Occupied Jerusalem -

August 21 does not go unnoticed in the memory of Jerusalemites who witnessed the burning of Al-Aqsa on the same date in 1969, when an Australian extremist named Michael Dennis Rohan set fire to the tribal prayer hall at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

On that day, the fire broke out in the eastern wing of the prayer hall located on the southern side of the mosque, and devoured its entire contents, including the historical Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi pulpit, as well as threatening the dome of the ancient prayer hall.

The blessed imam and preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Youssef Abu Sneina mentions that on that day he was walking in the road to Bab Al-Silsila (one of the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque), and he saw dozens running towards the mosque and shouting, “Al-Aqsa burned, Al-Aqsa burned.”

11-year-old Abu Sunina jogged with them, and saw with his own eyes the flames consuming the Al-Qibli prayer hall, so he and his peers brought the children from their homes, buckets and empty containers, and they headed towards the cup (the men performing ablution opposite the Al-Qibli prayer hall), and began to transfer water from it to the men who put themselves in danger while extinguishing the fire, Especially with the occupation obstructing the arrival of firefighting vehicles.

"The fire engulfed the eastern side of the prayer hall and destroyed the mosaics and historical decorations, and extended to the mihrab and pulpit of Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, which was covered with a brick barrier until 1990 when its restoration was completed."

"When I was appointed as an imam at Al-Aqsa in 1980, I used to ascend the temporary iron pulpit for sermons until a pulpit corresponding to the pulpit of Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi was equipped in 1994," Abu Sneina said.

The imam and preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Youssef Abu Sneina, was a witness to its burning (Al-Jazeera Net)

Escalation of Judaization projects

Since its burning 52 years ago to this day, violations against Al-Aqsa Mosque continue, and the danger to it multiplies, with its targeting and Judaization shifting from the marginal agenda of extremist settler groups with limited number and influence, to become a central goal of the Israeli government with the movement of Israeli society towards the right and increasingly towards religious Zionism. And with the transition of these groups from the periphery to control the government during the era of Benjamin Netanyahu, and then with Naftali Bennett, one of the closest politicians to these groups, assuming power in Israel.

On the anniversary of its burning, the researcher in Jerusalem affairs, Ziad Abhis, monitors 3 settlement projects that gradually seek to Judaize Al-Aqsa Mosque and achieve complete replacement therein for Jewish groups by building the alleged temple on its ruins and in its entire area.

But the three projects, according to Abhis, collide with the wall of popular will in Jerusalem, which stands in the way of their dedication.


Judaization is implemented in Jerusalem through 3 projects, which are summarized in:

The temporal division that Israel has gone a long way to impose with settlers’ incursions that are carried out over 5 days a week in order to dedicate them as permanent times for their prayers in Al-Aqsa, but this project met with the popular rejection of Jerusalemites when it tried to reach its climax.

In September 2015 - according to researcher Abhis - the Israeli government tried to impose the principle of "total sharing" by allocating Al-Aqsa to Jews exclusively on Jewish holidays in exchange for allocating it to Muslims exclusively on Islamic holidays. Knife uprising.

Netanyahu was forced to reverse this attempt, and decided to ban the incursions of Knesset members and officials to Al-Aqsa Mosque to rid the government of the accusation of targeting it in the eyes of the masses of Jerusalem and Palestine, and in front of the Arab and Islamic peoples.

In July 2017, Netanyahu tried to advance the temporal division scheme again, by imposing Israeli security control over Al-Aqsa with the gates and cameras, which gives the occupation complete control that allows imposing what it wants and strikes the ability of the stationed and the masses to oppose its plans, so this attempt failed and he was forced to dismantle the cameras and gates after a sit-in Thousands of Jerusalemites at its entrances, refusing to enter through electronic gates and in the shadow of cameras.

The second project seeks to "spatial division";

Those who called themselves the extremist Israeli "temple groups" viewed it as the second stage after the temporal division, but the failure of "temporal" led to a jump to it.

During the term of US President Donald Trump, and after his announcement that the Deal of the Century was imminently published, the occupation tried in the winter of 2019 to directly seize the Bab al-Rahma building in the eastern wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque, 16 years after its closure. The chapels of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The "temple groups" are still seeking to turn the eastern square adjacent to the prayer hall into a campus for their religious school, and their members are working to erect chairs and tents to cut off this part, in an ongoing effort - it seems - to re-close the Bab al-Rahma chapel.

An extremist settler wanders the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of the Israeli police (Awqaf Department in Jerusalem)

Founding of the Temple

Currently, the "moral establishment of the temple" by performing the entire Jewish rites in Al-Aqsa is the third project within the Judaization scheme.

After the temporal and spatial division collided with the wall of the Palestinian popular will, the "temple groups" who believed that the international conditions in the era of Trump and the official Arab rush towards normalization and alliance with Israel were confused as a favorable opportunity to impose a radical change in Al-Aqsa Mosque, but the Palestinian popular rejection and Jerusalem in particular remained the main obstacle .

Therefore, these groups invented, according to Buhis, "a new agenda focused on establishing the alleged temple morally by performing all Talmudic prayers and rituals, so that the imposition of changing the identity of Al-Aqsa is no longer linked to deducting times or spaces, but rather by reviewing the Jewish identity in it, especially during the holidays."

The researcher, Abhis, summarized his talk to Al-Jazeera Net by saying that there is a religious substitution project implemented by the settlement groups, and they are looking for all possible opportunities to Judaize Al-Aqsa and gradually change its identity in light of American support, Arab complicity, and official Palestinian impotence.

This project is facing popular resistance that has been able to stop its progress on its three fronts so far, but the situation remains a candidate for more attempts at Judaization that will open the door to upcoming confrontations, perhaps greater than what we witnessed in Ramadan 2021, according to Abhis estimates.