In order to understand Moslem opposition to metal detectors one first needs to understand the issue of believers and non-believers in the Koran.
Believers and nonbelievers is in fact the main subject of the Koran, which is really a massive collection of long descriptions of unbelievers; the various degrees of unbelief, examples from the New and the Old Testament of unbelief, like the Sura of the cow, which is an example of how the Jews abandoned their belief in God to serve the golden calf in the wilderness and so revealed their unbelief, descriptions of the fate of the unbelievers, a few descriptions of the rewards of believers, how to recognize an unbeliever who disguises himself as a believer etc. etc.
Moslems are constantly on their guard against non believers because really there is nothing else to Islam besides being the religion of the true believers, whose main task in life, according to the Koran, is to distinguish between believers and non-believers
If the Moslems could invent an unbeliever detector they would be happy, but the metal detector comes close to serving that purpose. It can detect crosses, stars of David, made of metal and other religious objects that Christians and Jews tend to carry with them
Moslems are so obsessed with their search for unbelievers that the slightest sneeze in the direction of Al Aqsa, can be considered a non-believer's way of insulting Allah and can cause a riot.
The Koran, strictly adjures the believer to be wary of unbelievers.
This issue was so important, that, when Israel conquered Al Aqsa (The Temple Mount) in June 1967 (six day war) the government of Israel gave control of the Jewish holy site to the Muslims, despite the fact that Jews had been praying for nearly 2000 years to return to this site, the site of their holy temple.
The State of Israel did this because Jews are in the category of non-believers and Moslems are so sensitive to this issue that Jewish control would have been such a catastrophe that the whole Moslem world would have come against the Jewish People and that certainly wasn't the objective of the State of Israel.
Israel is a secular state and is only interested in protecting the civil rights of all citizens, including the right to practice whatever religious belief appeals to them.
Also Judaism doesn't categorize people into believers and non-believers, so no harm is done if non-Jews happen to be in control of the Temple Mount. It's been under the control of non-Jews for 2000 years and Judaism doesn't hold any grudge against Moslems or Christians because they have happened to be in control of the site of the Jewish temple.
Moslem leaders are so well aware of their follower's sensitivity towards expression of unbelief that they use the accusation of unbeliever to rouse their followers to action, as we’ve heard in recent weeks the cry of “save al Aqsa”, “the Jews are desecrating Al Aqsa” and so on.
Unfortunately this cry incites many simple minded people among the Moslems to take it into their heads to carry out cruel acts of retribution against Jews. The result being, for example the cruel slaughter by a young Arab of a Jewish family in Neve Tzuf this last Friday night. He believed that he was carrying out a duty put on him by Allah, protecting the honor of Islam and the honor of Allah and the honor of Al Aqsa and so on.
So Israel sets up metal detectors as part of its program of guarding the safety of its population and the Moslem Council demands that Israel set up metal detectors to sort out the believers from the non-believers, by detecting metal crosses and stars of David and putting bags belonging to non Muslims though X-ray scanners to find Bibles and prayer books.
In its hysterical search for non-believers, the WAQF actually compels the State of Israel to place metal detectors at the Mograbi gate where non-Moslems enter.
Metal detectors to search non Muslims is okay, but metal detectors to search Moslems isn't okay. Bibles and crosses are dangerous, because they can reveal non-believers, knives and bombs, on the contrary are useful in punishing non-believers.
It is clear to anyone who has ever visited this site that the Muslim guards aren't there to ensure security and safety; they are there to guard against non-believers. With this objective in mind they stalk non Muslims visiting the site, carefully watching and listening for any sign of non-belief or potential non-nbelief. If I sit with my tour group under a tree and start explaining the history and religious significance of the place, you can be sure I'll be told to move on, because sitting at the holy site by non-believers is an insult to believers.After I've moved on, a Moslem guard will stand by and listen for anything in my talk that he considers non-belief.
Once the group decided to sing a hymn, well you should have see the furor; every guard in the place came running, like a bunch of maniacs, as if we were threatening to blow up the mosque or start a fire or something. In the light of their behavior I concluded that they were just plain crazy, but they're not crazy, they are simply obsessed with the injunctions of the Koran against non-believers.
There's no other word for it, perhaps hysterical, hysterical in protecting the sanctity of the place against non-believers.
Now one can understand that compelling Moslems to pass through metal detectors is tantamount to branding them as unbelievers, the worst accusation that can possibly be launched against a Moslem.
The fury demonstrated by Palestinians, in their demonstrations against the use of metal detectors is exactly what Arab leaders want.
One can conclude from all this that the terrorist attack was designed to create conflict.
In fact every terrorist attack carried out by Palestinians is carried out with the object of creating conflict.
The conflict that arises out of a terrorist attack is the main object of the attack.
The normal situation of a subjugated nation is that conflict is caused by the suffering of the people. Suffering motivates them to conflict .
Unfortunately for the Arab nations, however the Palestinians aren't suffering, on the contrary, most of them don't live under Israeli authority but under Palestinian authority, so they can't in all honesty have any cause to feel animosity towards Israel, who allows them their own government and complete freedom in their territory.
In situations where Palestinian live under Israeli authority there is no oppression, there they are treated as equals with Israelis in every respect and don't feel the need to rise up in opposition to Israel.
So the only way for the Arab nations to get their people to rise up against Israel is to create an artificial conflict situation, such as carrying out a terrorist attack, like the one at the Temple Mount, that will cause Israel to take strict action to prevent further attacks and to arouse the anger of the general Palestinian population.
In this respect the attack has been successful; Israel closed the Temple Mount to worshipers and the Palestinians feel that their religious freedom has been compromised.
Moreover Israel has set up metal detectors to reveal knives and bombs, while the Palestinians choose to accuse Israel of insulting Moslem believers, intimating the worst crime in Islam, the crime of unbelief.