Word: haram
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...insignificant double exposure. Two cultures play musical chairs, and there is only one tiny chair for both in all the vast Middle East. But that immense space, metaphysical emptiness, is focused in the eye of God's needle. The Jews call it the Temple Mount. The Muslims call it Haram al-Sharif...
...Hasmonean tunnel, which has existed for roughly 2,500 years, was rediscovered and re-excavated in 1987. At the time, the Muslim religious authority, the Wafk, permitted excavation of the tunnel provided that the excavations did not extend under the Temple Mount (Al-Haram Al-Sharif). Israel adhered to these requests. The excavations have not in any way disturbed any Muslim religious sites, nor does the tunnel run under the Temple Mount as the Palestinian Authority had originally claimed. The only action the Israeli government took last week concerning the tunnel was to open another entrance...
...going violence in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza was directly provoked by the Israeli opening of a tunnel which borders the foundations of Al-Haram Al-Sharif--the third holiest site to Muslims around the world. The proximity of the tunnel to Al-Haram Al-Sharif, coupled with previous attempts at undermining the Islamic character of the shrine has caused angry responses all around the Arab and Islamic worlds. The opening of the tunnel came unilaterally without prior consultation with the Palestinian Authority; the right-wing mayor of Jerusalem Ehud Olmert proudly declared that "the time has come...
Religion offers one obvious explanation for the bloody clash. Muslims call the Temple Mount al-Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary. It is home to both the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque and is Islam's third holiest site after Mecca and Medina. To Jews, it is the sacred spot where Solomon's Temple and later the Second Temple once stood. The adjacent Western Wall, a retaining wall from the Second Temple, is the holiest site in Judaism...
...crack down on them. Scarcely a week passes without some incident of vandalism or vigilantism. Grape vines of Arab villagers are cut. The tires of Arab-owned vehicles are slashed and windows smashed. Gun-wielding Israelis invade the houses of Hebron residents, threatening and terrorizing them. At the Haram al-Khalil Mosque, built on the site where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are believed to have been buried, Jews disrupt the prayers of devout Muslims...