...Actually...if a religious site is sacred to only one religion then I don't know why the entity that owns the site would need to accommodate other religions, do you?...
In the example of Mecca, specifically, or Saudi Arabia, more broadly, it becomes a question of freedom of religious expression and practice, rather than sites themselves.
...If a site is sacred to multiple religions they they should all be accommodated...
Agreed.
...If Muslims control a site that is sacred to Jews, Jews should be allowed to safely travel there...
Agreed.
It should cut both ways.
...But as you yourself said - Mecca has no value to Jews...
True.
Because the Muslims drove them out, centuries ago.
...Each country is an individual entity with it's own laws and practices...
Yes. And that holds as true for Israel as it does for Saudi Arabia.
If the Saudis are allowed to prohibit Jewish or Christian or Buddhist or other non-Muslim public worship in area(s) they deem appropriate, then the Jews have the same right.
...It doesn't matter if it predates it - it is sacred to both. Both should have a right to worship there, as long as they behave. We're not talking about something being sacred for just a few years - it goes back over a thousand years. People need to grow up and start treating like the holy place it is...
Yes. That has been tried. Time and again, for 1300 years or more, and the arrangement always and eventually falls apart; mostly attributable to Muslim fundamentalism over time.
When you add concerns over State security into the mix, such concerns tend to catalyze and/or accelerate the dissolution of such arrangements.
...No merit - the comparison is apples and oranges...
Disagree.
...You are comparing freedom to worship (in general) with access to religious holy sites...
By Jove, I think you've got it.
The issue of reciprocal accommodation for freedom of worship is a far broader and loftier and more important concept, and the mixing of 'levels' in such an example has merit as an illustration and object lesson; i.e.: "Why should we allow you to worship as you wish in our capital when you prohibit us from worshipping as we wish in yours?"
...Ideally - all religions should be free to build houses of worship in any country, but they aren't and it's not just Muslim countries.
True. But, in todays' world, it's
mostly Muslim countries, and you know that as well as I do, don't you?
I'm quite confident that if you and I established defining parameters, then constructed a list of countries with restrictions on freedom of worship, that Muslim countries with such restrictions would outnumber non-Muslim countries with such restrictions, by a considerable margin.
I have no prior knowledge nor certainty that this is what we would find, but confidence is quite high, that this is what our research would indicate.
You probably share that very same intuitive observation.
All of which speaks to 'reciprocity' in this context.
Without reciprocity, when the more accommodating 'side' decides to begin restricting access, then they may conveniently hold-out the even more draconian restrictions on the other side of the fence, as an adequate defense for acting in their own best interests.
No tickee... no washee...
No reciprocity? Then stop bitching about restrictions, or plans to impose such restrictions. You(r advocacy-beneficiaries) have no room to talk.
And, in the journey to that ultimate conclusion, the original
Temple Mount--Mecca comparison does, indeed, have merit, despite its seeming 'disconnectedness', at first glance.
