By implanting metal detectors at the Temple Mount, Israel has triggered a crisis with international reverberations. Israel was demonstrating its power, not its sovereignty. An op-ed by Talia Sasson.
The Temple Mount upon which the al-Aqsa Mosque is located comprises a part of “East Jerusalem”, the same part of the West Bank that Israel after the 1967 war immediately declared as “East Jerusalem”, unilaterally imposing Israeli law on the territory. This mosque compound, which is known as Haram al-Sharif for Muslims, is one of the most holy sites in Islam. If this place was damaged, as long as it is under Israeli control, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would become a small drop in the Muslim-Jewish hatred that would ignite around the world with Israel situated at its center. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict would become religious and unsolvable and this issue would have serious international ramifications.
Israel, that recognized the delicate nature of the site, demonstrated from the first days after the 1967 war great sensitivity toward the Temple Mount. It decided that the arrangements that existed on the mount before the occupation would remain. Control and religious responsibility would stay with the Islamic Waqf and the political oversight of the mount would remain with Jordan. Jews were not allowed to ascend the mount to pray there due to sensitivities of the matter for the Muslim public even though there is a strain of Judaism that considers the place holy according to Judaism. All these Israeli stipulations were set down due to the understanding that any damage to Islamic religious sovereignty could bring destruction to both sides.
Increasing fanaticism on both sides
Fifty years have passed. Both sides are trying to maintain their grips on the mount. Each side is busy monitoring the actions of the other with a magnifying glass. With the passage of time and the increasing fanaticism of both sides, there have been those who took advantage of the sensitivities of the site in order to gain popularity among the supporters in their camp. For this reason Ariel Sharon (prior to his election as prime minister) ascended the mount in 2000 at a particularly tense time. Immediately afterward the Second Intifada broke out. In this way the Islamic Movement in Israel publicized many times that “Haram a-Sharif is in danger” in order to provoke the devout Muslim public to oppose Israeli control over the mount.
This is the background for the affair of the metal detectors that were set up on the mount in response to a terror attack that Palestinians committed against Israeli citizens on the mount about two weeks ago, killing two Israeli border patrolmen.
Why does the installation of metal detectors at the mount become a security, political and international problem when they are also meant to protect the lives of Palestinians passing through their gates? After all, this is allegedly a minor act. Well, no, actually not.
Israel is busy proving it is the sovereign
Indeed, Israel has imposed Israeli law on the site but no country in the world has recognized its sovereignty over the area. Israel is busy proving to Israelis and the entire world that it is the sovereign at the site and this is the picture it presents to its citizens. Thus every metal detector becomes a seismograph for its sovereignty. In Palestinian eyes, each placement of a metal detector becomes a change in the “status quo”. Changes in the “status quo” are only allowed with the agreement of the Waqf and the king of Jordan. Israel is busy proving its sovereignty and has forgotten the other side. In its eyes, the other side is invisible. Israel's “sovereignty” over the mount is actually the power of control over the mount. It is trying to present the “occupation” as “sovereignty”. It is ignoring the fact that sovereignty is granted based on agreements between countries. It is trying to present control by force over the mount as an act of sovereignty.
In such a way the current tensions have erupted. They are dependent upon the Israeli refusal to “recognize” that the other side also has control over the mount. And on the other hand they are fanned by the Palestinian opposition to change by even one millimetre the status quo without the prior approval of its representatives.
Will Israel learn the lesson?
We all know that the metal detector affair ended with their removal. Preparations for the installation of advanced security cameras that were supposed to replace them have stopped. The mount has returned to its previous state and only after the approval of the Waqf the worshippers returned to their places in the Al Aqsa Mosque.
The question that is posed is will Israel learn the lesson? Will in the future the quiet talks with the Waqf and others be held in order to increase the security at the site? And in order to reach prior arrangements before any changes on the ground are made at the site?
Beyond all of this, the question remains: When will the government of Israel present to the Israeli public the naked truth? When will Israel admit that it has no sovereignty over the site and it never will?
Only a peace agreement, an agreement regarding sovereignty (joint or otherwise) and arrangements agreed-upon by the two sides that are applied to the mount can reduce the severity of the danger that the mount poses for Israel and the entire world. Only the Israeli government's exposure of the truth can bring a change that can contribute to peace between the sides and the world.
