The idea of installing state-of-the-art cameras around the age-old site sacred to generation upon generation of Jews and Muslims and streaming the video footage online seems the perfect solution to the bloody conflict over the Temple Mount. Why didn’t we think of it before? Why don’t we install similar cameras around mosques, churches and monasteries, which have become desirable targets in pyromaniacal Jewish circles? And why deprive the Palestinian olive groves so attractive to rioters sporting large Jewish skullcaps on their heads? Miniature cameras could be pinned onto the uniform shirts of Israel Defense Forces soldiers, much as the police will soon be doing. This might make them think more before using their weapons.

Smart and creative management is essential under conditions of occupation, and could minimize the damages caused by it. On the one hand, 2½ intifadas, hundreds of kilometers of walls and thousands of deaths, including of one prime minister, are a reminder that managing the occupation costs us dearly. On the other hand, countless attempts to resolve the conflict using conventional tools such as negotiations, UN resolutions and sanctions have not yielded results. The messianic zealotry blended with radical nationalism that has taken hold of the Zionist religious camp is gaining strength. On top of it all, politicians hungry for publicity add fuel to the fire. At the same time, the secular pragmatic peace camp is being emptied of content and with it, hope for ending the conflict.

It’s highly doubtful that cameras around the walls will deter Messianic Jews determined to pray in the shadow of the mosques, of all places. Cameras are not sure to calm the Jews busy sewing the ornamental curtain for the holy ark, nor those engaged in looking for a red cow. On Oct. 21, a group of leading rabbis of the religious Zionist Camp issued a public letter of support for Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, who chose to have himself filmed while mumbling a prayer on the Temple mount. These municipal rabbis and rabbinical college heads praised him for his move “in the face of international interference in events on our sacred mount, the discrimination and trampling of basic rights at the holy site.” Some of the letter’s signatories are instrumental in the nonprofit organizations promoting the notion of wiping out the mosques to make room for the Third Temple. Similarly, on Oct. 26, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely revealed her dream of unfurling an Israeli flag at the summit of the Temple Mount. 

It’s hard to imagine the streaming video will distance from the compound those Muslim hooligans who have appointed themselves keepers of the holy sites. Hamas and the northern branch of the Islamic Movement won't stop spreading baseless rumors about the government’s plan to violate the status quo there. Presently, the Temple Mount site is administered by the Muslim Waqf and Jews are permitted to visit it but not to pray there. Arab Knesset member Jamal Zahalka (United List), a distinctly secular man, lashed out on Sept. 29 at a group of Jewish worshipers on the Temple Mount and at the policemen who accompanied them, shouting, “Kahanist criminals … Go to hell, you crazy criminals! This is my house. You’re not wanted here!”