by Dietz Ziechmann |
Why the Temple Mount in Jerusalem should be turned into a museum, as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk turned the Hagia Sophia (church/cathedral/mosque) into a museum as part of his successful program for secularism, modernization, and progressive reform, beginning in 1923. (See A History of World Societies. Boston and New York: Bedford/ St. Martin’s Press (Macmillan Press Ltd. 2009)
A History of World Societies is a best-selling world history textbook published by Bedford/St. Martin's, written by authors including John P. McKay, Roger B. Beck, Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, and Clare Haru Crowston. The text uses a regional and comparative approach, focusing on social history and the experiences of ordinary people to provide a global and accessible overview of world history. The book is available in various formats, including combined volumes, and includes pedagogical tools and digital resources to aid both students and instructors.
Available on AMAZON - https://www.amazon.com/s?k=history+of+world+societies+St.+Martin%E2%80%99s+Press&crid=1NJITUQWX8KE3&sprefix=history+of+world+societies+st.+martin+s+press%2Caps%2C92&ref=nb_sb_noss
What Needs to Be Done!
Dietz Ziechmann
Dietzziechmann67@gmail.com
This war has been dragging on for too long. The Muslim Brotherhood and its subsidiaries are currently winning the crucial media battle despite battlefield and territorial losses. Hamas in the true fashion of ethnic/religious fanatics doesn't care. In part because its leadership reside comfortable and safely outside of Gaza.
What they do care about is prestige. Few people outside of Islamic practice understand the religion, its origins, and most important its routine practices. Robert Spencer has provided an excellent primer, The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2006). It has been warmly endorsed by Michelle Malkin and Daniel Pipes for its sophistication. Also to be viewed is Dr. Jay Smith, Ph.D. from Auburne University, Melbourne, Australia, a Trinitarian preacher, with experience debating Muslims in Hyde Park, London, England, created a video posted to YouTube, Demolishing Islam, describing the fictions concerning the personality cult creation, development, and current practices of Islam ("Submission"). Some Muslims do not subscribe to the fanatical Arab nationalist view regarding Islam, but they are the exceptions, and not the rule. A comparison can be made with Jewish-Israelish practices by viewing the video Inside Israel or any number of books including Here All Along about the mean of Jewish philosophy and practices. It is time past due that humanity comes to term with these and related issues.
It is appropriate that people carefully apply the Chinese principle of wu wei, thHowevere principle of wholistically viewing the cosmos as an entity, but viewing its details realistically.
It is important to remember that though the Islamists employ modern instruments of war, they in live in a pre-modern mentality. With the Temple Mound in the hands of a belligerent cult in the geographic heart of a people they consider their existential rival and enemy, they consider themselves undefeated, despite the devastation of Gaza. In the ancient world until a nation's religious sites were altered to that of the succeeding group they were not defeated, not succeeded. In 1967, after Israel's enemies were defeated in a war they had launched and East Jerusalem liberated, Chief Rabbi of the IDF Goren thought that, given its psychological symbolism as a resistance center, the IDF should destroy it by artillery fire. (When I first heard of this idea, I, like most people, was outraged; subsequently, particularly after the barbarism of the beastly atrocities of October 7, 2024, have had to reevaluate the suggestion.
Chief of Staff Moishe Dayan, a secularist, vetoed the idea, and Israeli forces have protected it as a Muslim site ever since, despite numerous Islamic provocations. However in ancient times, the Jewish Temple had replaced the religious structure of those worshipping Shalem, Roman Catholicism replaced the polytheistic temple on the Vatican mound site, and numerous other examples could be cited. Karen Armstrong and other commentators opine in muddled piety that Jerusalem is the site of the site of mutual faith and mutual respect of three traditional faiths. Nothing could be further from the truth. In 691CE the Dome of the Rock was completed. In 715 CE the El Aksa Mosque was completed. These Islamic sites were constructed for primarily political prestige - not spiritual -purposes. At these times, Jews were too weak militarily to block their constructions. Trinitarian "Christians" were indifferent to the site, formerly the site of the Jerusalem Temples in sequence, allowed to deteriorate to a trash dump under Crusader rule, because didn't Yeshua bar Miriam (aka "Jesus") assault the Temple!
Muslim fanatics expressed extreme outrage when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon even dared to walk through the site for a first-hand observation. Israeli politicians have even appeased Muslims by forbidding Jews to pray on the site. Tot be hey do not want to share the site in any respect. Contrast that with how the Turks have treated the Hagia Sophia, once a cathedral, later a mosque, in Istanbul, turned into a respectful museum.
Would it not be reasonable for the Israeli government seize the Mound and use it for a bargaining chip, destroying one of both of the mosques as political subversion centers.
Demolishing one. Perhaps turning one into a Jewish Temple? A partial restitution of the status quo antum? The current status quo is intolerable. Intolerable situations should not be tolerated. There is a distinction between just and unjust discrimination, despite the current state of Proscrustean American language usage.
Jewish practice strives for continual improvement, a habit started in ancient times. The Hebrew Bible is a self-critical didactic tool. The two Talmuds ("Studies") were drawn up with that principle in mind, with rigorous debate being preserved archivally, setting a precedent for U.S. Supreme Court Rulings. Questioning is a Jewish virtue, as opposed to other religions who stress enforcing conformity and repressing dissent. Another fundamental is that all humans be treated with at least a minimal respect and dignity, having been created in the aura of the Divine. Rabbi Ken Spiro notes that radical notion back to ancient times in his book WorldPerfect: The Jewish Impact on Civilization (Deerfield Beach, Fla.: Simcha Press, 2002). The Vedas promoted a Sanskrit greeting namaste ("the divine spirit in me salutes the divine spirit in you"), but the Aryans ("skilled, noble people") have not always, if ever, extended that thought to all of humanity.
The Brotherhood and its offshoots are so narrow they won't even allow the playing of music. Is that how so-thoughts liberals want to go down in history?
These Photos by Unknown Author
On Friday, September 5, 2025 at 07:48:10 PM EDT, Dietz Ziechmann wrote:
Is the Quran in its latest parts not a chauvinist and egotistic, bigoted, terroristic cult from its early days? Muhammud, judgment be upon him, was a child molestor, tyrant, vain egotist, plagiarist, hypocrite, and war-monger? Efforts to appease the cult seldom work. Gandhi offered the Muslims a majority in his cabinet, though they were a minority in his country.
Abandoning Gaza did not lead to peace, but renewed attacks upon Israeli and its inhabitants. Not destroying the mosques atop the Temple Mound did not earn gratitude and reciprocity, but only newed and augmented arrogance. Doesn't the golden dome of the Al Aksa mosque, mean that Jerusalem is a Muslim city, a sign of eventual Muslim victory throughout all of Canaan, and that Hamas and it?