlash from the Arab Muslim community.

The Har Hakodesh (lit. “The Holy Mountain”) website includes educational material about the history of the Temple Mount, which was the site of the First Temple and Second Temple. The Temples were the focus of divine service for the Jewish nation.

The site also includes stunning photographs of the Temple Mount, including pictures taken by a non-Jewish photographer from parts of the Mount which Jews may not enter.

What has caused upset in the Muslim world is a representation of the Temple Mount as it would appear with a rebuilt Jewish Temple atop it rather than Al-Aqsa Mosque that currently stands there.

The site has been repeatedly targeted by hackers, and has been the focus of criticism in the Arab media. Sheikh Raed Salah, who heads the hardline northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, has called for an “Islamic awakening” in response to the website.

Arutz Sheva spoke to Boaz Yaakovi, from the Lev Hauma NGO behind the website. “We didn’t do this to provoke or to annoy the Arabs,” Yaakovi insisted.

“We’re presenting history as it was,” he argued.

When asked whether he sees the simulation of the Third Temple as provocative, he said, “If someone wants to get angry, what can I do? Because he’s angry, I should ignore my truth?”

If this blog has one central motivation it is this - the proclamation and dissemination of the Truth.

Wasn't it Hitler,y"sh or his communications officer Goebbels, y"sh, who advised, "Tell a lie often enough and the vast majority of people will come to believe it."  Whether it's that no Jewish Temple ever stood on Har Habayit or that Jews are newcomers and interlopers in the area, or that "a two-state solution is th eonly alternative, or .....  If we fail to counter the Lies in this Olam HaSheker and support those who stand up for Truth, the vast majority of people will have no other option than to believe them.

It's not necessarily our task to complete the work, but neither are we free to abstain from it.  (Rough paraphrase.) We have an obligation to do our share, in whatever way is available to us.

I challenge everyone reading here to join in and link either to this blog post, to the Temple website or to the Arutz Sheva article and to copy and paste the picture everywhere you can. They can't hack us all!

Also FYI: Jewish Rosh Hodesh, Muslim Religious Event on Collision Course