Question: Up until 1967, were Jews from any part of the world allowed to worship at the Temple Mount or Western Wall, the most holiest site in Judaism?
Answer: No.

"There were 20 arrests of either organizers or participants."

"The authorities also arrested two employees of al-Quds University who were distributing T-shirts commemorating the festival."

Shocking–just when I thought the depths of "horror" had been plumbed. Yes, Phil, you're right that "In relation to the horrors of the Gaza War and the recent revelations about the conduct of the Israeli army in that war, all this may seem insignificant." This smashing by the Israeli government of Palestinians' commemorations is less than the merciless slaughter of a helpless, imprisoned populace. Buth it is the merciless stomping out of harmless joy for a helpless, imprisoned people by a vengeful tyranny. How else can we describe such unreasoning destruction of others' mere public happiness?

Nice try. And nice use of the Arabic/Persian words, you did well in your Middle Eastern Studies class.

I love food. Hate cooking but love eating. I asked her what is Israeli food like. One of the things she mentioned was hummus/tahini/falafel.I blurted "but that's Arabic food!" I just got a smile but no answer.

The Israelis have "stolen" Arabic food and made it Israeli. How about calling it Middle Eastern food if you don't want to give Arabs credit for it? They call the adorning of the Kaffieya as hate clothing. Yet others have gone and mad a "Jewish kaffiyah." (Incidentally is prettier than the Palestinian Kaffiya with the blue and white colors, but I won't be buying one anytime soon though. I wrote about it on my blog: link to saleemasinkpot.blogspot.com

They stole the land and made it Israel. Next thing they will be claiming belly dancing too. Israelis are quite clear with their intentions. They will suppress and annihilate Palestinina culture from "their" land. Anything they won't be able to suppress and annihilate will become Israeli from culture symbols to food and everything in between the earth and high heaven.

Posted by: Shirazi Sophist

If I could be bothered to play the hasbara mirroring game, I could contrive some absurd mirroring exercise whereby the supposed US anti-Semites only allow the US Jews to go to synagogue as and when they (the supposed anti-Semites that is) are allowed to hold Nazi rallies outside. You can generate any sort of mirroring scenario if you apply enough ingenuity. And after a while, you don't even need ingenuity, obviously, it becomes a routine learned reaction, as we see with this geek, who is a sophist if not a Shirazi one.

Also, his answer to this question is INCORRECT:

Question: Up until 1967, were Jews from any part of the world allowed to worship at the Temple Mount or Western Wall, the most holiest site in Judaism?

My great aunt, an American Jew and iterant traveler, visited Jerusalem and the Wailing Wall in the mid 1960's, when it was under Jordanian control. Since I had a clear memory of her description of her visit when I first heard the hasbara tale that my great aunt could not have possibly done what she clearly did, I looked into the question more fully. Jews from other lands were NOT restricted from Old Jerusalem or the Wailing Wall. Only Israelis were prohibited. And that included ALL Israelis, including Muslims and Christians. I suspect that prohibition was the result of the shaky terms of coexistence that existed between Israel and Jordan at the time.

Of course, my aunt didn't visit the Temple Mount, but back in those days, there were Rabbinical dictates against ordinary Jews setting foot on what might be the location of the Holy of Holies. Apparently that's gone by the wayside now, in the interest of sticking it to the Muslims in lieu of observing ancient Jewish religious tradition…. Hmm, I guess you could say that about a lot of what Israel does today.