In June, Israel marked a half-century since the liberation, in the 1967 Six-Day War, of the Jewish people’s holiest site, the Temple Mount, or of the conquest of the Haram al-Sharif, one of Islam’s holiest sites, depending on one’s point of view. Echoes of jubilant Israeli celebrations had barely died down when the sound of shooting reverberated on the site. On July 14, three Israeli Arabs shot and killed two Israel Border Police officers at the entrance of the Temple Mount compound.
In fact, this flashpoint has been luring various kinds of zealots since Israel captured it in June 1967. In 1969, a messianic Christian set fire to Al-Aqsa Mosque, damaging the pulpit. In the 1980s, Israeli security forces thwarted a plot by the so-called Jewish Underground to blow up al-Aqsa and the nearby Dome of the Rock. In 1982, a Jewish soldier opened fire on the Temple Mount plaza, murdering a Muslim guard and injuring Israeli soldiers, and broke into the Dome of the Rock and fired in every direction. In 1990, Israeli police killed 17 Palestinians during rioting at the compound. Israeli soldiers killed seven Palestinians, four of them on the Temple Mount, in riots that broke out following a visit to the site by Likud leader Ariel Sharon in October 2000.
