Cii News | 31 January 2013

The al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage has condemned a video by Israel’s deputy foreign minister depicting the disappearance of the al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Maan News Agency reports that a clip of a removed portion of a film by Danny Ayalon that was leaked to Israeli media depicts the mosque collapsing in the background as a Jewish temple rises in its place.

Israeli media allege that Ayalon’s film was attempting to show time rewinding backwards to show an ancient Jewish temple on the site, removing the present-day Muslim holy site in a video transition that appeared to show it collapsing.

The Times of Israel reported that foreign ministry officials expressed concern about the depiction of the mosque crumbling away, so they changed it to a dissolving transition.

Commenting on the video, the al-Aqsa Foundation said it reflected calls by Israeli groups to demolish the mosque and replace it with “a legendary alleged Jewish temple.”

It added that the film was altered and some scenes were replaced with others showing the Aqsa Mosque vanishing in the midst of magical clouds while the time reverts back to the alleged era of the temple.

Some Israeli organizations and groups, the statement continued, work systematically to promote this idea, and they receive support from the government.

Recent actions and statements by prominent Israeli politicians have again sounded the alert on Zionist designs to demolish structures at the Al Aqsa compound.

Just prior to this month’s Israeli polls, a video surfaced of an Israeli parliamentary candidate appearing to advocate the blowing up of Masjidul Aqsa’s Dome of the Rock.

Israeli TV aired footage of Jeremy Gimpel, a candidate with Habayit Hayehudi  (formerly the National Religious Party), speaking to a church group in Florida in 2011: “Imagine if the Golden Dome—I’m being recorded so I can’t say ‘blown up’—but let’s say the Dome was blown up, right? And we laid the cornerstone of the Temple in Jerusalem. Can you imagine? None of you would be here. All of you would be like, ‘I’m going to Israel, right?’ No one would be here, it would be incredible!”

In another 2009 video, Gimpel was seen visiting the Masjidul Aqsa compound with a group of friends. When someone asks a person who seems to be the tour guide whether the Dome of Rock  would comes down when the third temple will be established, Gimpel replies “Oh, absolutely.”

Earlier this month, the Palestinian government in Gaza strongly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Election Day visit to the Buraq wall – the western section of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem – as a “provocation to the Muslims”.

Ismail Radwan, Minister of Awqaf and Religious Affairs, said the high profile visit represented a provocation to the feelings of Muslims and a defiance of Islamic values ​​and principles.

Al-Aqsa Mosque is in real danger, he said, calling on the nation to move to defend al-Aqsa Mosque.

He declared that this new aggression on al-Aqsa mosque and the desecration of Buraq Square “came after an incitement campaign against al-Aqsa Mosque and calls to blow up the Dome of the Rock and the Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s visit to al-Ibrahimi mosque in the occupied city of al-Khalil.”

He warned that these threats are “an attempt to ignite a religious war in the region which would be a disaster for humanity.”