Playing 'I predict a riot' in Jerusalem is a fairly futile
game. The Israeli police expected one today for a variety of reasons and it
never happened, partly because they deployed 3,000 officers. Stones were thrown
etc. but not what you would call a full-on Jerusalem riot.
But the authorities remain braced. For several reasons. This
was a pretty disastrous week for the peace process, buried again shortly after
a premature resurrection in the middle of a US vice-presidential visit. And
Palestinians are still angry about Israel's inclusion of two West Bank holy
sites on the list they want to renovate.
The city is in a febrile state. Rumours are circulating as
they often do.
One of them centres on an old Jewish prophecy about the
Temple Mount. An 18th century rabbinical one that says when the Hurva Synagogue
in the Old City is restored for the third time, then work will begin on rebuilding
the Jewish Temple itself.
The Hurva Synagogue was built in the 1700s and rebuilt in
the early 1800s. The Jordanians destroyed it again in 1948. It will be
rededicated on Monday.
The Jewish Temple has also been destroyed twice, most
recently by the Romans in the first century AD. It is thought to have stood
where the Dome of the Rock, Islam's third most holy shrine stands today. A
rabbinical authority Vilna Goan predicted the Third Temple's construction will
begin when the Hurva Synagogue's renovation is complete.
The prophecy is likely to be the source of the rumour
circulating among Palestinians in East Jerusalem that a cornerstone for the
Third Temple will be laid some time this week.
The situation is not helped by the fact that Israeli
governments have given control of sensitive historic sites near to the Temple
Mount to radical Jewish settler organisations. Their members will openly tell
you how they yearn for the Third Temple's reconstruction on the Mount.
The pre-eminence of these organisations is seen by
Palestinians as a provocation in a city they claim for their capital.
Plenty of reasons to continue predicting a riot in the weeks
ahead.