Frictions are mounting over the Temple Mount

In recent years, attention to the volatility of Israeli-Palestinian relations has ebbed as other parts of the region became exceedingly violent and unpredictable. Yet the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is always a trigger away from a resumption of violence and bloodshed. No place is more susceptible to such danger than Jerusalem, and particularly interference with the status quo in the Temple Mount, as it known for Jews, or Haram Al-Sharif to Muslims.

Periodically, there are irresponsible attempts by messianic zealots to do exactly this in order to spark further hostilities, not only with the Palestinians and the Arab world, but with the entire Muslim world.

In the most recent provocation, an ultra-right Likud member of the Knesset (Parliament), Yehuda Glick, filed a petition with the High Court to allow MPs to visit the Temple Mount, despite opposition from the leader of his own party, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Banning Israeli officials from visiting the Temple Mount was imposed on recommendations by the security establishment, warning against a dangerous flare-up that would be difficult to contain. Netanyahu, who is not a person of great ideological conviction or of great vision, dangerously vacillates on this issue, as with many others, according to his narrow political needs.

Consequently, it is now suggested that he would lift the ban on such visits in a matter of a few months, when certain sensitive dates in the religious-political calendar have passed. The Jewish world is celebrating this week the pilgrimage holiday of Passover and then Jerusalem Day. After that is the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Those are potential flashpoints that extremists on both sides could exploit to advance their apocalyptic agendas.

It is not without good reason that the long-established praying arrangements, reinforced by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War, in which Jews worship in the Wailing Wall area and Muslims in Haram Al-Sharif, have been generally adhered to. These principles have ensured a modicum of stability, with the occasional outburst of violence.

Worryingly, there are small though stubbornly persistent Jewish groups that along the years have made it their mission to interfere with the status quo or even destroy it. In their distorted minds, this would lead to a war that only they could win. This would lead to their ultimate goal of rebuilding the third Jewish temple.

These groups are very small and politically marginal, but they enjoy sympathy from wider circles in Israeli society, including within the political system and even the government. It would be a mistake to underestimate the danger they pose to inflaming the situation on the Temple Mount. Nowhere else does religious messianic zeal meet ultra-nationalism in such close proximity with potentially cataclysmic consequences.

It is easy to dismiss these extremists as no more than an irritation on the margins of society and political life in Israel, but this would be short-sighted. A similar argument was made four decades ago about the nascent settler movement Gush Emonim. More than half a million settlers later, in more than 220 settlements and outposts scattered across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, no one can afford to not take them seriously.

Nipping in the bud attempts to ignite conflict over the Temple Mount must be a priority for Israel’s government. This must be done in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and the Arab League.

As much as the Israeli government tries to distance itself from these fanatics, it does very little to contain them. According to a report by two Israeli NGOs, Ir Amim and Keshev, there are 19 Israeli organizations whose goal is to change the status quo on the Temple Mount, including some that are already planning the building of the third Jewish temple there.

These organizations are legitimized by the government, by being allowed to register legally and by being granted access, directly and indirectly, to government funds. More alarming is the permission they are granted to spread their ideology in schools and youth movements.

Confusingly and unsustainably, the government is sending mixed signals by tacitly supporting these movements, while requiring the security services to prevent them from dragging the country into conflict over the Temple Mount via subversion, political provocation and at times illegal activities.

It is not too much to demand of Netanyahu that on such a delicate issue as the Temple Mount, party and coalition politics should be side-lined in favor of preventing unnecessary and dangerous escalation. Maintaining the status quo is paramount in avoiding wider deterioration in the situation in Jerusalem and beyond. Unilateral actions have proven in the past to be a recipe for disaster, especially in a place that evokes such raw emotion as the Temple Mount.

• Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations at Regent’s University London, where he is head of the International Relations and Social Sciences Program. He is also an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. He is a regular contributor to the international written and electronic media.