During the Roman era, the Temple Mount played a central role in the empire’s “divide and rule” strategy. In the first century B.C., the Roman governor Gabinius reinstated John Hyrcanus as high priest of the Jewish Temple, but handed over much of the power to rule the province to a group of rival noblemen. As concerns the modern era, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will go down in history as a politician who built a magnificent political career on foundations of enmity, on walls he erected between the people of Israel — between those on the right and the left, Jews and Arabs, the religious and secular, between ordinary Israelis and human rights activists and the media. History books will also credit him with the singular achievement of unifying the Arab and Muslim worlds against Israel and the Jewish people.

For years, the Palestinians have been trying with very limited success to unify the Arab and Muslim worlds around their struggle for the right to self-determination. Even as Israeli flags are unfurled over dozens of new, invasive outposts in the occupied West Bank, however, the flags of Jordan and Egypt continue to fly over their embassies in Israel. The Gulf states are tied up in a war in Yemen and a conflict with Qatar, while the Sunnis and Shiites are busy with mutual bloodletting. In addition, when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' allies take time off from their rivalry with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, they seek shelter from the plots being hatched by former senior Fatah member Mohammed Dahlan and his people to dethrone Abbas. This is all without even mentioning the all-out wars in Syria and Iraq.

For years, the Palestinians also set their sights on Washington and major European capitals to convince of their cause. With few options left, they even initially had high hopes for US President Donald Trump, a man who can barely keep things together at home. French President Emmanuel Macron, newly settled in the Elysee Palace, is focusing most of his energies on domestic issues. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is in the throes of an election campaign. British Prime Minister Theresa May has troubles of her own with the European Union. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israeli products is not doing too well, either. For every singer who boycotts Israel, a dozen others — singers, dance and theater troupes — flock there. In addition, the number of Israeli artists — a group considered a bastion of the left — who refuse to perform in Israeli West Bank settlements is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of performances being staged at the culture centers in the settlement towns of Ariel and Kiryat Arba.

Now, although Abbas and his entourage are hardly saints, their patience has been rewarded. The Israeli government with Netanyahu at the helm has done the job for them, turning their waning national struggle into an incendiary religious feud. The government obediently played the role in which it was cast by the three Israeli Arabs who murdered two Israeli police officers on the Temple Mount July 14. The three knew what they were doing when they picked the site, holy to both Jews and Muslims.