Photos from L to R: #1. The mother of Palestinian Mahmoud Mansoor was one of eight Palestinians who were killed when Israeli forces fired on a demonstration in the refugee camp Wednesday. #2.A Palestinian carries a dead boy after an Israeli attack on a crowd at the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip,  May 19, 2004. Israeli forces opened fire on a protest march in the besieged camp on Wednesday, killing eight Palestinians and raising the death toll in Israel's heaviest raid in the Gaza Strip in years to 31. Some witnesses reported seeing helicopter gunships launching missiles while others said tanks fired shells into a peaceful crowd of thousands, sending people fleeing in panic, some dragging bloodied comrades with them.

Photos from L to R: #1. A Palestinian medic carries an injured girl for treatment at the hospital in the Southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah after she was wounded, according to witnesses, during the ongoing Israeli army operation in the area early Thursday May 20, 2004. Israeli troops pushed deeper into Rafah refugee camp Thursday, killing seven Palestinians and demolishing several buildings despite an international outcry over a deadly tank attack a group of protesters Wednesday. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa).  #2. Members of a Palestinian family sit inside a classroom of a United Nations school where they found temporary shelter after their house was demolished by Israeli forces, at Rafah refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip , Thursday May 20, 2004. Some 60 other families, according to officials, are housed in the school as Israeli troops continue their house-to-house searches for militants and weapons smuggling tunnels in other parts of the camp. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis).

Photos from L to R: #1. Relatives of Palestinian Waleed Abu Gamar,10, react as his body is brought into the family home during his funeral in the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip , Thursday, May 20, 2004. Abu Gamar was one of at least eight Palestinians killed when Israeli forces fired on a demonstration in the refugee camp Wednesday. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer). #2. A masked militant of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The radical Palestinian group said it would kidnap Israeli soldiers to secure the release of Fatah  chief Marwan Barghuti who was convicted of murder by a Tel Aviv court. (AFP/File/Mahmud Hams)

Photos from L to R: #1. A Palestinian man reads from the Quran as family gathers gather around the body of Palestinian Mahmoud Mansoor,13, during his funeral in the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip , Thursday, May 20, 2004. Mansoor was one of the Palestinians killed when Israeli forces fired on a demonstration in the refugee camp Wednesday.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra). #2.  Palestinian youths gather around the body of Palestinian Mahmoud Mansoor,13, during his funeral in the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip , Thursday, May 20, 2004. Mansoor was one of the Palestinians killed when Israeli forces fired on a demonstration in the refugee camp Wednesday. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer).

Photos from L to R: #1. Palestinian youths gather around the body of Waleed Abu Gamar,10, as they pray during his funeral in the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip , Thursday, May 20, 2004. Abu Gamar was one of the Palestinians who was killed when Israeli forces fired on a demonstration in the refugee camp Wednesday. #2. A Palestinian man places the body of 9-year-old Mubarak al-Hashash into a grave at the Rafah cemetery, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 20, 2004. The boy was killed by Israeli troops during a tank attack on Wednesday. Israeli troops and tanks pushed further into the besieged Rafah refugee camp on Thursday despite international outrage at the killing of 38 Palestinians, in the bloodiest Gaza raid in years.

Photo: Two Armed Palestinians hold their guns during anti Israeli demonstration to protest against Israeli forces at the Ein el-Hilweh Refugee camp near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, Thursday May 20, 2004.

Palestinian youths carry a mock missile during a Hamas rally in Gaza City, demonstrating against the ongoing Israeli army operations in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip , late Wednesday May 19, 2004. Earlier today Israeli forces fired a missile and four tank shells to hold back a large crowd of Palestinians demonstrating in Rafah against the Israeli invasion of the neighboring refugee camp.

ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY AMERICAN AND BRITISH  SOLDIERS

On 29 April 2004, 60 Minutes II on CBS reported Last month, the U.S. Army announced 17 soldiers in Iraq, including a brigadier general, had been removed from duty after charges of mistreating Iraqi prisoners. But the details of what happened have been kept secret, until now. It turns out photographs surfaced showing American soldiers abusing and humiliating Iraqis being held at a prison near Baghdad. The Army investigated, and issued a scathing report. Now, an Army general and her command staff may face the end of long military careers. And six soldiers are facing court martial in Iraq -- and possible prison time. The United States army has photographs that show a detainee with wires attached to his genitals. Another shows a dog attacking an Iraqi prisoner.

ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY AMERICAN AND BRITISH  SOLDIERS. SHAME OF ABUSE BY BRIT TROOPS  BY PAUL BYRN

Photo: A HOODED Iraqi captive is beaten by British soldiers before being thrown from a moving truck and left to die. URINATED ON: A British soldier urinates on an Iraqi prisoner in a vile display of abuse. The captive was beaten and hurled from a moving truck. Army chiefs are investigating.

The prisoner, aged 18-20, begged for mercy as he was battered with rifle butts and batons in the head and groin, was kicked, stamped and urinated on, and had a gun barrel forced into his mouth. After an EIGHT-HOUR ordeal, he was left barely conscious and close to death. Bleeding and vomiting and with a broken jaw and missing teeth, he was driven from a Basra camp and hurled off the truck. No one knows if he lived or died. The shocking pictures on this page were handed to us by one of the attackers and a colleague. We have agreed to protect their identities as they fear reprisals. Last night, their damning testimony was in the hands of appalled ministers and Army chiefs who pledged an urgent investigation. Chief of the General Staff General Sir Michael Jackson said: "If this is proven, the perpetrators are not fit to wear the Queen's uniform. They have besmirched the good name of the Army and its honour." No 10 said: "The Prime Minister fully endorses the general's statement." The outrage, which emerged the day after US troops were pictured torturing Iraqi prisoners of war, makes a mockery of the Army's attempts to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

Photo: BUTT IN GROIN: A rifle is cruelly jabbed in the young man's groin as his eight-hour nightmare goes on.

We had one who fought back. I thought 'Don't do that', it's the worst thing you can do. He got such a kicking. You could hear your mate's boots hitting this lad's spine. "One of the lads broke his wrist on a prisoner's head. Another nearly broke his foot, kicking him. We're not helping ourselves out here. We're never going to get the Iraqis on our side. We're fighting a losing war." Soldier B claimed after the alleged September beating troops were told to destroy incriminating evidence. He said: "We got a warning, saying the Military Police had found a video of people throwing prisoners off a bridge. It wasn't 'Don't do it' or 'Stop it'. It was 'Get rid of it.' " The death is being probed. At least one soldier is expected to be charged with manslaughter.

Photo: GUN TO HEAD: The terrified suspect cowers as a gun is placed at his head - then the rifle barrel was forced into his mouth.

The two infantrymen claim abuse has started because Iraqi police are powerless to process suspects. Soldier B said: "There's no point taking them to the police station because they're released within 20 minutes. The coppers don't want any comeback and let them go. All we do is teach them a lesson our way. "You're knackered and you don't want to be going to a police station and doing statements, just for them to be released. Give them a kicking, then it's done and dusted. "A lot of the younger ones are worse. It's as though they've something to prove. You've got a gun and you're the law. You can make people do whatever you want." Both men fear the situation is worsening , with UK troops now seen as the enemy, rather than liberators. One said: "I can't believe it has taken the Iraqis so long to fight back. If it had been me or my family, "I'd have retaliated straightaway. "They've just got f****d around so much. You can't go in now, and say 'Right, let's forget about what has happened and start again'. "We're struggling now. There are too many people against us."  The MoD confirmed eight cases of alleged mistreatment of Iraqis by British personnel are being investigated by the army's Special Investigations Branch. A spokesman said: "All allegations will be investigated - and every soldier knows it." You could see blood coming out early from the first 'digs'. He was p****d on and there was spew. "We took his mask off to give him some water and let him have a rest for 10 minutes. He could only speak a few words, pleading 'No, mister' . No, mister'. I did less than the others. But I joined in. Me and my mate calmed down. Then two lads come on and it starts again. "He was missing teeth. All his mouth was bleeding and his nose was all over the place.

Photo: BLEEDING: Blood seeps through the mask of battered suspect.  GUN TO HEAD: The terrified suspect cowers as a gun is placed at his head - then the rifle barrel was forced into his mouth.

He couldn't talk, his jaw was out. He's had a good few hours of a kicking. He was on his way to being killed. There's only so much you can take. After the officer allegedly told the attackers to get rid of the suspect he was driven off. Soldier A said: "The lads said they took him back to the dock and threw him off the back of a moving vehicle. They'd have freed his hands, but he'd still be hooded. He'd done nothing, really. I felt sorry for him. I'm not emotional about it, but I knew it was wrong." Referring to the second alleged beating in custody - said to have taken place in September - Soldier B said: "It was only a matter of time. Army chiefs believe it was an isolated incident involving a few rogue troops. But, it is claimed, officers turned a blind eye. One of the soldiers said: "Basically this guy was dying as he couldn't take any more. An officer came down. It was 'Get rid of him - I haven't seen him'. The paperwork gets ripped. So they threw him out, still with a bag on his head." Weeks after the pictures were taken, a captive was allegedly beaten to death in custody by men from the same Queen's Lancashire Regiment. It is also alleged a video was found of prisoners being thrown off a bridge. Soldier A told how the young victim was hauled in suspected of stealing from the docks. He said: "You pick on a man and go for him. Straightaway he gets a beating, a couple of punches and kicks to put him down. Then he was dragged to the back of the vehicle." Immediately a sandbag was placed over the man's head and his hands tied behind his back. Soldier A said: As we took him back he was getting a beating. He was hit with batons on the knees, fingers, toes, elbows, and head. You normally try to leave off the face until you're in camp. If you pull up with black eyes and bleeding faces you could be in s**t. "So it's body shots - scaring him, saying 'We're going to kill you'. A lot of them cry and p*** themselves. Because it was so hot we put him in the back of a four- tonner truck which has a canopy over it. That's where the photos were taken. Lads were taking turns giving him a right going over, smashing him in the face with weapons and stamping on him. We had him for about eight hours

THE ISRAELI/JEWISH POINT OF VIEW. What they say, write, publish and argue about.

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Photo: Unidentified soldiers, friends of Israeli army Sergeant Alexei Hayat, react during his funeral at the Mt. Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem Thursday May 20, 2004. Hayat was one of 11 Israeli soldiers killed in two separate bomb attacks by Palestinian militants on armored vehicles in Gaza last week. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Photo: An Israeli protester holds a picture of a woman killed during the Palestinian uprising, at the end of Marwan Barghouthi's hearing in a Tel Aviv District Court, May 20, 2004. An Israeli court that convicted Marwan Barghouthi of murder on Thursday said the Palestinian uprising leader's orders for attacks on Israelis were sometimes 'based on instructions' from Yasser Arafat. 

Photo: An Israeli protester points at a picture of a relative during a demonstration at the end of Marwan Barghouthi's hearing, at a Tel Aviv District Court May 20, 2004. An Israeli court on Thursday convicted Palestinian revolt leader Marwan Barghouthi of murder in the killings of five Israelis, by militants from his Fatah faction, but acquitted him of a role in over 20 other deaths.

Photos from L to R: #1. Israeli soldiers mourning the loss of a comrade. #2. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon lays a memorial wreath at a Jerusalem Day ceremony at Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem Wednesday May 19, 2004, commemorating those who fell during battle. Israelis on Wednesday celebrated the 37th anniversary of Jerusalem Day, which marks the day of the capture of Jerusalem's disputed eastern sector and Old City in the 1967 Mideast war.
 

Photo: Israeli left-wing protestors hold up placards during a demonstration in front of the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. The UN Security Council adopted a resolution criticising Israel's killings and house demolitions in Gaza, passed 14-0-1 after the United States abstained instead of vetoing the measure.

As it has become common for Muslims to claim passionate attachment to Jerusalem, Muslim pilgrimages to the city have multiplied four-fold in recent years. A new "virtues of Jerusalem" literature has developed. So emotional has Jerusalem become to Muslims that they write books of poetry about it (especially in Western languages). And in the political realm, Jerusalem has become a uniquely unifying issue for Arabic-speakers. "Jerusalem is the only issue that seems to unite the Arabs. It is the rallying cry," a senior Arab diplomat noted in late 2000.

The fervor for Jerusalem at times challenges even the centrality of Mecca. No less a personage than Crown Prince ‘Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has been said repeatedly to say that for him, "Jerusalem is just like the holy city of Mecca." Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah goes further yet, declaring in a major speech: "We won't give up on Palestine, all of Palestine, and Jerusalem will remain the place to which all jihad warriors will direct their prayers."

Dubious Claims

Along with these high emotions, four historically dubious claims promoting the Islamic claim to Jerusalem have emerged.

The Islamic connection to Jerusalem is older than the Jewish. The Palestinian "minister" of religious endowments asserts that Jerusalem has "always" been under Muslim sovereignty. Likewise, Ghada Talhami, a polemicist, asserts that "There are other holy cities in Islam, but Jerusalem holds a special place in the hearts and minds of Muslims because its fate has always been intertwined with theirs." Always? Jerusalem's founding antedated Islam by about two millennia, so how can that be? Ibrahim Hooper of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations explains this anachronism: "the Muslim attachment to Jerusalem does not begin with the prophet Muhammad, it begins with the prophets Abraham, David, Solomon and Jesus, who are also prophets in Islam." In other words, the central figures of Judaism and Christianity were really proto-Muslims. This accounts for the Palestinian man-in-the-street declaring that "Jerusalem was Arab from the day of creation."

The Qur'an mentions Jerusalem. So complete is the identification of the Night Journey with Jerusalem that it is found in many publications of the Qur'an, and especially in translations. Some state in a footnote that the "furthest mosque" "must" refer to Jerusalem. Others take the (blasphemous?) step of inserting Jerusalem right into the text after "furthest mosque." This is done in a variety of ways. The Sale translation uses italics:

from the sacred temple of Mecca to the farther temple of Jerusalem

the Asad translation relies on square brackets:

from the Inviolable House of Worship [at Mecca] to the Remote House of Worship [at Jerusalem]

and the Behbudi-Turner version places it right in the text without any distinction at all:

from the Holy Mosque in Mecca to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Palestine.

If the Qur'an in translation now has Jerusalem in its text, it cannot be surprising to find that those who rely on those translations believe that Jerusalem "is mentioned in the Qur'an"; and this is precisely what a consortium of American Muslim institutions claimed in 2000. One of their number went yet further; according to Hooper, "the Koran refers to Jerusalem by its Islamic centerpiece, al-Aqsa Mosque." This error has practical consequences: for example, Ahmad ‘Abd ar-Rahman, secretary-general of the PA "cabinet," rested his claim to Palestinian sovereignty on this basis: "Jerusalem is above tampering, it is inviolable, and nobody can tamper with it since it is a Qur'anic text."

Muhammad actually visited Jerusalem. The Islamic biography of the Prophet Muhammad's life is very complete and it very clearly does not mention his leaving the Arabian Peninsula, much less voyaging to Jerusalem. Therefore, when Karen Armstrong, a specialist on Islam, writes that "Muslim texts make it clear that … the story of Muhammad's mystical Night Journey to Jerusalem … was not a physical experience but a visionary one," she is merely stating the obvious. Indeed, this phrase is contained in an article titled, "Islam's Stake: Why Jerusalem Was Central to Muhammad" which posits that "Jerusalem was central to the spiritual identity of Muslims from the very beginning of their faith." Not good enough. Armstrong found herself under attack for a "shameless misrepresentation" of Islam and claiming that "Muslims themselves do not believe the miracle of their own prophet."

Jerusalem has no importance to Jews. The first step is to deny a Jewish connection to the Western (or Wailing) Wall, the only portion of the ancient Temple that still stands. In 1967, a top Islamic official of the Temple Mount portrayed Jewish attachment to the wall as an act of "aggression against al-Aqsa mosque." The late King Faysal of Saudi Arabia spoke on this subject with undisguised scorn: "The Wailing Wall is a structure they weep against, and they have no historic right to it. Another wall can be built for them to weep against." ‘Abd al-Malik Dahamsha, a Muslim member of Israel's parliament, has flatly stated that "the Western Wall is not associated with the remains of the Jewish Temple." The Palestinian Authority's website states about the Western Wall that "Some Orthodox religious Jews consider it as a holy place for them, and claim that the wall is part of their temple which all historic studies and archeological excavations have failed to find any proof for such a claim." The PA's mufti describes the Western Wall as "just a fence belonging to the Muslim holy site" and declares that "There is not a single stone in the Wailing-Wall relating to Jewish history." He also makes light of the Jewish connection, dismissively telling an Israeli interviewer, "I heard that your Temple was in Nablus or perhaps Bethlehem." Likewise, Arafat announced that Jews "consider Hebron to be holier than Jerusalem." There has even been some scholarship, from ‘Ayn Shams University in Egypt, alleging to show that Al-Aqsa Mosque predates the Jewish antiquities in Jerusalem – by no less than two thousand years.

In this spirit, Muslim institutions pressure the Western media to call the Temple Mount and the Western Wall by their Islamic names (Al-Haram ash-Sharif, Al-Buraq), and not their much older Jewish names. (Al-Haram ash-Sharif, for example, dates only from the Ottoman era.) When Western journalists do not comply, Arafat responds with outrage, with his news agency portraying this as part of a "constant conspiracy against our sanctities in Palestine" and his mufti deeming this contrary to Islamic law.

The second step is to deny Jews access to the wall. "It's prohibited for Jews to pray at the Western Wall," asserts an Islamist leader living in Israel. The director of the Al-Aqsa Mosque asserts that "This is a place for Muslims, only Muslims. There is no temple here, only Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock." The Voice of Palestine radio station demands that Israeli politicians not be allowed even to touch the wall. ‘Ikrima Sabri, the Palestinian Authority's mufti, prohibits Jews from making repairs to the wall and extends Islamic claims further: "All the buildings surrounding the Al-Aqsa mosque are an Islamic waqf."

The third step is to reject any form of Jewish control in Jerusalem, as Arafat did in mid-2000: "I will not agree to any Israeli sovereign presence in Jerusalem." He was echoed by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah, who stated that "There is nothing to negotiate about and compromise on when it comes to Jerusalem." Even Oman's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Yusuf bin ‘Alawi bin ‘Abdullah told the Israeli prime minister that sovereignty in Jerusalem should be exclusively Palestinian "to ensure security and stability."

The final step is to deny Jews access to Jerusalem at all. Toward this end, a body of literature blossoms that insists on an exclusive Islamic claim to all of Jerusalem. School textbooks allude to the city's role in Christianity and Islam, but ignore Judaism. An American affiliate of Hamas claims Jerusalem as "an Arab, Palestinian and Islamic holy city." A banner carried in a street protest puts it succinctly: "Jerusalem is Arab." No place for Jews here.

Anti-Jerusalem Views

This Muslim love of Zion notwithstanding, Islam contains a recessive but persistent strain of anti-Jerusalem sentiment, premised on the idea that emphasizing Jerusalem is non-Islamic and can undermine the special sanctity of Mecca.

In the early period of Islam, the Princeton historian Bernard Lewis notes, "there was strong resistance among many theologians and jurists" to the notion of Jerusalem as a holy city. They viewed this as a "Judaizing error—as one more among many attempts by Jewish converts to infiltrate Jewish ideas into Islam." Anti-Jerusalem stalwarts circulated stories to show that the idea of Jerusalem's holiness is a Jewish practice. In the most important of them, a converted Jew, named Ka‘b al-Ahbar, suggested to Caliph ‘Umar that Al-Aqsa Mosque be built by the Dome of the Rock. The caliph responded by accusing him of reversion to his Jewish roots:

‘Umar asked him: "Where do you think we should put the place of prayer?"

"By the [Temple Mount] rock," answered Ka‘b.

By God, Ka‘b," said ‘Umar, "you are following after Judaism. I saw you take off your sandals [following Jewish practice]."

"I wanted to feel the touch of it with my bare feet," said Ka‘b.

"I saw you," said ‘Umar. "But no … Go along! We were not commanded concerning the Rock, but we were commanded concerning the Ka‘ba [in Mecca]."

Another version of this anecdote makes the Jewish content even more explicit: in this one, Ka‘b al-Ahbar tries to induce Caliph ‘Umar to pray north of the Holy Rock, pointing out the advantage of this: "Then the entire Al-Quds, that is, Al-Masjid al-Haram will be before you." In other words, the convert from Judaism is saying, the Rock and Mecca will be in a straight line and Muslims can pray toward both of them at the same time.

That Muslims for almost a year and a half during Muhammad's lifetime directed prayers toward Jerusalem has had a permanently contradictory effect on that city's standing in Islam. The incident partially imbued Jerusalem with prestige and sanctity, but it also made the city a place uniquely rejected by God. Some early hadiths have Muslims expressing this rejection by purposefully praying with their back sides to Jerusalem, a custom that still survives in vestigial form; he who prays in Al-Aqsa Mosque not coincidentally turns his back precisely to the Temple area toward which Jews pray. Or, in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's sharp formulation: when a Muslim prays in Al-Aqsa, "his back is to it. Also some of his lower parts."

Ibn Taymiya (1263-1328), one of Islam's strictest and most influential religious thinkers, is perhaps the outstanding spokesman of the anti-Jerusalem view. In his wide-ranging attempt to purify Islam of accretions and impieties, he dismissed the sacredness of Jerusalem as a notion deriving from Jews and Christians, and also from the long-ago Umayyad rivalry with Mecca. Ibn Taymiya's student, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziya (1292-1350), went further and rejected hadiths about Jerusalem as false. More broadly, learned Muslims living after the Crusades knew that the great publicity given to hadiths extolling Jerusalem's sanctity resulted from the Countercrusade—from political exigency, that is—and therefore treated them warily.

There are other signs too of Jerusalem's relatively low standing in the ladder of sanctity: a historian of art finds that, "in contrast to representations of Mecca, Medina, and the Ka‘ba, depictions of Jerusalem are scanty." The belief that the Last Judgment would take place in Jerusalem was said by some medieval authors to be a forgery to induce Muslims to visit the city.

Modern writers sometimes take exception to the envelope of piety that has surrounded Jerusalem. Muhammad Abu Zayd wrote a book in Egypt in 1930 that was so radical that it was withdrawn from circulation and is no longer even extant. In it, among many other points, he

dismissed the notion of the Prophet's heavenly journey via Jerusalem, claiming that the Qur'anic rendition actually refers to his Hijra from Mecca to Madina; "the more remote mosque" (al-masjid al-aqsa) thus had nothing to do with Jerusalem, but was in fact the mosque in Madina.

That this viewpoint is banned shows the nearly complete victory in Islam of the pro-Jerusalem viewpoint. Still, an occasional expression still filters through. At a summit meeting of Arab leaders in March 2001, Mu‘ammar al-Qadhdhafi made fun of his colleagues' obsession with Al-Aqsa Mosque. "The hell with it," delegates quoted him saying, "you solve it or you don't, it's just a mosque and I can pray anywhere."

Conclusion

Politics, not religious sensibility, has fueled the Muslim attachment to Jerusalem for nearly fourteen centuries; what the historian Bernard Wasserstein has written about the growth of Muslim feeling in the course of the Countercrusade applies through the centuries: "often in the history of Jerusalem, heightened religious fervour may be explained in large part by political necessity." This pattern has three main implications. First, Jerusalem will never be more than a secondary city for Muslims; "belief in the sanctity of Jerusalem," Sivan rightly concludes, "cannot be said to have been widely diffused nor deeply rooted in Islam." Second, the Muslim interest lies not so much in controlling Jerusalem as it does in denying control over the city to anyone else. Third, the Islamic connection to the city is weaker than the Jewish one because it arises as much from transitory and mundane considerations as from the immutable claims of faith.

Mecca, by contrast, is the eternal city of Islam, the place from which non-Muslims are strictly forbidden. Very roughly speaking, what Jerusalem is to Jews, Mecca is to Muslims – a point made in the Qur'an itself (2:145) in recognizing that Muslims have one qibla and "the people of the Book" another one. The parallel was noted by medieval Muslims; the geographer Yaqut (1179-1229) wrote, for example, that "Mecca is holy to Muslims and Jerusalem to the Jews." In modern times, some scholars have come to the same conclusion: "Jerusalem plays for the Jewish people the same role that Mecca has for Muslims," writes Abdul Hadi Palazzi, director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community.

The similarities are striking. Jews pray thrice to Jerusalem, Muslims five times daily to Mecca. Muslims see Mecca as the navel of the world, just as Jews see Jerusalem. Whereas Jews believe Abraham nearly sacrificed Ishmael's brother Isaac in Jerusalem, Muslims believe this episode took place in Mecca. The Ka‘ba in Mecca has similar functions for Muslims as the Temple in Jerusalem for Jews (such as serving as a destination for pilgrimage). The Temple and Ka‘ba are both said to be inimitable structures. The supplicant takes off his shoes and goes barefoot in both their precincts. Solomon's Temple was inaugurated on Yom Kippur, the tenth day of the year, and the Ka‘ba receives its new cover also on the tenth day of each year. If Jerusalem is for Jews a place so holy that not just its soil but even its air is deemed sacred, Mecca is the place whose "very mention reverberates awe in Muslims' hearts," according to Abad Ahmad of the Islamic Society of Central Jersey.

This parallelism of Mecca and Jerusalem offers the basis of a solution, as Sheikh Palazzi wisely writes:

separation in directions of prayer is a mean to decrease possible rivalries in management of Holy Places. For those who receive from Allah the gift of equilibrium and the attitude to reconciliation, it should not be difficult to conclude that, as no one is willing to deny Muslims a complete sovereignty over Mecca, from an Islamic point of view -notwithstanding opposite, groundless propagandistic claims - there is not any sound theological reason to deny an equal right of Jews over Jerusalem.

To back up this view, Palazzi notes several striking and oft-neglected passages in the Qur'an. One of them (5:22-23) quotes Moses instructing the Jews to "enter the Holy Land (al-ard al-muqaddisa) which God has assigned unto you." Another verse (17:104) has God Himself making the same point: "We said to the Children of Israel: ‘Dwell securely in the Land.'" Qur'an 2:145 states that the Jews "would not follow your qibla; nor are you going to follow their qibla," indicating a recognition of the Temple Mount as the Jews' direction of prayer. "God himself is saying that Jerusalem is as important to Jews as Mecca is to Moslems," Palazzi concludes.  His analysis has a clear and sensible implication: just as Muslims rule an undivided Mecca, Jews should rule an undivided Jerusalem.

Photo: Activists of the Jewish extremist right wing Temple Mount Faithful carry a mock coffin symbolising a Palestinian state, during a demonstration in Jerusalem's Old City Wednesday May 19, 2004. Israelis on Wednesday marched through Jerusalem to celebrate the anniversary of the capture of its disputed eastern sector and Old City in the 1967 Mideast War, when Israel captured east Jerusalem, including sites holy to Christians, Jews and Muslims, from Jordan and later annexed it. Sign in Hebrew reads 'Palestinian State, Never!'

Photo: Young Israelis dance in celebration of Jerusalem Day, in Jerusalem Wednesday May 19, 2004. Israelis on Wednesday celebrated the 37th anniversary of Jerusalem Day, which marks the day of the capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 War.

AL-QA'IDA IN IRAQ: BETWEEN IDEOLOGY AND STRATEGY
By Reuven Paz


PUZZLES WITH NO SOLUTIONS: Suicide or martyrdom operations, most recently in Europe, but most extensively in Israel and in growing numbers in Iraq, leave the Western world astonished, with only question marks in hand. The terrorist attacks in London and Sharm al-Sheikh in July 2005, like other previous attacks by al-Qa'ida or affiliated Jihadi groups worldwide, raise several unanswered questions: What does al-Qa'ida really want? Apart from apocalyptic views and its younger supporters' desire to see Islamic rule and law spread throughout the world--or at least throughout the Arab and Muslim world--what is its ultimate goal? What is the true effect, weight, and role of the war in Iraq? In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to make a clear distinction between the ideology and the strategy of al-Qa'ida or Global Jihad. In August 1998, al-Qa'ida carried out its first major double attack against the two U.S. embassies in East Africa. Seven years later, the hard core of its leadership is still at large; and there is a new generation of younger operatives who are not "Arab Afghans." Iraq and Afghanistan were occupied by the United States and its allies, yet still suffered an intensive Jihadi insurgency of between two to three suicide operations per day; large cities and resorts throughout the globe are exposed to indiscriminate terrorist attacks against civilians, both Muslims and "infidel Crusaders," and more Muslims are targeted by Jihadi terrorism than non-Muslims. It is necessary that three observations be made. First, Western intelligence communities have been unable to trace the decision-making process within al-Qa'ida or between the organization and its affiliated groups. Some of these groups are involved only in terrorism and are composed of well-educated, politically aware, middle and upper-middle class, yet angry Muslim youth. They are mostly ad hoc groups not involved in other fields of activity, and hence are very difficult to locate or to monitor.

Second, the West in general has difficulties in distinguishing between al-Qa'ida's ideology and its strategy. Therefore, it is confused as to what course of action is necessary in order to counter this unfamiliar and unprecedented phenomenon. Past terrorism was different. Even Marxist-anarchist terrorism, which was also global in nature, was in fact based upon local groups who only held vague common ideologies and strategies. Nationalist terrorism, even in ethnic-religious conflicts, was local. The PLO, IRA, ETA, PKK, or LTTE were separate groups. Even the Palestinian Islamic Hamas or the Lebanese Hizballah are local movements with limited targets. Other Islamic movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb al-Tahrir (Islamic Liberation Party) or Da`wah wa-Tabligh, which are of a global nature and also have global aspirations, prefer to remain non-violent and focus on local issues, even though they provide an Islamist atmosphere of militant globalization. Third, the ability of al-Qa'ida to recruit, influence, incite, and appeal to many Muslim youth, primarily in the Arab world, is impressive. It has succeeded to create apocalyptic visions that ignite the imagination of several million young Islamists and that are supported and legitimized by a new class of Islamic clerics, scholars, and even intellectuals. The response by the vast majority of Arab and Muslim governments, publics, and Islamic establishments, which is crucial, is slow, uncoordinated, and, in most cases, hesitant.

AL-QA'IDA --BETWEEN IDEOLOGY AND STRATEGY: In April 1988, Dr. Abdallah Azzam, the spiritual father of al-Qa'ida wrote an article entitled "The Solid Base" which outlined what would later become al-Qa'ida.[i] In this fundamental article he wrote: The Islamic society cannot be established without an Islamic movement that goes through the fire of tests. Its members need to mature in the fire of trials. This movement will represent the spark that ignites the potential of the nation [Ummah]. It will carry out a long Jihad in which the Islamic movement will provide the leadership, and the spiritual guidance. The long Jihad will bring people's qualities to the fore and highlight their potentials. It will define their positions and have their leaders assume their roles, to direct the march and channel it. After all the tribulations Allah will install them in the land and make them the outer manifestation of his might and the means to the victory of his religion. Holding of arms by the believing group before having undergone this long educating training (Tarbiyyah) is forbidden, because those carrying arms could turn into bandits that might threaten people's security and not let them live in peace. Azzam, a disciple of the school of the Muslim Brotherhood, outlined a movement with two most significant doctrines: A long period of education or indoctrination--Tarbiyyah--and turning Jihad into an actual target instead of a means to fulfill a religio-political target. Jihad is the target of purification and consolidation of a new class of Islamists. Azzam was an Islamic ideologue, as were two other Palestinian scholars who immensely contributed to the emergence of Global Salafi Jihad--Abu Muhammad al-Maqdesi and Omar Abu Omar "Abu Qutadah."

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