Jewish radical seeks Al-Aqsa mosque erasure; Husseini alarmed

By: Ahmed Hammadi

HELD JERUSALEM: A Jerusalem mosque compound that is one of Islam's holiest sites should be removed, a Jewish radical leader said Monday shortly after Israeli Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi warned of a threat of a high risk of an attack on the mosque.

Hanegbi while citing intelligence reports said there was a growing threat of a Jewish ultra-nationalist attack on the mosque complex known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) and revered by Jews as Temple Mount.

Talking to Reuters amidst a series of Israeli media interviews, former Jewish underground leader Yehuda Etzion said: “Israel has to return to the Temple Mount and it will. It doesn't have to be tomorrow but it has to happen. Islam must remove its hands from the Temple Mount and descend from it.”

Etzion has been banned from the complex since 1984, when he was arrested and imprisoned for plotting to blow it up, but has continued to call for Jews to reclaim the site.

The Islamic trust that oversees the complex in Jerusalem's Old City voiced alarm at Etzion's latest comments.

Adnan al-Husseini, director of the Waqf trust said: “We are worried… Plotting against al-Haram al-Sharif is escalating. This subject is at the heart of the beliefs of Muslims all over the world.”

Etzion said a Jewish takeover of the compound, with two mosques built more than a millennium ago, would come through “confrontation between Israelis and Muslims who will insist on continuing their theft”.

He leads the Temple Mount Loyalists, one of a number of far-right Jewish groups seeking to dismantle the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques to make way for a new “Third Temple”.

The mosque complex is guarded by Israeli police, who have lifted a security ban on visits by Israeli Jews and foreigners - but not known Jewish radicals - imposed after a Palestinian uprising began in 2000.

In 1969, a mentally disturbed Christian tourist from Australia set fire to the al-Aqsa mosque. Jewish radicals killed two Palestinian worshippers during a 1982 siege of the complex.

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