Monday, October 16, 2006

David Ben-Ariel deported for plot to blow up Al-Aksa mosque?

David Ben-Ariel, an American member of the Temple Mount Faithful, was deported from Israel in 1996. After six and a half hours of interrogation, by six different Israeli secret service men, about an alleged plot to blow up the Al-Aksa mosque on the Temple Mount, Ben-Ariel was released while the investigation continued on condition they kept his American passport and he report back daily at 9 am.

Following such a harrowing experience Ben-Ariel contacted Bill Hutman of The Jerusalem Post whose front page article "GSS Seeks to deport American for plot to blow up Al Aksa mosque," appeared on January 8, 1996. The very next day, the eve of Ben-Ariel's 36th birthday, the obviously irritated police detained him until his deportation nearly three weeks later, since, as The Jerusalem Post reported, they lacked hard evidence to bring him to trial and he strongly denied the allegations, charging the Israeli authorities with politico-religious persecution.

Ben-Ariel, a Christian-Zionist, is a very prolific writer and the author of Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall. Immediately before David's interrogation, detention and deportation from Israel, his article "Will Jerusalem Become An International City" was published in Jerusalem within The Traveller (popular among tourists and backpackers) and read throughout Israel. It highlighted the plight of the Temple Mount under Muslim control - a Muslim control that illegally practices religious discrimination against Christians and Jews with Israeli consent - and expressed a statement of faith (shared by millions of Christians and Jews) that the mosques would soon be history and the Temple Mount would be restored as the Temple Mount with the Third Temple.

Since Ben-Ariel's deportation he has utilized his experience and shared it with a worldwide audience via the internet, numerous articles and forums, tirelessly campaigning to change the deplorable status quo of the Temple Mount, attracting the attention of many writers, politicians, leaders of various groups and organizations and people of faith.

Several of Ben-Ariel's articles relating his ordeal:

Consul General Edward Abington, Jr.'s letter to Ohio Representative Marcy Kaptur

American Detained in Jerusalem's Russian Compound

Dangerous Ideas?

Israel's Unjust Deportation of David Ben-Ariel

From Toledo To Jerusalem

Why Edward Abington, Jr. Must be Investigated!