By order of the Israeli Police, Jews and tourists will be barred from entering the Temple Mount compound August 21-23 due to the Muslim holiday of  Eid al Adha.

Eid al-Adha, (Festival of Sacrifice), is the second of two Islamic holidays celebrated worldwide each year, the other being Eid al-Fitr, and is considered the holier of the two. It honors the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God’s command. The son is not named in the Koran, but Muslims claim it was Ishmael that was offered up to God. Ironically, the prohibition on Jews comes when the Muslims are proclaiming the story of the Binding of Ishmael took place almost one thousand miles away in Mecca, placing a large question mark on their claim the site is holy to Islam.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar, an Israeli scholar of Arabic culture and the Middle East, maintains that the concept of the sanctity of Jerusalem to Islam is false and has referred to Islam’s claim to the Temple Mount as “fake news”.

“The narrative of Eid al-Adha is the Muslims themselves saying that the Temple Mount is not central to Islam,” Dr. Kedar told Breaking Israel News. “This is enormously ironic. It is nothing less than the Islamization of a Biblical story.”

“But the police do not deal in theological polemics,” Dr. Kedar noted. “In this case, when large numbers of Muslims are going to up to the Temple Mount, the police choose to surrender any rights the Jews have in the face of potential Islamic violence, no matter what the Jews have to give up from our religion. This is a horrible strategy of appeasement at any cost.”

Eid al-Adha also marks the culmination of Haj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca which is the fifth pillar of faith all males are required to perform once in their lifetime.

It should be noted that Jewish visitation to their holiest site is strictly controlled. Muslims are permitted to enter the compound on Jewish holidays.