Tehran, Damascus stir up Hamas-Israeli Muslim riots on Temple Mount
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
October 4, 2009, 11:12 PM (GMT+02:00)
Hundreds of radical Muslims, Palestinian and Israeli, rioted on Jerusalem's Temple Mount Sunday, Oct. 4, for the third day in a row, forcing Israeli police, battling flying bottles and rocks, to shut the shrine down to Muslim worshippers, Jewish Succoth festival pilgrims and tourists. Temple Mount remains sealed off Monday to prevent Muslims hurling rocks on the Jewish Priests Blessing ceremony taking place below at the Western Wall. Only Muslims over 50 with Israeli IDs and women will be admitted.
Incoming intelligence is reported by DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources as fingering Iran and Syria as the hands behind the troubles and their likely escalation. As directives streamed to their Palestinian pawns and radical Israel Arab Muslim elements, the Assad regime cancelled without notice Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas' visit to Damascus Tuesday, Oct. 6.
The Syrians accuse Abbas of collaborating with the Israeli military and American CIA and putting his security forces at their disposal. They could hardly welcome him while stirring up what they are calling "The Battle for Defending al Aqsa" (the ancient Muslim mosque).
Israeli security circles are alert to the potential of the Temple Mount mob action to flare up into a fresh Palestinian uprising on the West Bank, like the one Yasser Arafat ignited in 2000 over Jewish visits to the Biblical Temple site led by former prime minister Ariel Sharon on Sept. 19 of that year.
According to our sources, Iran and Syria are resolved to derail the process of reconciliation unfolding between the rival Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, under Egyptian and Saudi sponsorship. The Syrian president Bashar Assad is opposed to this process more fiercely even than Tehran and is determined to scotch it.
Far from erupting spontaneously, the riots were carefully planned for more than a month in covert contacts between Palestinian Hamas operatives and heads of the Israeli Muslim movement, under the guidance of Syrian and Iranian secret agents. They succeeded in bringing Palestinian Islamists and Israeli Arab radicals together for the first time for a joint violent anti-Israel operation, dubbing it Operation Murbitun (Guardians of the Walls).
Thousands of young Palestinians and Israeli Arabs were quietly spirited into Jerusalem during the weeks before the outbreaks. They were divided into "platoons" of 150-200 men each and entrusted with watching over al Aqsa around the clock "to prevent its occupation by settlers, right-wingers and the Israeli police." The call to "everyone who can to come and defend the Muslim shrine" spread like wildfire. Abbas' Fatah had no choice but to jump into the "jihad."
Sunday night, gangs from the Palestinian village of Issawiyeh in northeastern Jerusalem rolled flaming tires onto the Jerusalem-Maaleh Adummim highway and hurled bottle bombs at passing traffic and border police called in to reopen the road.
The unrest predicted for Jerusalem in the coming days is expected to spread to other Arab communities, including those in Israel's heartland in the north.
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