I will cut off the hand of anybody who threatens it

Ynet has posted an article by Yehuda Litani in which he says the excavations nearby and the renovations on the ramp of the Mugrabim Gate will lead to bloodshed and are not worth it. He wants Israel to abandon the renovations and excavations.

And this is after Israel has already given tacit permission to the Arabs to add a new minaret on the Mount while rejecting the Jews requests to build a synogague. They won't even let us do badly needed renovations and historical excavations.

Litani says, "We don't have to demonstrate our sovereignty over every inch of united Jerusalem in every case. At this time, which isn't easy for Israel and features immediate dangers, ranging from Hizbullah in Lebanon to the Iranian nuclear threat, we don't need this confrontation, which will give the Palestinians a reason to end their own bloody clashes and unite against Israel."

He might be right. There are possible scenarios in which it might just not be worth our "provoking" the peace loving Arabs to violence. After all, while sad that innocents are getting killed, it is better that they are killing each other in Gaza City rather than killing Jews or forcing us to kill them. A provocation by Israel could change all that. It could unite the various factions among the PA Arabs and get them to stop fighting with each other and start fighting with us again. Nobody wants that.

He might be right. But not when it comes to the Temple Mount. It is bad enough that the Arabs have acting control over the Mount and we Jews have to be debased and humiliated any time we want to go to visit the Mount with body searches for religious material and not being allowed to pray on the Mount.

They use our democratic society against us. We democratically have to give them control over anything they claim they are sensitive to. We democratically have to give them rights and freedoms in the name of peace and justice. Yet when they are in control of something they show us no liberties and offer us no rights and freedoms.

We have given them practical control over the Temple Mount. Do they let us have our religious freedoms and pray there, in the sight that is holiest to Judaism? No. Despite the fact that it is sovereign Israeli territory, we allow the Arabs enough control that they disallow jews to pray there. Freedom and liberty seems to only run one way when it comes to the Arabs.

Now Litani says we should not even demonstrate the slight amount of control we do have? If we let them hold the Mount hostage in this ridiculous baseless fashion and give in to their threats of violence, what would he say we should demonstrate our sovereignity over? only when they come looking for Lod and Ramle? Tel Aviv? Haifa? When will it be ok to demonstrate our sovereignity?

This is similar to the schoolyard bully who beats up the nerdy kid for his lunch money. He keeps on doing it for more and more power and money, until the kid realizes he has to stand up for himself. When he finally gets the courage to fight back, that is when the bully leaves him alone.

My three year old daught got a new book recently. It is a book about a kid who has low self esteem and is picked on by the other kids. A new kid moves into the neighborhood and the kid oozes with self esteem and immediately has all the other kids respect. The low self esteem kid asks him how he can be "strong" like him. His response is not to let them pick on you. When they tell you to do something, if you do not want to do it say no. Stand up for yourself. He says they will leave you alone if you just say no. It is not muscles that make you strong, rather the confidence and will to stand up for yourself.

It is time we stopped giving in to every threat the Arabs throw at us. It is time we stood up to them and told them we will not take it from them anymore. Let them show us how civilized they can be.

Even Judge Cheshin said yesterday (referring to the new Justice Minister who advocates changing the judicial system), "This is my house and I will cut off the hand of anybody who threatens it."