An unnecessary stunt

MK Basel Ghattas of the Joint Arab List managed to one-up the police and enter the Temple Mount "to pray," despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling on MKs from all parties to refrain from doing so. Ghattas' act can be described as nothing other than a stunt that has no other purpose.

I would remind you that Ghattas is a Christian. The point of him covering his head when he entered the Temple Mount compound is unclear -- whether it was a way of evading checks by Israeli security forces at the entrance to the compound, or simply to hide from Muslims -- who if they happened to recognize him might have taken him to visit the Dome of the Rock, which is apparently built on the Jewish holy of holies, and show him the dozens of verses written on the inner walls of the mosque that feature harsh words against Christians and Christianity.

The Quran is full of verses that describe Christians as heretics: "They indeed disbelieve who say: Surely, Allah -- He is the Messiah, son of Mary. ... They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One God. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them" (Quran, Chapter 5).

The Arabs MKs are looking for any excuse to express their misgivings about the Zionist state, and to that end are choosing to make false allegations against Israel and its security forces. Here are a few examples from the current reality: A terrorist who drove onto the sidewalk to kill innocent civilians is portrayed as a poor sap who had a car accident; another terrorist who charged at Israeli soldiers with a knife in his hand is described as a poor youth whom the soldiers barbarically decided to kill for no reason.

Israeli Arabs have a problem identifying with their state and are therefore sometimes known as the "Arabs of '48." They are not Israeli; they live in Israel. Christians like Ghattas have another problem: As a Christian, he is suspect as someone who might try to connect to Israel, so he has to prove over and over that this isn't the case by out-Musliming the Muslims in the hope that one day they might say of him, as they say of Jerusalem: "By blood and by fire we will liberate you, Ghattas." But in this case, the chances of that happening are even slimmer because his very name bears witness to his ties to the Christian religion. Ghattas means "the baptist."

It would not be out of place here to note what Ghattas once wrote in the party newspaper of the Islamic Movement: that in his eyes, Christians were Muslims, other than the fact that they attend church on Sundays. My advice to Ghattas: Worry about the Christians of Israel, who are undergoing a true crisis that is forcing them out of the Holy Land. You know better than me how bad the situation is in Bethlehem, in Kafr Kanna, in Nazareth, and plenty of other places seeing an exodus of Christian residents leaving for Europe, the United States, and Canada.

Finally, I remind you of the Arab proverb that decrees that "for anyone who doesn't know Allah, the devil becomes his god."

Nissim Dana is a professor in the Middle Eastern Studies Department at Ariel University.