Flag Waving

Police prevented a group of students bearing PLO flags from reaching the Temple Mount, Saturday. The students' intent was to hold a ceremony in honor of the Palestinian Authority-sponsored event of the theme "Jerusalem - capital of Arab culture."

This reminds me of an incident in the early 1980s when the police commander of the Temple Mount station, which was later removed as it bothered Muslims, placed a pennant on his table which had a small Israeli flag on it, a couple of inches long. A Waqf official notice it and the next day, the Arab press headlines read: "Israel's flag unfurled over the Temple Mount". Yosef Burg, then Police Minister, had it removed from the desk.

Besides being a gross exaggeration, the Muslims claimed that since the Temple Mount, in their definition: Haram A-Sharif, was a religious site, no flags should be flown as they are nationalist and therefore secular in character.

I went up and later even took a picture with Rabbi Avi Weiss of the graves of several individuals on the Western Wall where one can plainly observe Arab flags carved on the entrance.

Ah, the hypocrisy of it all.