Pope Francis | First One Through

Pope Francis visited Morocco in late March 2019. He signed a declaration together with Morocco King Mohammed VI that Jerusalem is sacred to three monotheistic religions and must be open and accessible to all religions.

Yet today, only Muslims are allowed to pray on the Jewish Temple Mount and any Jew seen mumbling under their breath is evicted from the site in fear that they might be praying. Further, while large groups of Christian visitors are allowed to roam the 35 acre site, Jews are only allowed to walk around in small groups, and are often accosted by “Mourabitan,” women paid by Hamas to harass Jewish pilgrims.

It is an interesting development for Jewish rights as Morocco hosted a United Nations conference on “The Question of Jerusalem” in Rabat in June 2018. Seemingly, the Arab world is now trying to position itself as the protector of the freedom of access and worship for the three monotheistic religions… even though when Arab Muslims controlled the Old City of Jerusalem from 1949 to 1967, they evicted every Jew and forbade any Jew from entering the city, and continue to attack Jewish visitors at every opportunity.

It is highly unlikely that the Pope will call out the Muslim world on their antisemitism, as many Christians are embattled minorities in Muslim-majority countries. However, this latest announcement could be a wonderful opening for the Pope to clearly advocate for allowing full and open Jewish prayer at their holiest location on the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Dignity for Israel: Jewish Prayer on the Temple Mount

Tolerance at the Temple Mount

Jerusalem’s Old City Is a Religious War for Muslim Arabs

The Custodianship of a Child and Jerusalem

Oh Abdullah, Jordan is Not So Special

The Arguments over Jerusalem

I call BS: You Never Recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital

Heritage, Property and Sovereignty in the Holy Land

It’s the Temple Mount, Not the Western Wall

It is Time to Insert “Jewish” into the Names of the Holy Sites

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The news agencies reported on Pope Francis’ visit to Turkey in November 2014. Remarkably, the major media outlets such as CNN, BBC, and The New York Times did not report on the extreme hardened Islamic moves that have taken place in Turkey over the past several years, nor other abuses:

No mention of the Turkish persecution of the Kurdish minorities
No mention of Turkey’s illegal invasion and ongoing occupation of northern Cyprus
No mention of the Turkish genocide of the Armenians
No mention of rightward shift of Turkish government:
- Banning kissing in public
- Banning Youtube
- Banning Twitter
- Jailing the most journalists in the world in 2012 and 2013
- Banning drinking at night

The closest any major news organization came to criticizing Turkey was the Guardian, which quickly backed off with a quote ““Things are good now, better than before certainly,” Atmaca said. “I think the Islamist rhetoric [of the government] is mostly show.””

By way of comparison, when the Pope visited Israel in May 2014, the New York Times did nothing to describe the positive environment of Christians in Israel, and constantly sought to portray every move of Pope Francis as critical of Israel in the Arab-Israel conflict (as described in the FirstOneThrough articles below.) Absent from their narrative, was that Israel is a thriving country with more freedoms of press and worship than any country in the Middle East. The country is much more than the conflict with the Palestinians, just as Turkey is more than its conflict in Cyprus or with the Kurds.

Here is a FirstOneThrough video analysis of an interview of Recep Erdogan from September 11, 2011, then the Prime Minister and now the President of Turkey. Like the liberal media outlets, the attacks on Israel are persistent, and the hypocrisy is without limits.

FirstOneThrough video “Turkish hypocrisy: Erdogan threatens Neighbors”: