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A God-given muddle that God alone may be able to sort out

Because men have failed to do so

THINK of Jerusalem as a holy place, and at least two images spring to mind.
One is the towering slab of yellow-white, pockmarked stone, at the foot of
which Hebrew prayers are softly uttered. The other is the dazzling golden
dome that commands the sky-line. These images are different views of the
same structure: the western wall, a focal point for Jewish prayer and
pilgrimage, is one of the supports for the elevated stone platform that is
known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, or the
Noble Sanctuary.

Most Jews revere the mount as the generally accepted site of the first and
second temples which were seen as unique points of encounter between man and
God (though their exact position is disputed). The Dome of the Rock, and
al-Aqsa mosque at the southern end of the platform, affirm Jerusalem as
al-Quds, the holy place which Muslims rank third in sanctity after Mecca and
Medina because of the night journey to heaven Muhammad is believed to have
made from the mount. In the tradition of Christians, most of whom celebrate
Easter this week, the mount is where Pontius Pilate sat in judgment over a
man who dared to call himself‹not a building‹the locus of divinity on earth.

If some prize existed for the most explosive piece of real estate in the
world, this 35-acre platform would surely win. The uneasy peace that
prevails there at the moment rests on the status quo that was enforced by
Israel when its army took control of east Jerusalem in 1967.

The platform and its Muslim holy places are under the custody of an Islamic
waqf, or religious foundation, while Israel is responsible for security and
access. No organised Jewish prayer is allowed on the platform; this ban is
underpinned by a rabbinic ruling that Jews should avoid going to the mount
for fear of straying into the former site of the ³holy of holies²‹the most
sacred part of the temple‹in an impure state.

Many religious Jews and pious Muslims grumble over the present regime.
Muslims are resentful when the Israeli authorities, at times of high
tension, impose restrictions on access, for example by keeping out young
men. And there are half a dozen small but vocal Jewish groups who demand, at
a minimum, the right to pray on the platform‹and in some cases dream of
replacing the Muslim places of worship with a third temple, ready to greet
the Messiah.

But the tensions caused by the current regime are minor compared with the
fury that could follow any attempt to settle the platform's future for good.
In the four decades since Israel took control, religious arguments have
intensified. Among Muslims everywhere, al-Aqsa mosque has gained prominence
as a symbol. The Jews who long to build a third temple have won allies among
some American evangelical Christians. Palestinian Muslims are less willing
than before to acknowledge the site's Jewish antecedents, while Jews have
retorted that Muslims care about Jerusalem only when its political status is
in dispute.

In 2000, when the Clinton administration made the last serious attempt at an
overall Israeli-Palestinian settlement, proposals for dividing the mount
(for example, by giving the Palestinians the platform's surface, while
leaving Israel everything beneath, including the wall) triggered howls of
rage from both sides. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians could bear to give
up any part of the structure.

It has since been argued that because partition will never be accepted, the
two sides must either agree to disagree and focus on practical matters‹or
else agree that in such a holy place, no human power can hold sway, so it
should be subject only to the sovereignty of God. Nobody has defined what
this proposal (first floated by the late King Hussein of Jordan) would mean
in practice. It implies, perhaps, that the mount be denationalised, with
international guarantees ensuring freedom of worship for all. But first the
children of Abraham have to set aside their nationalistic ambitions.


Copyright © 2006 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights
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