Palestinians Fear Surveillance Cameras Will Expose The Truth About The Temple Mount

By Tom Olago

Jerusalem's Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount), sacred to Christians, Muslims and Jews is attracting controversy of a different sort after a proposal from Jordan's King Abdullah to install 24hr surveillance cameras. This action would normally be welcomed by all people of good will, especially peace and law abiding stakeholders to the Temple Mount.

Interestingly, however, the Palestinian Authority (PA) finds the proposal alarming and is actually resisting it. Quite strange, given that the cameras should instead have given the PA cause to rejoice. The camera footage could finally prove to the world their unceasing claims that Jews have been planning to destroy the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque located at the Temple Mount, and have actually been involved in desecrating it.

So why such valuable corroborative evidence would be rejected, rather than embraced by the PA, is supposedly the million dollar question.

A recent report by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Gatestone Institute sheds some light on this. The idea to set up cameras was first raised by Jordan's King Abdullah in a bid to ease tensions at the holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem. The recent agreement between Israel and Jordan was reached under the auspices of US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Shortly after Israel accepted the idea, the PA rushed to denounce it as a "new trap." PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki and other officials in Ramallah expressed concern that Israel would use the cameras to "arrest Palestinians under the pretext of incitement."

During the past two years, the PA and other parties, including Hamas and the Islamic Movement (Northern Branch) in Israel, have been waging a campaign of incitement against Jewish visits to the Haram al-Sharif. The campaign claimed that Jews were planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The report further states that the PA and the Islamic Movement in Israel hired scores of Muslim men and women to harass the Jewish visitors and the police officers escorting them. These men and women have since been filmed shouting and trying to assault Jews and policemen at the Haram al-Sharif.

This type of video evidence is something that the Palestinian Authority is trying to avoid. The PA, together with the Islamic Movement, wants the men and women to continue harassing the Jews under the pretext of "defending" the Al-Aqsa Mosque from "destruction" and "contamination."

Palestinians are also opposed to King Abdullah's idea for fear that the cameras would expose that Palestinians have been smuggling stones, firebombs and pipe bombs into Al-Aqsa Mosque for the past two years.

By rejecting the idea of setting up 24-hour surveillance cameras at the Haram al-Sharif, the Palestinian Authority has found itself on a course of collision with Jordan. Jordanian politicians and columnists have voiced outrage over the stance of the PA, and have dubbed it harmful to Palestinian and Islamic interests. Jordanian politicians have reportedly denounced the opposition of the Palestinian Authority to the cameras as "inappropriate, clumsy, tasteless and unfair."

According to sources in Ramallah, the PA's opposition to cameras should also be seen in the context of the power struggle between the Palestinians and Jordan over control of the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem. The PA’s opposition to the installation of cameras is seen as an attempt to undermine Jordan's status at the Islamic holy sites.

Many Palestinians argue that they, and not the Jordanians, should be in charge of the Haram al-Sharif. Members of the PA are opposed to the cameras because it is a Jordanian proposal and reinforces Jordan's role at the holy site.

In the overall context, the resistance to surveillance cameras by the PA makes sense. It would expose to the world the real aggressors and desecrators, and unveil a shameful degree of hypocrisy as well as the premeditated framing of innocent parties. It would also expose divisions birthed out of rivalry within some key Arab camps.

Not exactly an ideal display for the Palestinian cause that is keen on winning international support against Israel.