This articles was published in 2000.

For three decades, Gershon Solomon, a militant Israeli who heads an organization dedicated to the destruction of Jerusalem’s most holy Islamic shrine, has led Zionist zealots in armed assaults on the Muslim grounds of Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, that encloses both the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosque. No Israeli political leader has spoken out against the assaults on the Mosque, holy to a billion Muslims around the world. Moreover, no Israeli rabbi has condemned them. Indeed, beginning in 1967, many of the assaults were led by Jewish rabbis.

I first heard about the Israeli militants’ intent to destroy the mosque in 1979 when I went to Jerusalem. I talked at length with Bobby Brown, a third-generation American from Brooklyn, flying to the Jewish state and instantly became a new citizen, confiscated land from Palestinians to help build an illegal Jewish settlement. “The mosque,” he told me, “has got to go. It is a blot in our land.”

Militant Jews such as Brown and Solomon want a Jerusalem that is pure Jewish – without evidence of inhabitants of the other monotheistic faiths and their shrines. Surprisingly, millions of U.S. evangelical Christians endorse and financially support this Jewish plan.

Although united in the immediate goal of destroying the mosque, the Israeli militants and Christian zealots have different long-range agendas.

Secular Jews, such as Stanley Goldfoot, one of the perpetrators of the dynamiting in 1946 of the King David Hotel which killed some 100 Christian, Muslim and Jewish civilians, want the mosque destroyed for political reasons. Other Jews believe that the building of the temple on the Muslim grounds will usher in the Jewish Messiah. A growing number of Christians embrace the idea that in all history, Israel is on the center stage. They say God has planned epochs of time (“dispensations”) such as the “in-gathering of the Jews in the ancient land of Canaan. One epoch, they say, includes the present time when Jews are obligated to build a Jewish temple and re-institute animal sacrifice, Such epochs or “dispensations” are necessary, they say before Christ can return.

Ironically, while Christian dispensationalists place Israel as the most important nation in all the world, they do respect or even like Jews- as Jews. Yet, because they believe Christ can only land in a “safe” area near Jerusalem, they make a cult of the land. They thus give total, unquestioned support to Israel.

Goldfoot and Solomon are welcome in countless U.S. pulpits, where Christian Zionists give generous donations of money, as well as their gold wedding rings and gold earrings to finance the mosque’s destruction. They know its destruction might well trigger wars culminating in Armageddon, but they welcome this. They push Armageddon along, saying they, as “Born Again Christians,” will be spared any suffering, because they will be “Raptured,” wafted up into heaven to view the slaughter below.

“I am not worried,” Lynchburg, Virginia televangelist Jerry Falwell shouts. “You know why?

I ain’t gonna be here!” This dispensationalist doctrine, less then 200 years old, pervades Assemblies Of God, Pentecostal and other charismatic churches, as well as the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention and countless so-called Bible churches and mega-churches.

It’s estimated that at least one out of every 10 Americans is a devotee of this cult. In both Israel and the U.S., a conspiracy of silence reigns as militants lay siege to the Jerusalemmosque. No political leader – or religious leader- in Israel or the U.S. has addressed this issue. In the case of Israeli rabbis, if they themselves have not aided and abetted planned assaults on the mosque, they have kept silent. In the case of all major U.S. Christian church leaders – the voices that are heard throughout the land- if they themselves are not raising money to destroy the mosque, they keep silent about the conspiracy.

“I don’t favour it,” one Christian told me. “But if it happens” – the destruction of the mosque-“it doesn’t mean I won’t support.” There are two groups in particular dedicated to the destruction of Jerusalem’s most sacred Islamic shrine:

(1) The Militant Bloc of the Faithful or Gush Emunim, led by rabbis such as Moshe Levinger; Ateret Cohanim, a Jewish yeshiva composed of militant Jewish students and their rabbis.

(2) Fundamentalist, militant Christians, who also want the mosque destroyed, give support and financial aid to both of these Israeli organizations, as do wealthy American Jews.

Beginning in 1967, when Israel militarily seized Arab East Jerusalem, Jewish terrorists on more than 100 occasions have laid siege to the Muslim Mosque. Here are a few of the assaults: August 1967 – Chief Chaplain of the Armed Forces Shlomo Goren – later Israel’s chief rabbi – leads 50 armed extremists onto Haram al-Sharif. “It is a holy commandment,” Goren said, for Jews to go to the Muslim grounds, which Jews call the Temple Mount.”

Writing in an Israeli publication, Eti Ronel reports: “Many rabbis, including members of the Council of the Chief Rabbinate, support Jewish sovereignty” over Haram al-Sharif.

August 21, 1969 – Jewish extremists set fire to Al Aqsa, destroying a priceless wood and ivory pulpit sent from Aleppo by the Muslim ruler Saladin. The arson prompts the United Nations Security Council to condemn Israel’s failure to curb terrorist attacks on Islam’s shrine. Four months later (19/12/69) a group of militant Jews storm their way to Haram al-Sahrif, in order, they claim, “conduct Hanukkah prayers.”

March 3, 1971 – Gershon Solomon leads Temple Mount Faithful followers onto Haram al-Sharif. After struggling with Palestinian guards, they are expelled. Three years later (3/3/74) Solomon again, with followers, storms the Mosque. Again (14/7/78) Solomon leads militant Jews onto the Islamic holy grounds. Palestinians stage protests. Israeli tropos hurl tear gas to quell the rioting.

August 10, 1980 – Three hundred Gush Emunim fanatics, heavily armed, overcome Palestinian police and storm the grounds, but are later dispersed. A month later (15/9/80) armed Gush Emunim settlers associated with Stanley Goldfoot and the Temple Mount Faithful again force their way onto the Mosque grounds. After scuffling with police they are evicted.

April 11, 1982 – Alan Goodman, an Israeli citizen with a U.S. passport, marches into al Aqsa with an M-16 rifle and opens fire on worshippers, killing two Palestinians and wounding others. After a short sentence the Israeli government releases Goodman.

Unrepentant, Goodman boasts, “I fulfilled my mission.”

July 25, 1982 – Yoel Lerner, a member of the militant Meir Kahane Kach movement, storms the mosque grounds with plans to dynamite and destroy the Dome of The Rock.

March 10, 1983 – Armed Gush Emunim fanatics climb walls onto Haram al-Sharif, attempting to overcome security guards and take the mosque by storm. They have in their possession large quantities of explosives, automatic rifles and pistols. Twenty-nine are charged and held for trial. September 21, 1983 – An Israeli court acquits the 29 Jewish terrorists who six months earlier had laid siege on the mosque.

January 27, 1984 – In the most ambitious plot to dynamite and destroy the mosque, Jewish terrorists, armed with 250 pounds of explosives, including dozens of grenades, boxes of dynamite and 12 rounds of mortar, attempt to dynamite and destroy the mosque. They are led by Rabbi Moshe Levinger, one of the most militant of Jewish extremists.

1994 – The Israelis appoint Meir Davidson, a senior official of Ateret Cohanim, as municipal adviser on Palestinian properties. This signals the Israeli government will work closely with an organization whose aim is destruction of the mosque.

September 1996 – Ateret Cohanim, funded largely through tax-exempt dollars donated by rich American Jews, including Miami millionaire Irving Moskowitz, opened a tunnel – excavated in secret night-time operations – that runs the length of the Al Aqsa complex.

The controversial tunnel sparked intense fighting which claimed the lives of 60 Palestinians and 15 Israeli soldiers. Israeli Prime Minister Binyiman Netanyahu proudly visited the tunnel, as have fundamentalist Christian leaders.

October 18, 1998 – Gershon Solomon, with followers waving Israeli flags and blowing rams’ horns, mounts a ramp to the mosque grounds. “The time has come to rebuild the Jewish Temple,” said Solomon. To underscore this point, Solomon parked near an Old City gate a flatbed truck carrying a 4 ton marble “cornerstone” for that new temple.

* Grace Halsell she is the author of the book “Forcing God’s Hand” which exposes the strange alliance between millions of U.S. Christians who make a cult worship of the land of Israel. The book explores the danger of this alliance: how it influences and often controls political decisions made in the White House and Congress.

This articles was published in 2001.

Prejudice rages throughout the world against Muslims especially in the nation of Israel’s biggest ally, the U.S.A. Even with the atrocities of mass killings, destruction of property and the violations and denials of basic human rights by the Israeli Occupation Authority, continued targeting of Muslims occur daily.

The Omar Mosque in Nablus was purposely and willfully destroyed even as it was also being used as a makeshift hospital for the many wounded during the siege of Nablus. Jenin, as it has been leveled to the ground by Israeli Occupation tanks, has of course lost all of its holy places, mosques and churches alike.  Bethlehem is under siege with the main concentration on the Church of the Nativity under fire but also tens of other churches and several mosques under fire of tanks, rifles, and bombing.

Fear from the despair and rage suffered by the Arab world, Muslims and Christians alike, is promoting extreme levels of prejudice amongst the U.S. population. Arab Americans and more obviously Muslim Americans are being racially profiled and unjustly accused of assumed guilt, before any action has taken place. The raids upon Islamic institutions and charity organizations in the U.S., the racial profiling at airports and refusal to let Muslims travel, and the accusations thrown at Muslim ladies wearing the headscarf, ‘hijab’, have got to be controlled. Just last week, May Department Stores settled by monetary compensation and an apology to 2 Muslim women that they had accused of shoplifting and hiding stolen goods under their hijabs. This settlement comes 7 months after the incident occurred, too little, too late.

There are 7 million Muslims residing in the U.S., the policy of prejudice had better to be altered as discrimination is unconstitutional and a violation of one’s human rights. What more can the vile Israeli prejudice against the Palestinian people teach us?

* Saira W. Soufan is a Pakistani-American studied in Biology and free lance social worker.

This articles was published in 2001.

Residents of illegal Jewish settlements are adding insult upon murder and injury to the bodies of the young Palestinian freedom fighters by wrapping the corpses in lard and pigskin before returning them for burial to their families.

The illegal Jewish settlements of Gush Katif, in Gaza, and Efrat, outside Bethlehem, claim practicing this disrespectful and unclean pre-burial rite. The Jews are hoping to discourage young men from retaliation of the occupation. The Deputy Minister for Internal Security, Gideon Ezra, suggested this plan of burial during a live interview on Israeli radio in August 2001, since which some settlers have taken notice and put into practice. In a second interview, Mr. Ezra called for the security forces to ‘liquidate’ the fathers of these young freedom fighters. He claims that the parents must know what their children are planning and this is a way to stop any retaliation.

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efraat Kibbutz defended the practice of pigskin burials by saying “If burial in pigskin will deter suicide bombers then it is incumbent on us to do this. We should do anything to save Jewish life.”

Pigs, which are considered unclean in Islam & Judaism, are nonetheless being raised at one kibbutz and eaten by some secular Israelis. Muslim Palestinians declare that the bodies of the shaheed, (soldiers who die in holy war), are unaffected by any taint and their souls go to paradise. Sheikh Hassan Yousef of Hamas pronounced, “The keys to Heaven are not in the hands of Jewish settlers.”

* Saira W. Soufan is a Pakistani-American studied Biology and free lance social worker.

This articles was published in 2001.

In a rare incidence of good luck, a plan to blow up King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, California, U.S.A. was thwarted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The destruction was planned for November 2001, during Ramadan the holiest month of the year. Mr. Usama Mahda, the community liason for King Fahd Mosque said of the plot, ”There would have been hundreds and hundreds of people, American citizens. It is  scary. It’s sad and it’s disgusting. No Muslims, Jews or Christians should suffer like that.”

Leading the plot against the mosque were top officials from the militant Jewish Defense League (JDL). The chairman of the JDL, Irv Rubin and the West Coast coordinator, Earl Krugel, were taped and observed planning the crime by the FBI after an informant contacted them, revealing plans in motion.

Krugel was taped in his home saying to the informant that Arabs needed a ‘wake-up call’ and that the JDL needed to do something more militant to one of the Arabs ‘filthy’ mosques.

A final meeting towards the execution of the plot was held December 11, 2001. Upon closure of the meeting, the FBI agents descended upon Krugel and Rubin, confiscating 5 pounds of explosive powder, fuses, pipes, dozens of loaded rifles and various handguns from the home of Earl Krugel. FBI officials described the bomb components as relatively sophisticated.

Rubin and Krugel were arrested and held without bail pending the arraignment on December 31 and were indicted on January 10th, 2002 of conspiring to bomb the King Fahd Mosque and the offices of Darrell Issa, an Arab American congressman. The charges include conspiracy, conspiracy to use a destructive device, attempted arson, attempted arson at a US government facility, possession of a destructive device in furtherance of a crime of violence, solicitation to commit a crime of violence, possession of a machine gun and possession of unregistered firearms. If properly sentenced the two men could spend a maximum of 35 years in prison.

The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee is hoping that these indictments will lead to the prosecution of those responsible for other heinous acts of terrorism and vigilantism against Arabs and Muslims.

 * Saira W. Soufan is a Pakistani-American studied Biology and free lance social worker.

This post was published in 2001.

As the anti-Muslim, anti-Arab fervor has escalated in the United States, individually targeted terrorism is intensified. One recent case profiled by the Council on American- Islamic Relations, (CAIR), has received some notoriety.

Enas Sarsour, a 17 year old Muslim high school student was terrorized into removing her head scarf, known as hijab, in a public strip search. Sarsour, after passing the required security checkpoints at the Baltimore/Washington International Airport, was harassed by a guard shouting, “Hey you need to take that off,”. Ms. Sarsour defended herself by responding, “Why do I have to take off my head cover?”, and was immediately surrounded by military personnel in camouflage uniforms with combat rifles. Terrified, she removed her headscarf without further thought, violating her concession to God.

CAIR, the Washington based Islamic advocacy group, requested an apology on behalf of Ms. Sarsour for the December 18th, 2001 incident from Northwest and Delta Airlines. After investigation, Delta President Frederick W. Reid issued a formal apology stating, “We regret and apologize for the embarrassment and discomfort you experienced.

Be assured that we take this matter very seriously”. Mr. Reid later telephoned Ms. Sarsour to apologize personally. CAIR is presently dealing with 12 cases in which Muslim women have been forced to remove their headscarves and more than 170 cases of racial profiling since September 11th. The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, has noted that these acts of discrimination have taken place predominantly in the travel industry, especially towards passengers on commercial airlines or in the airports themselves.

 * Saira W. Soufan is a Pakistani-American studied Biology and free lance social worker.

First Phase: Towards the end of 1967 and the beginning of 1968, extensive diggings were carried out on an area of 70 square meters under the southern wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Second Phase: In 1069, the diggings exceeded an area of 80 square metres adjacent To the wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. These ongoing diggings caused a serious undermining of the foundations of the adjacent building. Subsequently, the entire Magharbah quarter was demolished.

Third Phase: The diggings carried out in 1970 resulted in serious cracks in the foundation of the Ottoman Mosque (Ribat Al-Kurd) and the Jawhiriya School.

Fourth Phase: Israeli diggings between 1972 and 1974 behind the wall of the Al-Aqsa and extending across the southern wall of the Mosque and under the Mihrab pulpit and beneath the Mosque of Omar.

Fifth Phase: The diggings in the middle of the eastern side of the wall near the Golden Gate, where those diggings inflicted extensive damage upon an ancient Islamic cemetery near the site.

Sixth Phase: An expansion of the area of the Wailing Wall designed to destroy all the buildings in the area surroundings the Wailing Wall. An Israeli Ministerial Committee endorsed in 1977 the implementation of this plan, which includes the demolition of several Islamic historic buildings, including the Old Islamic Shari’s Court, the Tankinazia School, the Khalidiya Library, a charitable Zawiya (corner) and the Abu-Median ancient Mosque.

Seventh Phase: The most ominous and menacing of these continuous diggings perpetrated by the Israeli occupation authorities declared on 27 August 1981 that they had discovered a tunnel beneath the Wailing Wall and the holy Dome of the Rock which extends between both, as well as beneath the foundation of Al-Aqsa Mosque. The occupation authorities alleged that the tunnel had been discovered month before the discovery was announced.

But that the announcement had been withheld and kept secret after informing the two chief Rabbis of Israel as well as the Minister of Religious Affairs and the Defense Minister.

The Israeli officials visited the area and a requested that the matter remained shrouded in secrecy. However, the news reached the world media, which compelled the Ministry of Education to stop diggings and to close the tunnel in order to avoid far-reaching Islamic reactions.

However, the diggings did not in fact stop and were resumed when the Israeli Supreme Court issued a decision on 4 September which revoked the decision of the Minister of Education and permitted a resumption and completion of the diggings, which were resumed on 6 September.

Source: Encyclopedia of Palestine Problem by Issa Nakhleh.

July 15, 1983

Jewish settlers placed bombs inside the Khaled Ibn al Walid Mosque in Hebron. They were discovered and removed before exploding.

December 20, 1983

Jewish extremists placed bombs in the Izariyah Mosque in Jerusalem. They were discovered and removed before exploding.

Ausgust 4, 1986

The Haraa Mosque in Gaza was sealed by the Israeli Military Governor on the pretext that it was unlicensed.

September 9, 1986 

The Kammaaneh Mosque in Safad was demolished by the Israeli authorities on the grounds that it was built without a license.

December 28, 1986 

The Israeli Jerusalem municipal authorities demolished the Hizma Mosque in Jerusalem on the pretext that it was built without a license.

Source: Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem by Issa Nakhleh.