The footage of Israeli police deflating a soccer ball spread instantly- but the context behind the story is the part they won’t tell you

A video surfaced recently of Israeli police on the Temple Mount confiscating soccer balls from Muslim children and puncturing them on the spot. Within hours it was everywhere. Headlines called it cruelty, provocation, a deliberate act of oppression against children. People shared it millions of times without asking a single question about what they were actually looking at.

But here’s the question nobody is asking- why were there soccer balls at such a sacred place in the first place?

The Temple Mount is one of the most sacred spaces on earth for multiple religions. For Jews it is without question the holiest place in the world. For thousands of years they have prayed in its direction, said “next year in Jerusalem”, and longed to return to it. That connection is ancient, deep, and unbroken. To treat that space as a soccer field is a tremendous disrespect to the Jews and their history.

More so a blatant disrespect to their own religion. Because Al-Aqsa is not an ordinary mosque. In Islam it’s the third holiest site in the world. And that isn’t a random claim, this is said by Muslim religious leaders, political leaders, and is certainly mentioned every time the site makes it to the news. Its sanctity is supposed to be beyond question.

And it’s not just the mosque building itself that’s considered sacred. The surrounding courtyards, where soccer is regularly played- are also considered sacred in both Judaism and Islam. As it states in the Mishnah (Kelim 1:8) “the Temple Mount has greater sanctity”- the area of the Temple Mount is significantly larger than just where the two temples once stood, as it says in the Mishnah (Middot 2:1) “The Temple Mount was five hundred cubits by five hundred cubits”- that exact space is debatable based on different opinions of what a cubit is, but it ranges between 12.9 acres and 21.8 acres, which is a huge portion of the Temple Mount compound. Many Islamic scholars say that the surrounding courtyards are also considered sacred in Islam- they quote the Quran (Surah Al-Isra 17:1) “from al-Masjid al-Haram to Masjid al-Aqsa, whose surroundings we have blessed” and interpret “surroundings” to mean that the sacredness includes the surrounding courtyards. Yet despite both religions considering these courtyards sacred, they have no basic respect for the holy site.

This isn’t one isolated incident. It’s a regular occurrence to see children playing soccer there, families having picnics, people eating, littering, and sleeping on the grounds. Nobody talks about any of that. It only becomes a story when Israeli police do something about it- that’s when the media flares up.

Compare the Masjid al-Aqsa to how Islam’s other holiest sites are treated. At Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which houses the Kaaba, the holiest site in Islam- you won’t find people kicking a soccer ball around, litter on the ground, or people sleeping across the compound. People don’t behave that way there because they understand where they are. The same goes for the second holiest site in Islam, the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Both places are treated with a level of seriousness that actually matches the status they’re given.

That’s what genuine respect for a holy site looks like.

The default narrative is always the same- Israeli aggression, Palestinian victimhood. The footage of police deflating soccer balls fits that agenda perfectly so that’s what gets pushed. But it’s one moment taken out of a much bigger picture that the media won’t show you. A site so sacred and holy was being used for casual recreation- the very detail that the media purposely ignores.

There’s a standard for what a holy site looks like in Islam. You can see it in Mecca. You can see it in Medina. Nobody imposed that from outside, it comes from within Islam itself.

So why doesn’t the third holiest site meet that standard. And why does nobody covering this region seem to find that worth asking. Because if the sanctity of Al-Aqsa was genuinely felt, it would be regarded in the same status as Mecca and Medina, you wouldn’t need police to stop people from playing soccer there. The respect would already be there. The fact that it isn’t makes you wonder whether they really value its sanctity, or whether it’s about something completely different.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)