Israel or zealots?
I have an impression that Mr. Dirk Veugels still tries to avoid the facts that Israel -- as individuals or the state - destroys mosques. In response to my letter, Mr. Veugels wrote on Dec. 7, 1999, that the Israeli government is not involved in burning mosques, but the action is carried out by zealots and crazed individuals. Israel is even building a mosque in Bethlehem.
I will try (again) to present some facts about Israel's involvement in destroying mosques, the Al Aqsha Mosque in the city can especially be traced. What Israel did for the first time when it occupied Jerusalem in 1967 was to confiscate on June 7 the keys of the western gate of the Al Aqsha Mosque.
Two days later, the Israeli occupation authorities ordered a halt to the Jum'ah prayer (Friday congregational prayer) in the mosque. It was the first time the Jum'ah prayer did not take place since a Kurdish Sultan, Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (Sultan Saladin), liberated Jerusalem from the hands of the Crusader in 1167 AD.
On Aug. 28, 1980, the Israeli occupation authorities dug a tunnel right underneath the mosque. When Muslim Waqf authorities sent numerous letters in various languages (Hebrew, English, French, Spanish, and Polish) urging them to abandon the Temple Mount, several Zionist organizations even sent death threats to the Waqf officials. On March 26, 1983, the main entrance to Jerusalem's Waqf Department collapsed due to Israeli excavations underneath.
Unsatisfied with these actions, on Aug. 8, 1990, the Israeli authorities carried out a grisly massacre at the Al Aqsha Mosque, killing 22 worshipers and injuring over 200 others. Two months later, on Oct. 19, 1990, the Jum'ah prayer was delayed for two hours because the Israeli occupation authorities denied Muslim worshipers entry into the Haram al-Sharif compound.
The case of sacrilegious acts by the Myanmar government as mentioned by Mr. Veugels is caused by the limited information in Indonesia compared to news about Israel. In 1992, there was an outcry here from Muslims against oppression carried out by the Myanmar government, which caused more than 265,000 Muslim Myanmar refugees, better known as "Rohingya", to flee to Bangladesh.
Even Geys Amar, the chairman of the Al-Irsyad Al-Islamiyah Islamic organization of Indonesia, visited the barracks of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. He concluded that the Myanmar government was probably hypocritical: on the outside it had reached an agreement on the return of the refugees, but inside it continued to terrorize and torture them.
DARUL AQSHA
Jakarta