While not widely reported in the US, Israeli groups connected to the Netanyahu government are working on plans to tear down the Al-Aqsa Mosque and to build a new temple in Jerusalem.
In parallel with growing efforts to build a new Jewish temple at the site, there has been growing unrest since Israeli police entered the mosque in May 2021.
The most recent incident at the mosque occurred on October 4, 2023.
Growing threats to remove the Al-Asqa Mosque would be good way to unite the Moslem world and could result in a massive war in the Middle East. That is the conclusion of Alastair Crooke, former British diplomat and intelligence officer with extensive experience in the region:
Should the US support the Israeli government if it moves to replace the mosque with the Third Temple?
Some in Israel are investigating ways that a new Temple could be built without removing the mosque. Is that a better alternative?
Is it better to work to avoid an Armageddon in the Middle East?
There have been groups wanting to tear down that mosque and rebuild the temple since the beginning of Israel and probably before. I don’t see it happening.
The change is that the efforts have the support of the Israeli government and large portion of the Israeli public.
The consensus from rabbis has been that Jewish law prohibits Jews from even visiting the site of the temple:
After Israel captured the site in 1967, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel announced that entering the Temple Mount was forbidden to Jews, in accordance with a halakhic prohibition against temei ha’met (impurity by contacting the dead, cemeteries etc.). The ancient ban on Jews, other than a high priest, entering the zone of the Holy of Holies was confirmed, with the consideration also that, since the exact location of the Second Temple was unknown, any Jew walking through the site would be at grave risk of inadvertently treading on the ground of the Holy of Holies in error. Temple Mount entry restrictions - Wikipedia
Ariel Sharon ignored restrictions with his visit in 2000, and efforts to build a new temple on the site have been building since.
Blind support for Israel is not smart in my opinion. Removing the mosque and building a new temple in Jerusalem is likely to needlessly provoke a major war in the Middle East, which is not the interests of the US. The US does not need to be complicit in this effort.
Placing a new religious building on the site of an old was the rule until a few centuries ago. Here are some examples.
I agree. If Israeli nationalists want to provoke a suicidal war with their neighbors, that is their business. But don’t expect the US taxpayers to send billions of dollars to subsidize the effort.
Also don’t expect the US military to come to their rescue in a bloody war on the other side of the world.
Hamas and the Israeli government are on similar revolutionary paths that may appear suicidal. See video starting at 10:25.
Hamas launched the attack on Israel in spite of Israel’s massive military superiority. That appears to be suicidal unless it provokes outside intervention.
Israel has launched a war of retribution against Gaza to exterminate Hamas. That appears to suicidal if it provokes wider conflict with powerful Muslim neighbors.
My background is in engineering; I am a firm believer in Murphy’s law. Planes would be falling out of the sky on a regular basis if engineers simply assumed everything was fine and ignored potential problems.
I find it especially distressing when there are obvious issues that are intentionally ignored. Israel had good information about plans for the Hamas attack a year in advance, but Israeli leadership believed that the plans were beyond anything that Hamas was capable of. Underestimating an opponent is a recipe for disaster.
Likewise, threats to the Al-Aqsa Mosque combined with massive civilian casualties in a war of retribution in Gaza are a recipe for disaster. Assuming that the US will be there to protect Israel no matter what the provocations is not a safe assumption.
Antichrist’s right-hand man, the false prophet, will order to be set up and worshiped (Revelation 13:14). Of course, for Matthew 24:15 to be yet future, the temple in Jerusalem will have to be rebuilt before the tribulation begins.
Standing with Ukraine should mean working for a peaceful settlements that benefit the Ukrainian people. Instead the US has support a futile war that has destroyed a generation of Ukrainian men and driven millions of Ukrainians into exile. “Best money we’ve ever spent” as Lindsey Graham would say.
Standing with Israel should mean working for peaceful settlement that protects the people of Israel as well as its neighbors. Instead the US has been attacking Israel’s neighbors in one war after another and been giving increasingly more extremist Israeli governments a blank check and a free hand to support expansionist policies. Creating conditions for a massive war in the Middle East is not in the US or Israeli interests.
