Does the Temple Mount in Jerusalem really hold the key to war and peace in the modern world? Consider this… A little more than three decades ago, a radical right wing Israeli named Yehuda Etzion became involved in a dark conspiracy that may well have brought on World War III. Ultimately convicted and imprisoned by the state of Israel for his own brand of Jewish terrorism, Etzion became inflamed over Menachem Begin’s peace deal, whereby Israel gave back the entire Sinai peninsula to Egypt’s Prime Minister Anwar Sadat. As one of the leaders of the Israeli settlers – those intent on a slow annexation of the territories won by the Jewish state in the 1967 Six Day War – he joined forces with the “Jewish Underground,” to hatch a plot right out of an espionage thriller. During his service in the Israeli Defense Force, he had become acquainted with high explosives, and he decided to use them.
In the aftermath of the 1980 ambush and murder of six Jewish students in the West Bank city of Hebron, the Jewish Underground set out on a course of revenge. Etzion explained, “In Jewish tradition the period of one month has a special meaning. It’s the period of mourning. So we decided on a timetable of one month.” That was when they struck, planting explosives in the cars of three Palestinian mayors. Bassam Shaka, the mayor of Nablus, lost both of his legs from the blast. It didn’t matter that the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service found no involvement on the part of the victims in the killing of the students in Hebron. Karim Gilon, head of the Shin Bet, said, “We have no information that they were involved in any terror act.” But the case remained unsolved, prompting an intensive investigation over two years, involving ninety policemen and spearheaded by Israel’s Serious Crimes Division.
Three years later, the Jewish Underground struck again, in retaliation for the killing of a yeshivah student in Hebron. Two men went into Hebron’s Islamic College and opened fire, lobbing a hand grenade as well. Three Muslim students died in the attack, and thirty-three others were wounded.
Meanwhile, Etzion and his co-conspirators were planning “Armageddon.” The six hundred pounds of high explosive they had diverted from IDF stockpiles would be sufficient to accomplish the task. As Etzion explained, “Redemption without the Temple is like trying to revive someone without a heart.” Destroying the Dome, he believed, would accomplish the dual task of undoing the “treacherous” peace with Egypt and clear the sacred plateau so that the Temple may be rebuilt. It would also bring about unimaginable strife in the region. Shekh Muhammad Hussein declared, “Damaging the holy shrine would lead to repercussions, the scale of which I can’t even imagine.” One can’t overestimate the incendiary nature of the thirty-five acres that comprise the Temple Mount, and the potential of this sacred turf to bring on some kind of apocalyptic conflict throughout the Middle East, even culminating in an “Armageddon” scenario. Izar Beh of the Israel’s Keshev Center (monitoring extreme nationalist and religious groups) stated: “To harm the mosque means a global war between the Arab world and the Islamic world against Israel, and there is no doubt that it could be a war that may bring destruction to the state of Israel.”
Notwithstanding the determination of the Jewish Underground, agents of Shin Bet apprehended fifteen conspirators in April, 1984, for planting bombs beneath six busses in Arab East Jerusalem. They were meant to be detonated following Friday prayers, coinciding with the celebration of Isra and Mira’j (the Prophet Muhammad’s night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and back), as worshippers were returning from mosque. In the sting that followed, the settlement of Kiryat Arba (near Hebron) was raided, uncovering significant amounts of high explosives, along with weaponry. There were at least twenty-five arrests, including Rabbi Moshe Levinger and settler leader Eliezer Waldman. As the “big picture” emerged, the most incredible intrigue of all was revealed – the Jewish Underground’s targeting of the Dome of the Rock itself.
The guilty verdict that followed on the heels of the trial was a surprise to no one. As if the Middle East didn’t already have enough reasons for World War III, did Israel really need this as well? For having planned an attack against the Islamic college, three of the conspirators, Menachem Livni, Shaul Nir and Uzi Sharbav, were given life sentences. After serving seven years, Israeli President Chaim Herzog commuted their sentences, and they returned home to heroes’ welcomes. While the Jewish Underground hailed them, the larger settlement movement – Gush Emunim (“the Block of the Faithful”) – turned on them, and their tactics of killing innocents. And while it’s clear through all of this that the Jewish state has its extremists, it’s equally clear that Israel arrests its home-grown terrorists. The Palestinian Authority, by contrast, names streets in their honor!
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