Moshe Dayan on handling of Temple Mount and Cave of the Patriarchs

[IMRA: The following appeared in "Moshe Dayan: Story of My Life" 
pages 387-390.Moshe Dayan on handling of Temple Mount and Cave of the Patriarchs 

Aaron Lerner Date: 25 June 2000 

[IMRA: The following appeared in "Moshe Dayan: Story of My Life" 
pages 387-390. It is noteworthy that while each Friday Moslem 
religious leaders indulge in rabble-rousing sermons that would incite 
some of their followers, Israel has yet to take appropriate action.] 

I thought that the first unequivocal decision that had to be made 
concerned the direction and supervision of the compound of the 
mosques and the Moslem offices. On the morning of the first Saturday 
after the war, I visited the El Aksa Mosque and met the Moslem 
religious personnel responsible for it. I reached the court of the 
mosque by way of the Western (Wailing) Wall. Access to the Wall had 
been denied to Jews for the previous nineteen years, and now as we 
passed it, thousands of Jewish worshipers crowded against its ancient 
stones in ecstatic celebration. As we continued through the Mograbi 
Gate above to reach the mosque compound, it was though we were 
suddenly cut off from a world filled with joy and had entered a place 
of sullen silence. The Arab officials who received us outside the 
mosque solemnly greeted us, their expression reflecting deep mourning 
over our victory and fear of what I might do. The group was headed by 
Sheikh Abdel Hamid Sa'iah, the chief Moslem judge, and with him were 
the mufti of Jerusalem and the guardian of the mosque compound, who 
was responsible for the religious services. 

Before entering the mosque, I asked the Israeli officers who we with 
me to take off their shoes and leave their weapons behind them. After 
hearing explanations about the mosque and the customary arrangements 
for worshipers and visitors, I asked my hosts to talk of the future. 
At first they refused, but when I sat down on the carpet and folded 
my legs Arab fashion, they felt it necessary to do the same, and 
inevitably we engaged in talk. As a consequence of the battle for 
Jerusalem, their water and electricity had been cut off. I promised 
that both would be restored within forty-eight hours. I then plunged 
directly into the main issue. I said that the war was now over and we 
had to return to normal life. I asked them to resume religious 
services in the mosque on the following Friday. I said I had no wish 
and no intention of continuing the practice which the Jordanians had 
instituted of censoring Friday's sermon before it was broadcast. 

Under Jordanian rule, Friday's sermons, which were broadcast over the 
radio, were subjected to strict censorship. I questioned in my own 
mind whether such a practice was proper for a Moslem ruler, but a 
Jewish ruler should certainly refrain from acting in the same 
fashion. 

I added my hope that the Moslem religious leaders would not take 
advantage of such freedom by indulging in rabble-rousing sermons that 
would incite some of their followers. If they did, we would of course 
take appropriate action. 

I said that Israeli troops would be removed from the site and 
stationed outside the compound. The Israeli authorities were 
responsible for overall security, but we would not interfere in the 
private affairs of the Moslems responsible for their own sanctuaries. 
These were two Moslem places of worship, and they had the right to 
operate them themselves. My hosts no doubt knew that on the day we 
had captured this site, I had given orders that the Israeli flag be 
removed from the Mosque of the Dome, where it had been hoisted. We 
had no intention of controlling Moslem holy places or of interfering 
in their religious life. The one thing we would introduce was freedom 
of Jewish access to the compound of Haram esh-Sharif without 
limitation or payment. This compound, as my hosts well knew, was our 
Temple Mount. Here stood our Temple during ancient times, and it 
would be inconceivable for Jews not to be able freely to visit this 
holy place now that Jerusalem was under our rule. 

My hosts were not overjoyed at my final remarks, but they recognized 
that they would be unable to change my decision. They would have 
wished the entire area, not just the mosques, to remain under their 
exclusive control, with the continued ban on Jews. But they also 
realized that Israeli troops had been removed from the compound and 
that we had recognized their rights to control their own holy places. 

A sticky problem cropped up on August 16. This date coincided with 
the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, a millennia-old Jewish fast 
day in commemorative mourning for the destruction of the Temple. 
Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the chief army chaplain, and several minyanim 
(religious quorums) decided to pray on that day on the Temple Mount, 
namely, the Haram esh-Sharif. They brought with them a Torah (Scroll 
of the Law), an Ark of the Law, and a pulpit. I learned about the 
incident only later, when Maj. David Farhi, the military government's 
liaison officer with the Arab leaders, failed to prevent the rabbi 
and those with him from praying there. The matter came up for 
consideration by the government. Although, understandably, no 
minister wished to take a formal position stating baldly that Jews 
were forbidden to pray on the Temple Mount, it was decided 
to "maintain the current policy," which in fact banned them from 
doing so. It was evident that if we did not prevent Jews from praying 
in what was now a mosque compound, matters would get out of hand and 
lead to a religious clash. 

Rabbi Goren fought determined against the de facto ban, but he 
eventually accepted the verdict and tempers were calmed. As an added 
precaution, I told the chief of staff to order the chief army 
chaplain to remove the branch office he had established in the 
building which adjoins the mosque compound. 

I was convinced that precisely because control was now in our hands 
it was up to us to show broad tolerance, so rare an attitude among 
the regimes of the preceding decades and centuries. We should 
certainly respect the Temple Mount as an historic site of our ancient 
past, but we should not disturb the Arabs who were using it for what 
it was now-a place of Moslem worship. 

The arrangement we made for the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron had 
a different purpose from the one in Jerusalem. The aim here was not a 
division of authority and rights but harmonious coexistence. 

According to Jewish tradition, the Cave of the Patriarchs is the most 
ancient Hebrew burial place. The first Hebrew was Abraham, and he, 
his son Isaac, and his grandson Jacob were buried there. So were the 
Matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah. (The tomb of Jacob's favorite 
wife, Rachel, is a few miles to the north, "in the way to Ephrath, 
which is Bethlehem," as the Bible puts it.) The Moslems also 
respected this tradition, for Abraham was their "Friend," father of 
their forebear Ishmael, so that for them, too, the Cave of the 
Patriarchs holds a special reverence. 

During the four hundred years of Ottoman rule and thirty years of 
British Mandatory control, the Moslems forbade any Jew from entering 
the cave or even the building erected over it, which had been 
converted into a church and later still into a mosque. The closest 
the Jews had been allowed to approach their ancient shrine was the 
seventh step of the outside staircase leading to the building. We 
were now in a position to lift this shameful ban, but I wished to do 
so without causing the Moslems to suffer, as they had caused our 
people