We all know the horrid tale of what happened in Israel on October 7, 2023. Waves of gunmen attacked families in their homes and young people attending a music festival. The marauders filmed their murders on GoPro cameras. They burned families alive in their safe rooms; raped, and mutilated their victims; and took hostages back to Gaza on golf carts. Why did they do it?
For many critics of Israel, the horrific violence of October 7 was the predictable response to the “occupation”—never mind that Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. To them, October 7 was a jailbreak from what progressives often call “an open-air prison.”
But for the belligerents, in their own words, this war is for the defense of a mosque on top of a mountain. They called their massacre “Al-Aqsa Flood,” named for one of the two mosques that sit atop what is known to the Jews as the Temple Mount. This is where King Solomon’s temple once stood, and at its base is the Western Wall, where Jews have prayed since its construction in the second century BCE. It’s also known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, a noble sanctuary. It’s where Muslims believe the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven in a dream. An October 10 Hamas communiqué justified their attack as resistance to thwart “schemes and dreams of Judaizing Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa.”
This reveals something very important about the Israel-Palestine conflict: That it is not a territorial dispute. It’s a holy war, with roots in an ancient city with significance far beyond its 2.5 miles of limestone walls. The world knows it as Jerusalem. The Palestinians call it Al-Quds.
Hamas claims there is a plot by Israel to destroy Al-Aqsa—the mosque atop the Temple Mount that sits in the center of Jerusalem—and build a third Jewish temple where it now stands. It’s a lie. A lie that goes back a century. The man who first began to spread the libel was from one of Jerusalem’s great families that traced its lineage back to the prophet Muhammad himself. He was a seminary-school dropout, a fanatic antisemite, and a Nazi collaborator. His name was Hajj Amin al-Husseini.
Today, Eli Lake tells the story of al-Husseini, the origins of the 100-year holy war, and why it persists to this day.
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Mordechai Kedar, an Israeli scholar and academic known for his expertise in Arabic culture and politics, has argued that the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem may not be the original mosque referred to in Islamic texts, which Muslims consider the third holiest site in Islam.
Kedar has suggested that the mosque mentioned in the Qur'an's story of the Prophet Muhammad's night journey, "Isra and Mi'raj", could refer to a location in a different city—possibly near Mecca, rather than the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. This argument is based on historical interpretations and the fact that the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem was constructed after Muhammad's death, leading Kedar to question its centrality in early Islamic tradition.
Just maybe the mosques were built, as they were built upon all lands Islamists conquered, and this one is not especially holy. You spew lies long enough and they become "truth."
I would love if TFP could recommend a reading list of essential histories (say half a dozen books or equivalent) that go into more detail on all of this. It's fascinating; it isn't taught in US schools; it seems as important as anything else we study about the 20th century.