The most dangerous piece of real estate on earth can be found in the Old City of Jerusalem. An elevated piazza, looming over the warren of lanes below, it’s known as Temple Mount by Jews and the Haram al-Sharif by Muslims. Venerated by both religions, this tangle of bricks and stone is also steeped in mythology. And soon enough, if a group of Jewish extremists get their way, it could spark a cataclysm.
For Jews, Temple Mount is where God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. As Abraham set out to obey God’s instruction, an angel appeared to stay his hand. A ram is caught and sacrificed instead — a founding event of Jewish theology. This place would later become the site of Solomon’s Temple, the spot where God was called down to be among His people, and where priests made daily sacrifices for the atonement of the people’s sins. Even before the Babylonians destroyed this First Temple in 587 BC, violence and religion sat side by side here.
In 70 AD, the Romans razed the so-called Second Temple as punishment for Jewish rebellion. They built a shrine to Jupiter on the site of Jewish sacrifice, and slaughtered pigs there as an insult. Later, Christians would use the site as a rubbish tip, doubtless for similar reasons. It became a holy space again only with the Arab conquest of Jerusalem, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque was built in the seventh century. It remains the oldest surviving example of Islamic architecture. This was where Muhammad was said to have landed on the back of a winged horse to lead Abraham, Moses and Jesus in prayer. For Muslims, then, this is the spot from where Muhammad ascended to heaven.
Ever since the Crusaders were ejected from Jerusalem by Saladin, the hill has been administered by Muslims. But when Israeli paratroopers re-took East Jerusalem during the Six-Day war, in 1967, they raised the Israeli flag over the Temple Mount compound. Watching with his binoculars a few miles away, Defence Minister Moshe Dayan ordered the soldiers to take the flag down. “Do you want to set the Middle East on fire?” he apparently barked down the radio. The flag was removed. For a brief moment, Jews had taken back control of Temple Mount. But even in the midst of victory, Dayan knew this was a step too far. The third-holiest site on earth to Muslims, the Star of David had the potential to engulf the region in an apocalypse of Biblical proportions.
To this day, Temple Mount is administered by Jordan. Even the Rabbis have been remarkably consistent in forbidding Jews from climbing up the hill. The place is just too holy, and without being properly purified according to ancient custom, the very act of walking on the site constitutes an act of defilement. Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a very direct statement to his Security Cabinet that there has been no change to the status quo regarding Temple Mount — nor would there be. Even Netanyahu knows how dangerous such a prospect would be.
But the very fact the prime minister felt forced to clarify Israel’s position is worrying enough.
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