withdrawal go ahead, they threatened to paralyze the country with civil disorder.Jew fighting Jew is a familiar theme stretching back to the First Jewish Revolt of AD 66â70, a historical event that effectively killed the House of Israel and lost the Temple treasure to Rome. The cliché that history repeats is a deadly truth in the embattled Middle East. Lessons are not learned.
Elsewhere, a bored Jordanian workman repairing the bulging eastern wall of the Temple Mount of Jerusalem was accused of defacing this UNESCO World Heritage Site by incising the word Allah into the masonry. At the Hawara checkpoint outside Nablus, a fifteen-year-old Palestinian suicide bomber was arrested as he tried to take out as many Israeli soldiers as possible. His long woolen overcoat concealing five homemade pipe bombs, worn in temperatures of 86 degrees Fahrenheit, gave his deadly plot away. To travel from the UK to Israel is a complete metamorphosis, a culture shock that sees inertia replaced by thunderous passion.
Jerusalemâs Temple Mount is a place of extremes. With its tranquil landscaped gardens, breathtaking blue-tiled Dome of the Rock mosque, and endless fountains and soothing water features, it is extremely beautiful. When you escape the winding alleys of the Arab souk surrounding the Temple Mount, and pop out of the oriental bustle into the open spaces where the Jewish temples of Solomon and Herod once stood, the air somehow appears cleaner, saturated with spirituality. The accumulation of history on the Temple Mount deeply enhances the sense otherworldliness.
However, the holiest place on earth is also one of the deadliest, a seething volcano of hatred that emits tremors that erupt down the centuries. Over the past four thousand years, 118 conflicts have been fought in Jerusalem. It only takes a minor provocation for all hell to break loose. Witness the Tunnel Riots of September 1996, when the government of Benjamin Natanyahu opened an ancient tunnel complex leading beneath the Western Wall. Fierce fighting kicked off, with the deaths of seventy Palestinians and seventeen Israeli soldiers. In 2000, Ariel Sharonâs politically insensitive visit to Temple Mount triggered the second Palestinian intifada. With good reason Meron Benvenisti,the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, calls the rival Jewish and Muslim claims to the Temple Mount âa time bombâ¦of apocalyptic dimensions.â
In recent years this bomb has started to tick increasingly loudly. One of the fundamental reasons why extremist right-wing Jewish organizations like the Temple Mount Faithful have pressured Vatican City into releasing the Temple treasures looted by Titus in AD 70 is to prepare for the pending liberation of the Mount from Arab occupation and for the rebuilding of a Third Temple. According to Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, a paratrooper who helped free Jerusalem during the Six-Day War of 1967, and founder of the Temple Institute, âThe State of Israel can only be one thingâa State with a Temple at its centerâ¦. All of todayâs troubles originate in the sin of abandoning the Temple Mount and the site of the Holy Temple.â
Such right-wing Jews are convinced that we are living in âend-timeâ that will witness a new Jewish Temple emerge on the Temple Mount. Signs of long-held biblical prophesies shine all around us, typified by the bizarre case of the red heifer. During the Exodus from Egypt and the First and Second Temple periods, anybody entering the Tabernacle or Temple had to be ritually clean. Most purity was ensured through immersion in ritual water baths called mikvaot , still visible to this day clustered around the southern entrance to the Temple . However, people who had come into contact with dead bodies were more seriously contaminated, especially priests performing funerals. In such instances, cleansing revolved around the ashes of an unblemished red heifer sacrificed on the Mount of Olives.
The Bible
Elsewhere, a bored Jordanian workman repairing the bulging eastern wall of the Temple Mount of Jerusalem was accused of defacing this UNESCO World Heritage Site by incising the word Allah into the masonry. At the Hawara checkpoint outside Nablus, a fifteen-year-old Palestinian suicide bomber was arrested as he tried to take out as many Israeli soldiers as possible. His long woolen overcoat concealing five homemade pipe bombs, worn in temperatures of 86 degrees Fahrenheit, gave his deadly plot away. To travel from the UK to Israel is a complete metamorphosis, a culture shock that sees inertia replaced by thunderous passion.
Jerusalemâs Temple Mount is a place of extremes. With its tranquil landscaped gardens, breathtaking blue-tiled Dome of the Rock mosque, and endless fountains and soothing water features, it is extremely beautiful. When you escape the winding alleys of the Arab souk surrounding the Temple Mount, and pop out of the oriental bustle into the open spaces where the Jewish temples of Solomon and Herod once stood, the air somehow appears cleaner, saturated with spirituality. The accumulation of history on the Temple Mount deeply enhances the sense otherworldliness.
However, the holiest place on earth is also one of the deadliest, a seething volcano of hatred that emits tremors that erupt down the centuries. Over the past four thousand years, 118 conflicts have been fought in Jerusalem. It only takes a minor provocation for all hell to break loose. Witness the Tunnel Riots of September 1996, when the government of Benjamin Natanyahu opened an ancient tunnel complex leading beneath the Western Wall. Fierce fighting kicked off, with the deaths of seventy Palestinians and seventeen Israeli soldiers. In 2000, Ariel Sharonâs politically insensitive visit to Temple Mount triggered the second Palestinian intifada. With good reason Meron Benvenisti,the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, calls the rival Jewish and Muslim claims to the Temple Mount âa time bombâ¦of apocalyptic dimensions.â
In recent years this bomb has started to tick increasingly loudly. One of the fundamental reasons why extremist right-wing Jewish organizations like the Temple Mount Faithful have pressured Vatican City into releasing the Temple treasures looted by Titus in AD 70 is to prepare for the pending liberation of the Mount from Arab occupation and for the rebuilding of a Third Temple. According to Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, a paratrooper who helped free Jerusalem during the Six-Day War of 1967, and founder of the Temple Institute, âThe State of Israel can only be one thingâa State with a Temple at its centerâ¦. All of todayâs troubles originate in the sin of abandoning the Temple Mount and the site of the Holy Temple.â
Such right-wing Jews are convinced that we are living in âend-timeâ that will witness a new Jewish Temple emerge on the Temple Mount. Signs of long-held biblical prophesies shine all around us, typified by the bizarre case of the red heifer. During the Exodus from Egypt and the First and Second Temple periods, anybody entering the Tabernacle or Temple had to be ritually clean. Most purity was ensured through immersion in ritual water baths called mikvaot , still visible to this day clustered around the southern entrance to the Temple . However, people who had come into contact with dead bodies were more seriously contaminated, especially priests performing funerals. In such instances, cleansing revolved around the ashes of an unblemished red heifer sacrificed on the Mount of Olives.
The Bible
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