“Temple Mount Faithful” members and right-wing activists in Israel maintain that Jews have the right to ascend to the Temple Mount, similar to the Muslim right to do so. Even if we assume that their claim is just and that Jews do indeed have the historic right to ascend and pray on the Mount as Muslims do, the choice is between a religiously motivated intifada, and distancing right-wing activists from the center of conflict — the Temple Mount.

Perhaps in the past understandings could have been reached with the Palestinians to allow Jewish groups to ascend to the Mount and pray. But that was not accomplished. Solutions were not obtained, not even in the course of peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, talks that have collapsed in the meantime.

What was not accomplished in the past through dialogue and understandings cannot, so it seems, be created now, when the earth in Jerusalem is burning under our feet and there is concern that a “second Al-Aqsa intifada” may well spill over into the West Bank. At that point, no security coordination will be able to stop it. Apparently, there is only one way to try to halt the downward spiral, before we again use a million bullets and transform the bus stations in the capital city into shelters: To close the Temple Mount to Jews.

On the advice of Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch and the Jerusalem police, it was decided to place concrete railings around bus stations and underground train stations to protect pedestrians. While these may give some local protection to travelers, they ostensibly won’t be able to stop assailants from among the residents of East Jerusalem who believe that they are engaged in a religious war.

via The third intifada is here – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.