The Temple Mount and appeasement boondoggles

Just a brief word! Israel should not give up The Temple Mount, not one inch of land to anyone for any reason. There will be no peace in the Middle East from weakness. The Temple Mount belongs to all Jews and Christians as a most revered holy place. Why for Christians? Because we revere the Old Testament and see our part of our beginnings in Judeo heritage and the wider world of Greek and Roman classical culture as well. But Jewish holy places in Israel have import to us and we want to preserve them. Peace in the Middle East will come only from force and strength. Israelis were in the region hundreds or thousands of years before Islam or Muslims since that ideology is a rather recent invention of the Glorious and Grand sword-slashing prophet Mohammed, pbuh - ahem - so, if anyone seriously wants peace in the Middle East, toss down the gauntlet and say, "Not one inch of land. Not now; not ever. And as for the Temple Mount, "forget-ah-bout-it!" For an excellent editorial, see Preserving the Temple Mount. I have included the "letter" in its entirety. It is worth it. One can't say it better than Mr. Silver has.

Preserving the Temple Mount Claude Salhani is correct that, as the Annapolis summit approaches, President Bush may be about to repeat President Clinton's great mistake at Camp David ("Tricky Mideast summit," Commentary, Wednesday). But that mistake was pressing Israel for extreme concessions on Jerusalem. Shockingly, reports suggest that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may be amenable to relinquishing places at the very heart of Jewish history the Temple Mount, archaeological City of David and most of the Old City to Arab sovereignty. This would precipitate a disaster. First, if Israel surrendered security control over the Temple Mount, it would leave the safety of visitors at the adjoining Western Wall to the mercy of Palestinians who, in the past, have bombarded Jewish worshippers below with rocks and boulders at the slightest pretext. Second, it would undermine efforts toward reconciliation. The Temple Mount is the holiest site in the world for Jews, and Jewish history there predates any Muslim presence by more than 1,600 years. But the Palestinians insist Israel must forfeit all claims to the Temple Mount, period. Israel's naive leaders apparently fail to grasp the symbolism of this extreme demand. It's not about controlling the mosques there the Palestinians already enjoy full autonomy over the Temple Mount. Rather, it's about severing Israel from its historical foundations. National symbols have real meaning. Would Saudi Arabia trade the Kaaba in Mecca to Israel for peace? Would Greece relinquish the Acropolis, or America give up the Statue of Liberty? Yaacov Lozowick of Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial has warned that surrendering the Temple Mount could break Judaism's spirit forever and "future generations may damn us for throwing away their heritage for the bauble of momentary peace." Finally, it would invite an irreparable archaeological crime and an assault on history itself. It is dogma among Palestinians that the Jewish temples never existed. If the Temple Mount, City of David and Old City fall under Arab sovereignty, their ancient heritage may suffer the same fate as the Jericho synagogue and Tomb of Joseph, which were destroyed by Palestinian mobs in October 2000, and the giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan, which were demolished by the Taliban in 2001. Sadly, it seems neither Israel's leaders, nor ours, comprehend this. STEPHEN A. SILVER San Francisco

It saddens me that we continue to be so stupid. Islamists see weakness in appeasement and they see advantage to their cause by "talking" for what is the harm in "talking" to the infidel/kuffar when one is advancing the goal of the prophet? So the Islamists say, "Let the kuffar posture and propose; let the kuffar prove he is the stupid "pig" the prophet calls the Christian and the Jew." I say, let us, the infidels, draw that darn line and say "Not one inch of land; not one more temple or holy place will you be allowed to deface or destroy... Not one...whether it be in the Middle East, in Europe, in Afghanistan, or in the world..."