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October 20, 2000/21 Tishri 5761, Vol. 53, No.4
Will desecration of holy sites prove fateful?
DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - The desecration of holy sites, rather than atrocities committed against people, may turn out to be the most resounding disaster of the past weeks of violence in the Middle East.
What is being referred to here as the "Al-Aksa Intifada" will go down in history as the first time this nation witnessed a lynching live on television.
The televised image of the 12-year-old boy dying in his father's arms in the Gaza Strip has become the collective nightmare of millions of Palestinians.
The recent weeks have witnessed acts of sacrilege by Muslims against Judaism, and by Jews against Islam:
- In Nablus, the Tomb of Joseph was sacked and set on fire by a Palestinian mob after the Israeli army pulled out.
- In response, a Jewish mob twice tried to torch an old, nonfunctioning mosque in the center of Tiberias.
- Last week, Palestinian youths set light to the ancient Jewish synagogue in Jericho.
In Nablus the young men with hammers and crowbars smashing at Joseph's Tomb's rounded roof were smashing at the Jewish religion.
So were the arsonists in Tiberias attacking the Islamic faith.
On the practical plane, the acts of sacrilege will make it hard for the two sides to trust each other to guard each others' holy places in any future peace agreement or interim arrangement.
The attacks in Nablus, Jericho and Tiberias were all betrayals of that religious trust which, it had been hoped, transcended even political enmity.
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