We, Sheich Abbu Sallah from the village of Dir Kadis, near Ramallah, and Rabbi Menahem Fruman from the settlement of Tekoa,

near Betlehem, salute the town of Brasilia, the world capital of Peace, this week, hosting the International Congress "Peace on Our Planet", organised under the auspices of UNESCO, by the University for Peace of Brasilia.

The directors of the University of Peace have invited both of us to present a joint paper on the religious aspects of the Temple Mount - Haram al Sharif discord. We can only but felicitate this initiative, which has no precedent of its kind.

As a matter of fact, one of the corollaries of the peace process initiated in the Middle East in the last years, has been to promote new initiatives of interreligious dialogues between representatives of Islam, Judaism and Cristianity. The importance of such dialogues, in the context of the present political process, is obvious. As long as a deep mutual understanding is not achieved between the concerned religio-cultural societies, any formal treaty which might be signed in this region, is bound to remain unstable and uncertain. In this perspective, the question of the Holy Sites, at the focal point of the problem of Jerusalem, and, in particular, that of the Temple Mount - Haram esh Sharif, stands as one of the key-issues in this program of dialogues: nowhere else is so evident the need for mutual listening and for dismantling prejudicial passion. Prejudice and ignorance is great in this domain, to which one should add a genuine objective difficulty, inherent to the complex relationships, hold by each religion, towards the Sacred Site, with respect to perceptions and deeds as well. We can here only sketch the problem, with the hope that a wider framework will be found for pursuing this dialog, which is so much needed on both sides. We shall divide our paper in two parts. In a first part, we shall give a summary of the official standpoints of both jewish and moslem religious establishment, which will highlights the abyss which separates them. In the second part, we, Sheich Abbu Sallah and Rabbi Menahem Fruman, shall propose a direction of thinking of ours, shared by both of us in its essence, which, we do hope, points out to some possibility of way-out. The proposed direction of solution, in spite of its originality, we believe, stems from the very principles of muslim and jewish creeds, and remains faithful to them.

THE OFFICIAL JEWISH STANPOINT

The Temple Mount is the most sacred site in jewish religion.

There Abraham brought Isaac in holocaust, there King Salomon built the Temple, by prophete's order. There, according to the Torah, should all the Children of Israel come in pilgrimage, three times a year. The Unicity of the Site reflects the Unity of the Creator. And towards this Mount will gather all Nations, when the Third Temple is to be built, in an era of Universal Peace.

According to jewish law, the Sanctity of the Temple Mount is structured in concentric circles. In the innermost circles, the restrictions of access are the greatest, and most stringent are the purity requisites. In the center, locus of the Stone of Foundation, commonly identified with that of the Dome of the Rock, nobody may even enter, but for one man, on one day. After the destruction of the Temple, the means to conform to the stringent purity requisites have been lost; so has been lost the knowledge of the exact position of the different circles of Sanctity on the Temple Mount. For these reasons, among others, it is not possible, according to jewish law, to rebuild the Temple, nor to offer sacrifices, nor to even enter there. In 1930 Chief Rabbi Kook testified before the British authorities in these words: "It is forbidden for us to enter the site of the Temple, because, before entering this Holy Place, we are obligated to a particular state of purity, which could only come from Heavens".

Thus, although Jews have conquered the Temple Mount in 1967, rabbis have not even raised the eventuality of rebuilding the Temple. Rather, the official religious Institutions have immediately published an Interdiction, prohibiting all Jews from entering any part of the Temple Mount. True, some rabbis permit to enter in restricted zones of the Mount, but this is not the official religious position.

For similar reasons, according to jewish law, non-Jews are also forbidden, in principle, to enter the Temple Mount. Thus, if this depended only on the official jewish Institutions, they would had today to post guards all around the Sacred Mount, in order to prevent Jews and non-Jews from entering the totality of the Temple Mount.

THE OFFICIAL MOSLEM STANPOINT

According to moslem tradition, it is to the site where stands today the Mosque of El-Aksa that refers the tale in the Coran of prophet Mohammed's night travel from Mecca. It is from the rock now under the Dome of the Rock that the Prophet began his ascension towards Heavens. This is an important part of Islam creeds, because during the Mirage travel, Mohammed was granted recognition by all other prophets of his quality of ultimate prophet, concluding the acts of the preceding ones.

According to Islam religion, Haram al Sharif in Jerusalem is the third Holy Site in importance, after the Kabbah in Mecca and the Prohet's Mosque in Medina. There is a great religious value in making a pilgrimage to El-Aqsa, and it is said in Islamic sources that a prayer in El-Aqsa Mosque is worth a hundred prayers else where.

The belonging of the Jews to Haram el Sharif is meaningless for many Moslem religious men, who even doubt that there ever was a jewish temple on this place. Although Islam writtings demonstrate that there has been a Mosque on this site for more than a millenium, nothing proves that Jews had even a synagogue there. The Wailing Wall area, at the bottom of the Mount, is the place of prayer for the Jews, as many Moslems are ready to recognize.

A NEW PROPOSAL

The abyss separating the two standpoints we have just sketched, is obvious and grave. Could there be nevertheless a bridge of some kind ? As already mentionned, the question is not simply theoretical. We find ourselves at the moment of difficult negotiations between the Israeli Governemnt and the Palestian Authorities about the Final Accords. And much Mercy from Heavens is needed by both sides to reach an agreement. The main stumbling block is precisely the Holy City of Jerusalem, and in its heart, the Temple Mount - Haram al Sharif. So were already the words of Zachary the Prophet (13,2) : "And there shall come the day, and I will place Jerusalem as a burden stone for all the Nations". It is important to clarify that the heart of the religious discord concerning the Temple Mount - Haram al Sharif, is not the presence of Muslems in the Mosque of El-Aqsa. The general view is that the Mosque is built outside the restrictive circles of Sanctity, which according to jewish law, surrounded the Temple.

Thus, the fact the Moslems pray in El Aqsa doest not contradict a jewish religious principle. The problem pertains to the other parts of the Mount. There the opposition between the two standpoints is litteraly conflictual. Is there any way out ? It might well be that in the very perception of Jerusalem, and in particular, of the Temple Mount, inherent to each religion, stands the potentiality to turn this big problem into a big solution, so that this Sacred Mount may actually be the focal point of Peace on earth. Isn't is said in Islamic tradition that there will come a day where all men will be the building stones of Jerusalem ? In essence, the importance of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount - Haram al Sharif, for the religions, is in the fact that these belong to G-od. Jerusalem is the City of G-od, and the Sacred Mount is the House of G-od. On the jewish side, this is highlighted by the very name of the place, Har Habayit, the Mount of the House. On the moslem side, this is highlighted by the very tale of the miraculous Mirage - it is the particular holiness of this place which made that Mohammed's travel precisely happened in Jerusalem, at El-Aksa.

Now, at the heart of the House of G-od, that of the Jews, there was the Holy of the Holy, whose supreme sanctity was expressed by the fact that no man could penetrate there, was it not for the Great Priest, once a year, on the Day of Atonement. This was G-od's plot par excellence on our Earth, because man drew back therefrom, refraining from any interference, by fear and humility before the Infinite residing in this Place among the mortals.

Now, this conception, reflected by the Foundation Stone of the Jews, is certainly not alien to Islam. The very term of Islam shows that, as it means "submission", refering not to a submission of man by man, but actually to the submission of man before G-od.

And here is a principle which is found most intensely in Israel Sanctity as well in Islam Sanctity. G-od is the King of the World, and He decides what happens there. And for us, human beings, our essential duty is to wait for G-od's Mercy, to abnegate our will in front of the Divine Will. And this perception, which is at the heart of both moslem and jewish religions, could realise on earth, at this Place of the Stone of Fondation - the Stone of Islam, expecting G-od in His House.

If the concrete expression of these ideas were that on the Temple Mount - Haram al Sharif, would be reserved a specific space, perhaps that the Dome of the Rock itself, that men would leave to G-od; if joint guardians, Moslems and Jews, would be G-od's guards of honnor, patrolling around this space, and watching that no mortal should enter there, then' this space, reserved to G-od, would be the expression, on the Temple Mount - Haram al Sharif, of our prayer and our expectation of G-od's benefic intervention.

In such way, the Stone of Fondation, out of which, according to tradition, the world has been built, could be the corner stone for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the Stone of Foundation could be the Stone of the Expectation of G-od's Blessing, which can only assure the success of men's efforts on earth to achieve Peace.