Testing Israel’s Mettle on Temple Mount

MOUNTED POLICE Border guards hold down the fort outside the Temple Mount as religious tensions threaten a fragile status quo (PHOTO: Flash 90)

E very terror attack is reprehensible. Especially one that costs lives leaving bereaved families to cope with an irreplaceable loss.

For Israeli society the repercussions from each attack are different. Last Friday’s murder of two border guards at the Temple Mount endangers both security and the fragile fabric of religious tolerance that Israel has painstakingly weaved.

From a security standpoint the terrorists held Israeli citizenship. They hailed from Umm al-Fahm a city of 52 000 Israeli Arabs in the Jezreel Valley through which runs Route 65 a main thoroughfare from the Mediterranean coast to the vicinity of Tzfas. It can’t be cordoned off or isolated like remote West Bank villages.