By Baruch Kra, Amira Hass and Yossi Verter, Ha'aretz Correspondents and AP
Clashes that broke out on the Temple Mount and in the West Bank yesterday following a visit by Likud Party Chair Ariel Sharon left around 30 police officers and ten Palestinians injured. A thousand Palestinians, led by MKs from the Arab factions, threw stones at the police officers who formed a dense wall around the opposition leader to protect him from protesters. Sharon said after the visit he had successfully demonstrated that Israel is in charge of the compound that is revered by Muslims and Jews alike. Palestinians however claimed that the tour backfired on Sharon because it just underscored how little actual control Israel has over the area.
Arab MKs called Sharon "Hitler" and "murderer of women, children and old people." The MKs disputed the police version of events and told reporters at the end of the visit the police had attacked them.
The group entered the disputed holy site at 7.30 A.M. through the Mughrabi Gate, near the Western Wall. Sharon and six other Likud MKs, Reuven Rivlin, Moshe Arens, Naomi Blumenthal, Joshua Matza, Gideon Ezra and Ayoub Kara were protected by 1,000 police officers as they approached the Temple Mount on foot. About 150 Muslims were at prayer at the holy site, including members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Arab MKs. The group was greeted with shouts of protest from the Palestinians.
The legislators stopped at Solomon's Stables and were given some background on the area. Some demonstrators tried to approach the group, but police pushed them back. One Palestinian boy was lightly wounded and given medical attention at the site.
The Arab MKs, among them Ahmed Tibi, Mohammed Barakeh and Talab A-Sana, walked alongside the Likud group for some of the way, talking and even laughing with them. The second they spotted television cameras, however, they began hurling abuse at Sharon, although Channel Two cameras captured A-Sana and Blumenthal chatting amiably.
Violence escalates
The MKs spent about 45 minutes at the site and when they headed back to the Mughrabi Gate, dozens of Palestinians started running after them, attempting to break through the police cordon. Sharon and his colleagues left the compound at 8.30 A.M. and the demonstrations escalated only after they had departed.
Hundreds of young Palestinians stormed the Al Aqsa mosque, throwing stones at police offices through the mosque windows. Police fired rubber bullets to disperse the protesters. The rioters left the mosque a few minutes later, still throwing stones at police.
Jerusalem Police Commander Yitzhaki requested MK Tibi and the Waqf heads to put an end to the riots. Tibi instead complained to Yitzhaki about the dozens of police officers who had "unnecessarily" entered the compound. Yitzhaki said the police had been deployed following intelligence information about possible disruptions.
Orient House later reported that some 4,000 officers had swamped the Old City. While Yitzhaki and Tibi talked, the Palestinians continued their attacks. Clashes also broke out near Ramallah.
The violence spreads
Within an hour riots had spread to other parts of East Jerusalem. Palestinian youths hurled stones at police and civilian cars along Sultan Suleiman Street and Salah a-Din.
“If we thought it was life-threatening, we would have stopped the visit from going ahead,” said National Police Chief Yehuda Wilk. “It is our duty to allow all citizens, Jewish or Arab, to visit the Temple Mount if they so desire.”
Yitzhaki claims the police efforts were not helped in any way by the heads of the Waqf. “It should be clear to all that a Jew can visit the Temple Mount without it being a provocation.” He warned that if the Waqf closes off the Temple Mount to Jews, the police will close it off to everyone.
Sharon said "it is the right of every Jew to visit the Temple Mount," and he denied he had tried to provoke the Palestinians. He called the Arab MKs, "haters of Israel who constantly incite violence."
The visit was attacked by the left, with Meretz Party Chair MK Yossi Sarid saying that yesterday's clashes were only the first outcome of the rivalry between Sharon and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the Likud leadership
By JOEL GREENBERG, New York Times, September 29, 2000
JERUSALEM, Sept. 28— Tightly guarded by an Israeli security cordon, Ariel Sharon, the right-wing Israeli opposition leader, led a group of Israeli legislators onto the bitterly contested Temple Mount today to assert Jewish claims there, setting off a stone-throwing clash that left several Palestinians and more than two dozen policemen injured.
The violence spread later to the streets of East Jerusalem and to the West Bank town of Ramallah, where six Palestinians were reportedly hurt as Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated bullets and protesters hurled rocks and firebombs.
''I brought a message of peace,'' Mr. Sharon said after a one-hour tour that Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, condemned as a ''dangerous action'' against Muslim holy sites.
The complex, known to Muslims as Haram al Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, contains Al Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, sacred shrines of Islam. It is revered by Jews as the site of the First and Second Temples as well as the place where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son, Isaac. A dispute about sovereignty over the area, in Jerusalem's walled Old City, has created an impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
''I believe that Jews and Arabs can live together,'' Mr. Sharon declared as stones and rubber-coated bullets flew at the holy site. ''It was no provocation whatsoever,'' he said of his visit. ''It's our right. Arabs have the right to visit everywhere in the Land of Israel, and Jews have the right to visit every place in the Land of Israel.'' Injured Palestinians and police officers were carried off on stretchers minutes after the visit ended.
Ordinary Israelis can visit the Temple Mount like any other tourists, although most Orthodox rabbis have forbidden entry because of the area's special sanctity under Jewish law.
But Mr. Sharon, who has a provocative reputation among Palestinians, is no ordinary Israeli. Among other things, he owns a home in a Muslim neighborhood of the Old City. The house, which flies an Israeli flag, has occasionally been a focus of confrontation between Palestinians and police officers guarding it.
While Mr. Sharon used his visit to criticize what he called concessions on Jerusalem by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the tour seemed no less an attempt to upstage Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister who could challenge Mr. Sharon in coming primaries for the leadership of the Likud Party.
Mr. Netanyahu returned to Israel today from the United States after Israel's attorney general announced on Wednesday that there was insufficent evidence to prosecute him on corruption charges, clearing the way for a possible political comeback. But Mr. Sharon asserted today that he would remain party leader, and that he had asked Mr. Netanyahu to join him in efforts to topple Mr. Barak.
Mr. Sharon's tour was meant to assert Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount, but the vast security operation organized for the visit suggested that he had anything but free access to the compound, which is effectively run by Islamic officials.
Mr. Sharon entered as a police helicopter clattered overheard and a thousand armed policemen were positioned in and around the Temple Mount, including antiterror squads and ranks of riot officers carrying clubs, helmets and plastic shields. Throughout the tour, Mr. Sharon was ringed tightly by agents of the Shin Bet security service.
Faisal Husseini, the top Palestinian official in Jerusalem, said that the extraordinary police deployment belied Israeli claims of sovereignty over the Temple Mount, which was captured along with the rest of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. ''Israel has no sovereignty here,'' Mr. Husseini said. ''They have military might, they have the power of occupation, but not sovereignty.''
Mr. Sharon went into the compound through a gate used by tourists above the Western Wall, a remnant of a wall that surrounded the ancient temple plaza. His head was barely visible in the crush of security men and police officers around him. Inside, police officers kept Palestinians behind barriers as Mr. Sharon and his entourage walked around, pausing to listen to explanations by an Israeli archaeologist.
Scuffles broke out when a few hundred Palestinian youths shouting ''God is great!'' and ''With soul and blood we will redeem you, Al Aksa!'' surged against police lines in an attempt to reach Mr. Sharon. Palestinian officials and Israeli Arab lawmakers who were with the crowd said that they were pushed and beaten.
As Mr. Sharon left, dozens of youths hurled stones, chairs and metal objects at the police, who responded with rubber-coated bullets and riot sticks. At least four Palestinians were later reported to have been treated for injuries.
Mr. Sharon was trailed by Israeli Arab legislators who shouted ''Murderer, get out!'' and ''Al Aksa is Palestinian!'' Palestinians remember Mr. Sharon as the architect of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, during which Christian militiamen allied with Israel massacred hundreds of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee centers in Beirut.
''This is a man of blood,'' said Ahmad Tibi, one of the Israeli Arab lawmakers. ''His history says that he is not interested in peace.''
The clashes at the Temple Mount spilled outside the Old City walls to Salah a-Din Street, the main shopping thouroughfare of East Jerusalem, where youths hurled stones at police and Israeli vehicles, lightly injuring a bus passenger.
Mr. Sharon's visit was ''a direct attempt to derail the peace process and an attempt to inflame the whole region,'' Mr. Husseini said.
Peace efforts were further shadowed by an overnight bombing in the Gaza Strip that killed an Israeli soldier and wounded another. Two roadside charges were detonated near an army-escorted convoy of cars heading for the Israeli settlement of Netzarim.
Despite the unrest and injuries in Jerusalem, Mr. Sharon said, his visit had been worthwhile.
''I'm sorry about the casualties, and I wish the wounded a speedy recovery, but a Jew in Israel has the right to visit the Temple Mount,'' he said. ''The Temple Mount is still in our hands.''
Photo: A Palestinian argued yesterday with an Israeli border police officer during clashes at the compound sacred to Muslims and Jews in the Old City of Jerusalem. (Associated Press)
Palestinians and Israelis in a Clash at Holy Site
September 28, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM -- Clashes erupted Thursday at a key Jerusalem shrine, hotly contested in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, with Israeli riot police firing rubber bullets at about 200 Palestinians who hurled stones and bottles. The violence broke out just moments after the leader of Israel's hardline opposition, Ariel Sharon, left the compound that is revered by Muslim and Jews. Chants of “Murderer, get out” followed Sharon. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Sharon's visit was “very dangerous” and that Arab and Islamic nations should “move very fast” in protecting the shrine.
The Palestinian protesters, some still carrying their school bags, threw stones, bottles and even a metal trash can at hundreds of helmeted police in full riot gear, some huddling behind large plexiglas shields. The troops, deployed around the shrine to protect Sharon, fired several rounds of rubber bullets at the protesters and struck them with clubs to push them back.
At least three Palestinians were injured by rubber bullets, including a teen-ager who pressed his hands to his bloodied mouth and then fell to the ground. Four Palestinians, including two senior officials, were struck in the head by clubs. Police said about two dozen officers were injured by stones. One was rushed to a nearby ambulance on a stretcher.
The compound is the fault line of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Deadly clashes erupted in 1990 and 1996, as rival claims to the site heated up.
The shrine is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, site of the former Jewish Temple, the most sacred shrine of Judaism. Muslims call it Haram as-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, home to two major mosques – Al Aqsa and Dome of the Rock – that mark the spot where tradition says the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. The compound is the third holiest site of Islam, after Mecca and Medina.
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are hung up because of a dispute over who will control the holy shrine. For now, Muslim clerics have autonomy in administering the site, although Israeli police remain in charge of security.
Palestinian leaders said Sharon's visit, intended to demonstrate Israeli sovereignty claims, was a provocation, but proved that Israel has no real control there. “He thought that this place belongs to the Israelis, but the way he entered, with thousands of police protecting him, was clear proof to all the world that the Israelis have no sovereignty here,” said Faisal Husseini, a senior Palestinian official in charge of Jerusalem, who was struck in the head by a club.
Sharon, who staunchly opposes any concessions to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, denied he was trying to provoke Muslim worshippers. “What provocation is there when Jews come to visit the place with a message of peace?” he said. “The Temple Mount is in our hands,” he said, using the phrase made famous by the late Israeli army officer Motta Gur when Israeli troops captured Jerusalem's Old City and the holy shrines in the 1967 Mideast war.
When Sharon began his visit Thursday morning, accompanied by members of his Likud party, about 1,000 Israeli police were deployed.
Young Palestinians defiantly shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is great). Some tried to break through the police cordon but were pushed back. Mohammed Abu Hawa, a 17-year-old protester carrying a black school bag, said he and his class mates had come from nearby schools to try to prevent Sharon from entering the shrine.
Sharon is one of the most feared and reviled figures in the Arab world, as the mastermind of Israel's 1982 invasion and occupation of Lebanon. He was forced to resign in 1983 when an Israeli commission found he bore some responsibility for the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in Beirut refugee camps by Lebanese militias allied with Israel.
After his Temple Mount visit, Sharon stopped at the Western Wall, a remnant of the Temple and today the holiest site of Judaism. Some Jewish worshippers cheered and clapped when they spotted Sharon.
The mosque compound has been the site of bloody clashes in the past. In 1990, rumors that Jewish extremists planned to start rebuilding the Temple started a riot in which 17 Palestinians were killed and scores wounded by police gunfire. In 1996, the Israeli government opened an archaeological tunnel just outside the compound, sparking riots in which 80 people, most of them Palestinians, were killed.