What Happens In Mecca Stays In Mecca

You know how Arabs and other Muslims freak out whenever Israel does much of anything, however minor, to shore up or uncover antiquities in the Old City of Jerusalem? Well, maybe they would be better advised to spare a second to look at the far more drastic--and destructive--changes occurring right now in Islam's holiest city:

Now the city is being moulded to a particularly Saudi vision that bolsters the rule of the Al Saud royal family. 

Two forces shape that vision. One is raw, petrodollar-fueled capitalism. Mecca's planners are largely catering to wealthier pilgrims by focusing on construction of five-star hotels, surrounding the Kaaba in marble-sheathed luxury. Nearby pilgrims can shop at international chains, including a Paris Hilton store and a gender-segregated Starbucks. 

The other force is Wahhabism, the strict, puritanical interpretation of Islam that the Al Saud rulers elevated to the country's official doctrine. In return, Wahhabi clerics staunchly back the monarchy. The monarchy has long given Wahhabi clerics a monopoly of preaching at the Kaaba. 

One tenet of Wahhabism is that Muslim tombs or sites connected to revered figures -- even the Prophet Muhammad, his family and companions -- should be destroyed to avoid veneration of anything other than God. It's the same iconoclastic zeal that has prompted militants from the Islamic State group to blow up Muslim shrines in Iraq and Syria. 

In Mecca, hardly any site associated with Muhammad remains. Many were destroyed in previous expansions of the Grand Mosque in the 1980s and 1990s, and the new development is finishing off much of what remains. In 2008, for example, the house of Abu Bakr, Muhammad's successor as leader of the Muslim community, was razed to make way for a Hilton. 

The country's top religious official, Grand Mufti Abdul-Aziz Al-Sheik, backed such demolitions last year, saying "the removal of such things within the expansion is necessary."

If the Muslim world wasn't so unhinged by the derangements of Zionhass, it would likely be paying far more attention to the crass Las Vegasation of Mecca than to the painstaking archaeological and preservationist efforts taking place in Jerusalem. Of course, the fact that the Jews are behind these initiatives is precisely what makes Arabs and other Muslims (including those lovable Shias over in Ayatollahville) so crazy.