101
the public debate boils down to one question – Who has
sovereignty over the Temple Mount and who will hold it in
the context of a future agreement?
Why is this so?
The issue of sovereignty appears to stir the hearts and
minds of so many not because of something intrinsic to it,
but rather because of the assumption that it is a prerequisite
for the realization of all other hopes. Legal sovereignty over
the territory functions as a kind of “finger in the dike” without
which all other aspirations will be washed away, preventing
action of any kind in the desired direction – because the
ability to operate in the Temple Mount compound is directly
dependent on who controls it.
Is this a foregone conclusion? According to a prominent
Jerusalem sheikh: “There is no problem with Jews coming
to pray in the mosques esplanade. They can even build
themselves a synagogue there and worship Allah in their own
way. But this cannot be said aloud, because right now, it is not
a question of religious law that we are discussing, but rather
the less important and more urgent one of who the proprietor
is. As long as the Jews do not come to pray, but rather to
demonstrate ownership and continue the occupation, we
cannot give them a foothold.”
10
The sheikh offers a different
paradigm from the one we have become accustomed to, and
according to his words and philosophy, there is an inverse
relationship between Israel’s sovereignty and control over
the Temple Mount and the freedom of Jews to worship on
it. It would be intriguing to see what certain religious groups
would decide were there a choice between the current
situation, in which Israel has sovereignty, but is limited in
its ability to operate on the ground, and a hypothetical one,
in which Israel gives up its sovereignty, thereby creating a
situation that actually increases the capacity of Jews to fulfill
their religious aspirations.
Public debate does not often directly deal with religious
motivations, but rather with the concrete diplomatic solutions
that may serve those same motivations. The challenge is
to gain an in-depth understanding of religious thought and
motivation, and to try to integrate them into the desired and
available diplomatic solutions. The constant need on the part
of religious populations to translate their innermost desires
and needs into a language that is intelligible to those who
do not share their religious premises leads them to adhere
stubbornly to a single possible course of action, of which they
become the standard bearer as if it itself is the achievement,
hope and fulfillment. The way to uncover alternative, less
dichotomous solutions that may simultaneously fulfill the
hopes of both peoples lies in unpeeling the layers of
translation to pursue the religious desires themselves. This
approach does not force the sides to relinquish the possibility
of continuing to advance their religious aspirations for the
sake of the coveted peace, but rather paves a path that
10 Interview, Jerusalem, August 2015. See also in “How to maintain the
fragile calm on the Temple Mount,” Debriefing of the International
Crisis Group, no. 48, April 2016, footnote 80.
enables those aspirations to coexist. An effort of this kind is
still in its infancy, due to the absence of a platform for direct
negotiations where religious sentiment can be expressed
alongside the material interests of the parties. However, by
way of illustration, I will cite a number of leaders who are
currently involved in breaking down core issues to their
religious components, thereby placing them in a new light.
Recognition of Israel as a legitimate state presents a religious
challenge to Muslims, because of their perception that the
whole of Palestine is sacred
Waqf
land and that the entire
regionmust be part of a long-awaited Islamic caliphate. Based
on this position, not only is the existence of a sovereign Jewish
state in the Arab expanse intolerable, so is the division of
the region’s land into separate Arab nation-states, which is a
legacy of European colonialism. In order to realize the Israeli
hope of normalization in the Arab expanse, the Muslims must
seemingly abandon all aspirations to constitute a caliphate,
completely secularize their political thinking and learn to take
an instrumental approach to the land. Only in that way, so
it seems, will Muslims ever be able to sign a viable peace
agreement with Israel and accept its existence.
A possible alternative may emerge by moving away from the
proposed solution – in this case, the dismantling of all state
borders and the repudiation of any non-Muslim sovereignty
– towards uncovering the religious motivation driving it. A
prominent religious authority in the Islamic Movement in Israel
maintains that the anticipation of an Islamic caliphate does
not necessarily conflict with recognition of an independent
Jewish state: “Suppose a caliphate is established and Jews
remain living in it. After all, under Islamic law, they are entitled
to live, manage their affairs on their own, reside in their own
community, with their own legal system. What prohibits them
from doing it as a collective and calling it a state?”
11
The presence of an Arab collective presents a religious
challenge to Jews too, because some of them perceive
the Zionist movement as the realization of the anticipated
return to Zion, the harbinger of redemption and a renewal
of the commandment to inherit the Promised Land. Those
who maintain this perspective will find it difficult to accept
the existence of a polity belonging to another people in
part of the Land of Israel. To hope for the members of the
national-religious community in Israel to support Palestinian
independence, therefore, seemingly means to hope that
they also relinquish their redemptive-messianic perspective,
completely divorce Israeli politics from theology and to
take a purely material approach to the history of the Zionist
movement. Only in such a context, so it seems, would
religious Jews be able to sign a lasting peace agreement
with the Palestinian people and accept the establishment
of its sovereign state.
Here, too, an alternative may be possible if the solution is
replaced by the desire underlying it. These are the words
of a Jerusalem rabbi: “If we as Jews believe that our return
to the Holy Land to establish a state in it is part of the divine
11 Interview, Kafr Qassem , May 2015.
