The Temple Mount has been, until now, a "hidden
agenda topic" throughout the history of the Arab-Israel conflict. The
Jewish-Zionist position has always sought to downplay the clash of history
and religion for the past eight decades, ever since early Mandate days.
Undoubtedly, the Temple Mount possesses the potential of spinning out of
the control of political and security restraints but that proposition,
daunting as it is, has never been tested or experienced. It is due to
either ignorance or purposeful shunning that the State of Israel is at
present facing a quite "unexpected moment". Thus, with very little
preparation and even less true internal public dialogue, a need for a
major decision regarding the status of the Temple Mount, stretching into
the unforeseeable future, has taken over center stage.
Israel has acted these past 33 years, and continues
to act today, illogically in ignoring the "Jewishness value-quotient" of
the site as well as the ramifications of yielding up sovereignty over it
as well as either the supervision or the administration of the Temple
Mount. Since 1967, Israel’s policies regarding the Temple Mount have been
self-denying and consequentially, self-defeating. At present, Israel is
initiating a break with the historical status quo it itself sought to
establish and maintain, a status quo that worked to Israel’s own
disadvantage.
The issue
of Jerusalem contains too many factors, too many cross-currents and too
much meta-historical weight to allow for a pragmatic solution or
resolution of the conflicting interests. It very well may be unsolvable.
