Khalil
said Jewish extremists are planning to launch intense media campaign
in the days to come to drum up much support.
Revava,
a leading Jewish group, said on its Web site that posters and nylon
signs are being put up in cities across Israel, and thousands of
fliers have been distributed among the Israelis to rally a big march.
“In
spite of intense police pressure and an official announcement that
they will not allow a mass ascent to the Temple Mount, we are
proceeding normally in our preparations for the historic event which
is to take place as planned,” the extremist group vowed in an online
statement.
Palestinian
researcher Nezar Hamid said all Jewish extremist groups, though
holding widely divergent opinions, are united on razing Al-Aqsa Mosque
to build their alleged temple.
“They
are led by retired army officers, tacitly backed by the army and
well-trained when it comes to using weapons,” he added.
“Such
Jewish groups also include American Evangelicals, who believe that the
establishment of the Jewish state signals the coming of the
Messiah.”
Hamid
said such groups are “fed on Zionist and racist ideologies stemming
basically from the right-wing and took, over the years, the shape of
armed gangs, which work covertly and overtly.”
Chief
among these groups are the Temple Mount Faithful, Gush Emunim, Kach,
Kahana Chai and Betar, he added.
Clashes
More
than 3,000 Palestinians have spent the night inside Al-Aqsa mosque to
help confront a possible aggression by Jewish extremists.
Israeli
police sealed off the mosque and blocked approaches to the holy site.
At
least 12 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli occupation
troops, who used batons and teargas canisters.
Only
a few hundred adherents of the extremist Revava had shown up by
mid-morning for a march they had said would draw 10,000. About a dozen
were arrested.
Palestinian
and Israeli security officials had warned of a possible missile or air
bombing attack by extremist Jews on the mosque.
Archeologists
further warned that ongoing Israeli excavations weakened the
foundations of the mosque, cautioning it would not stand a powerful
earthquake.
A
part of the road leading to one of the mosque’s main gates collapsed
in February, 2004, due to the destructive Israeli digging work.
‘Religious
Coup’
 |
|
“We can only hope that in Israel there are enough people with the maturity to resist the messianic pull of radical rabbis,” said Yatom.
|
Meanwhile,
the former head of the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency said that
Israel faces the danger of a coup by “religious troops” if it does
not stop far-right rabbis from preaching mutiny.
Danny
Yatom, who headed Mossad from 1996 to 1998 and now serves as a
lawmaker for the pro-pullout Labour party, said he saw the seeds of
full-blown rebellion.
“There
are too many rabbis calling for orders to be disobeyed en masse --
effectively, a mutiny. If there are enough soldiers willing to put
such edicts ahead of the army, it will cause a crisis that could lead
to a coup,” Yatom told Reuters.
He
said Israel should learn from the failed attempt by French hardliners
to engineer a coup against President Charles de Gaulle and scupper the
1962 withdrawal from Algeria.
“We
can only hope that in Israel there are enough people with the maturity
to resist the messianic pull of radical rabbis.”
