When Israeli and Palestinian pyromaniacs meet
Op-ed: A group of small Israeli politicians has joined Palestinians who have been dreaming for years of igniting a religious war between Israel and 22 Arab states. They are putting us all in danger.
There are numerous tales about Haim ("Haimke") Levkov. Who is he? A veteran security official who was involved in many security activities in the State of Israel and in the wars for its foundation.
Haimke dug through the man's past and discovered that he had been released from the army because he was a pyromaniac, a person with an obsessive desire to light fires. Haimke kicked him out of the job within an hour. That's all he needed.
In one of his last positions, Haimke served as the security officer of the Eilat-Ashkelon oil pipe. According to one of the tales, he once hired a young man who seemed the match the job of guarding the oil pipe, but something in that man's past bothered him: The new employee had been discharged from his IDF service prematurely.
Terro in the Capital
Op-ed: An internationally-sponsored dialogue is the only way to prevent a religious war whose outcome will be more difficult than any other type of conflict between states.
Our pyromaniacs are not kicked out. On the contrary, the naïve ones among us (and some will say stupid) even applaud them and encourage them to go on. They are the matches which could bring upon us the destruction of the Third Temple in their foolish attempt to create such a temple.
Here's the explanation: All of Israel's prime ministers, from all parties, made an effort to separate Arab states and their armies from the religion of Islam, which is estimated to have about 1.2 billion adherents who turn toward Mecca five times a day during their prayers.
For decades, Israel has done everything and created any possible situation to prevent a religious war from breaking out. Its greatest success in its 66 years of existence was also the Arab states' biggest failure to gather together under the flag of Islam.
Every Israeli prime minister, regardless of the party he came from, who was familiar with the real security-related situation, knew how to correctly estimate the State of Israel's chances to survive a religious war against a united Muslim world.
Weren't David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, and even Yitzhak Shamir and Benjamin Netanyahu, aware of the Temple Mount's importance in the eyes of the Jews? Didn't they study the Bible and history? Didn’t they care about Israel's heritage and their grandparents' heritage? Weren't they affected by thousands of years of history?
But they and many others (allow me to add Moshe Dayan and Mordechai "Motta" Gur) understood the situation and the balance of power. They saw a sample from the past before their eyes: Years ago, a crazy Australian named Denis Rohan set fire to the edge of a carpet at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the entire Muslim world raged. Some will say: But nothing happened in the end. That's true, mostly because he wasn't Jewish, he was insane and it was a marginal act.
Jewish worshippers at the Temple Mount. 'The State of Israel has absolutely no chance in a religious war' (Photo: Noam 'Dabul' Dvir)
Israel's senior decision makers knew in the past that they must not jeopardize the State's existence, the lives of our children here. Even if they were believers, sons of believers, the most religious people of all, they knew and others knew that God alone will not help us on the crucial day. He will have to come with planes and tanks, and in the case we are facing even that probably won't be enough to save our lives.
If I may risk dirty reactions and piles of written and spoken garbage, I'll tell you that my guess is that the State of Israel has absolutely no chance in a religious war. That's the main reason why all of Israel's governments are protecting, with gnashed teeth, the Temple Mount and the places important to Islam.
These are the same governments, of the Labor and Likud parties, which are fighting the small group trying to teach the State of Israel and the Jewish people about the importance of the Temple Mount. Our pyromaniacs, the Israeli fire igniters, have recently been meeting the Palestinians' pyromaniacs, who are "waiting in the corner" and dreaming of igniting a religious war between the State of Israel and 22 other states.
Out real problem right now is that a few small Israeli politicians, who believe they are great leaders, have recently begun holding onto the idea of the Temple Mount, mainly for personal reasons and election considerations and small politics.
This is exactly what the Temple Mount Faithful movement has been missing. This is exactly what those who visit the Mount were in need of: Political leaders who would encourage them so that they would not remain a small, marginal and trivial camp.
These small politicians are only thinking about themselves and about their election. They have forgotten the Transportation Ministry's smart slogan: Don't be right, be wise.
These politicians are igniting the major religious war against the Muslim world. They are putting us all in danger. And I hope I'm not exaggerating.
