To tell Jews that their connection to the Temple Mount is a fraudulent invention, to attempt to erase thousands of years of documented historical ties, to ignore that every Jew in prayer faces that hilltop in Jerusalem from wherever he or she is in the world, to pretend that Jews are just colonialist interlopers on this sacred space, is an insult. A lie. A provocation.
And yet, it is an insult that is voiced repeatedly by those who don’t believe that the Temple Mount is and always has been central to Jewish tradition and practice. It is a lie repeated as recently as October 20, when six countries acting on behalf of the Palestinians drafted a resolution asking UNESCO to classify the Western Wall as part of the Islamic claim on the Temple Mount, thereby negating the Jewish presence. (Fortunately, they dropped the incendiary language the next day.)
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