JERUSALEM, April 5 (UPI) -- Haitham Bundakji, an American Muslim cleric from Orange County, California, was up front in the al-Aksa Mosque, Friday, when shots rang. The imam just ended his sermon, but there was no mistake about the noise. People were running screaming and then, he said, he saw fire and smoke.
Someone got on to a loudspeaker and called the Israeli policemen to leave, and fear God.
"Allahu Alkbar," God is Great, the caller repeated.
Bundakji, a Palestinian who immigrated to California and became a chaplain at the Garden Grove Police Department, was one of some 80 clerics and laymen from the United States, Canada, and several other countries who came to Jerusalem in an ongoing effort to reconcile the three monotheistic religions. Their idea is that a religious reconciliation could help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The trip was organized by the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, an organization founded by Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Moon is also the founder of News World Communications, which also owns United Press International.
Al-Aksa Mosque is Islam's third holiest site. Muslims believe that the Prophet Mohammad ascended to heaven from a nearby rock now topped by a golden dome. To Jews, it is the holiest site of all, the place where their ancient temples had existed.
Bundakji brought the group there, Sunday. A mosque goer pointed to a black singed stain on one of the red carpets. Similar stains were seen on the carpet outside the mosque. Jerusalem Police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby told UPI smoke grenades had caused that damage. A glass closet, inside the mosque, contained used parts of shock grenades, plastic bullets, rubber pellets and 5.56mm cartridges collected during the intifada.
Ben-Ruby blamed Palestinians for Friday's clash. It erupted when youngsters stoned officers at the Moors Gate, he said. Policemen moved in to repel the attackers and hundreds of youngsters joined the stoning. CNN and other TV footage proves that, Ben-Ruby maintained.
The President of the Wakf Council, Sheikh Abdel Azim Salhab, said police had provoked the incident. Bundakji said young worshippers threw their shoes at the policemen. He said he looked through a window and saw people fall down, injured.
"I saw a lot of blood and I saw a lot of people on stretchers," he said. The Wakf said 70 people were injured but Ben-Ruby said police saw only four evacuees.
Salhab, speaking through an interpreter, accused the Israeli government of being "determined to undermine our sanctuary, our mosque and our faith."
He claimed the Israelis prevent Muslim worshipers from reaching the site, that the 1,400 year-old mosque needs repairs, remodeling and maintenance but that the Israelis "prevent us from bringing any materials" and bringing even a sack of cement is a feat.
"They are hoping this place will deteriorate and fall on its own," he alleged.
Ben-Ruby said the authorities allow maintenance work, such as replacing a damaged pipe, but not renovations or new construction.
An attempt by the group to enter Bethlehem through an army checkpoint, failed. The crossing was closed and the visitors shared the Palestinian experience of crossing the lines illegally, and on foot.
The busses drove up to the outskirts of the Christian town of Beit Jalla, near Bethlehem. White haired visitors and men using canes joined the others in climbing a steep incline to the Palestinian side where local busses awaited them. Police did not interfere with the group that used that route to get in and out of the Palestinian area.
Only half a dozen people were at the Greek Orthodox section of the Church of Nativity during a Palm Sunday prayer. The street that used to be the main entrance to down, from Jerusalem, was now a dead-end route leading to a barricaded army post. The road to the Deheishe refugee camp, south of Bethlehem, passed by the bombed out Palestinian security headquarters and burnt out rusty remnants of camouflage colored Palestinian security pick up vans.
The coordinator of the popular committees at the Deheishe refugee camp, Abu Khalil al Lahham, complained that Palestinians were depicted as terrorists.
"We've never been terrorists or terrorist supporters. We hate it and we're victims of state terrorism," he complained.
"In the Palestinian mind occupation is equal with death," and they are fighting it, he argued.
A high fence that once protected Israeli motorists from Arab stoning there, is gone. The Israelis built a new road, farther to the west. Shops have opened alongside the old road.
Thirty-three students were killed there during the intifada, al-Lahham said. An Israeli security source was unable to immediately comment.
The refugees' plight clearly aroused the visitors' sympathy. A hat was passed along the visitors' two busses and within minutes $700 were collected.
However, sometimes group members had difficulties getting their message across.
Bundakji said he had tried to talk to an Israeli police captain involved in Friday's clash. Bundakji said he showed his California police card, and smiled.
"Please, may I speak to you," he said he asked.
The officer had no patience for niceties. An agreement negotiated with the Wakf provided that the worshippers be allowed to leave quietly, Ben-Ruby reported.
"Get out. Out," the captain reportedly ordered.
"But I am your friend... I love you," protested Bundakji.
The emotions the Rev. Michael Jenkins, Deputy Chairman of IIFWP and other visitors demonstrated at the meeting with the Wakf leaders seemed to have gotten across.
"We pledge our lives to protect al Aksa Mosque," Jenkins, declared.
Church bells chimed when the group met Salhab and they were still together when a moazin called Muslims to prayer. The call originated on the mount's loudspeakers and quickly resonated throughout the Old City.
Jenkins closed his eyes tightly and clasped hands with Salhab and Bundakji. Bishop George Augustus Stallings Jr. held his palms, facing upwards, as Muslims do in prayer.
Tears rolled down some participants' cheeks.
Salhab smiled when members followed Jenkings in repeating the Arabic and English version of the Islamic text recognizing God as the only God and bearing witness that Mohammad is his Messenger.
"You can see the leaders here are beginning to feel that we are really sincere," Rev. Phillip Schanker told UPI.
"The seed (for resolution of the conflict) is germinating and developing," added Jenkins.
He expected to succeed, "If we can be patient to continue to relate, especially on the basis of love and family and faith."
The political path would lead to a dead end now, he indicated.
"We can't relate on politics. Political relationships will lead to very definitive yes or no questions that we're not ready to address yet.... Even if we get political resolutions or different accords, if our hearts are still full of anguish and enmity it will end up tearing down any accord, it will just come out again," he said.
Earlier, on Saturday, about 21 members of the group visited Gaza and met with senior Palestinian officials and activists. The trip was coordinated with Ra'fat Sa'dallah, the chairman of the Palestinian National Association for Youth in Gaza, who received them and arranged a tour in Gaza City.
Jenkins of the IIFWP and Haitham Bundakji, who is also director of the Islamic Center of Orange County, CA., headed the delegation that included Islamic, Christian and Jewish clergies as well as U.S. senators.
"The IIFWP has plans to keep sending delegations, included Muslim, Christian and Jewish clergymen, former Israeli Knesset members and a senators in the United States Senate," said Sa'dallah.
The delegation later held a meeting with Palestinian religious leaders, Palestinian Authority representatives and individual Palestinian initiators.
The IIFWP representatives condemned the current Israeli security measures that "make the daily life of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip harder and harder every day."
Bundakji called upon Israel to stop "using force against innocent Palestinians," and called upon Israel and the Palestinians to end "as soon as possible the cycle of violence and get back to peace."
Sa'dallah said that the meeting focused on issues related to peace, and the rights of the Palestinians "to live free in their state," adding that the participants condemned the Israeli military actions "and the injustice that is practiced by Israel on the Palestinian people."
