Mosque Busters

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"Yehuda Etzion was no less colorful. A student of the Elon Shvut Yeshiva, determined and zealous in his faith, he was among the 'professional settlers' during the first years of Gush Emunim, spending long periods on the hilltops, moving constantly from one to another. Etzion did his military service as a paramilitary yeshiva soldier in combat engineering, a unit that provided him with the training in explosives that he latter used in terror group activities. He was a partner to the first settlement attempt by the Elon Moreh nucleus in Samaria, in the spring of 1974, and was among those who were forcibly evacuated while Sharon was endeavoring to protect him with his own body and instructing the evacuating soldiers to refuse to obey orders. Afterward Etzion headed the work brigade out of which the settlement of Ofra grew. During the days of Camp David he took part in demonstrations all over the country and organized protest settlements. However, the failure of the settlement attempt at Rujaib near Nablus right after the signing of the Camp David agreements led him to cut himself off from Gush Emunim and to a period of isolation and thought. Settling the land no longer looked to him like the most important course of action. He set out to seek a 'personality of spiritual stature, who would put himself at the head of an initiative that would march the Jewish people toward the fulfillment of their destiny'. The books of his relative, Shabtai Ben-Dov, and the conversations he conducted with his friend Yeshua Ben Shushan gave him ideas about the ways of accelerating the process of the Redemption... When Etzion asked... Ben-Dov whether removing the Dome of the Rock from the Temple Mount would start a dynamic of Redemption, the latter replied..., 'If you want to do a deed that will solve all of the problems of the Jewish people - do that!' Etzion and Ben Shushan turned for advice to Rabbi Zvi Yehudah Kook, the spiritual leader of Gush Emunim, and the rabbi directed them to Ariel Sharon." (Lords of the Land: The War Over Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007, Idith Zertal & Akiva Eldar, 2007, pp 81-82)

"The destruction of a mosque by Hindu radicals that led to some of the bloodiest religious riots in India since Partition was 'meticulously planned' by politicians including a former prime minister, according to a leaked report of the official investigation. The razing of the 16th-century Babri Mosque - in the northern town of Ayodhya, on December 6, 1992, by an estimated 150,000 Hindus - led to national violence in which about 2000 people died, mostly Muslims. The demolition also cemented the power base of the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which came to power 4 years later. BJP hardliners had long claimed the mosque stood on the birthplace of Lord Rama, the Hindu warrior god, and had campaigned for a Hindu temple to be built on the site... Those [politicians] allegedly involved included former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee..." (Hindu MPs behind razing of mosque, Rhys Blakely, The Australian, 25/11/09)

"Ariel Sharon [was] the first Israeli prime minister to visit India since independence in 1947... During a dinner organised in his honour by his Indian counterpart, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, on September 9, Sharon reaffirmed his government's determination to 'act against terror'. Vajpayee said: 'Our defence cooperation rests on the foundation of mutual understanding of security concerns'. The spectacular blossoming of Israeli-Indian relations owes much to their joint perceptions of 'Islamic threats' in Kashmir and in Palestine. Long fascinated by Israel, the leaders of the nationalist Hindu Indian Peoples Party (BJP) decided in 1999, after a fresh wave of bloody clashes with Kashmiri guerillas... to call on Israeli expertise... The events of September 11, 2001, further boosted that cooperation, and the Indian prime minister's national security adviser... speaking earlier this year to the American Jewish Committee in Washington, argued in favour of a central axis consisting of the United States, Israel and India that would fight terrorism together. Israel is now India's second-largest arms supplier after Russia." (Sharon & Vajpayee see eye to eye on terror, Francoise Chipaux, Guardian Weekly, 18/9/03)