The violence that began at Jerusalem’s ancient holy sites is driven by a distinctly modern zeal
On Monday, an apocalyptic video from Jerusalem began to circulate on social media. In the background, it showed a large fire raging on the site Muslims call al-Aqsa or al-Haram al-Sharif, and Jews call the Temple Mount. A tree was ablaze next to al-Aqsa mosque (some blamed Israeli police stun grenades, others blamed Palestinians shooting fireworks, perhaps aiming at Jewish worshippers). Below, the large plaza of the Western Wall was full with young Jewish Israelis, identified with the religious Zionist right, celebrating “Jerusalem Day” (marking the occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967). They were cheering at the sight of the fire, singing an anthem of vengeance popular in extreme-right circles. The lyrics are the words of Samson, just before he pulled down the pillars of the Temple in Gaza: “O God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes!” The Israeli teenagers, visibly ecstatic, jumped up and down and shouted: “May their name be effaced!”
This is not the first time that the holy sites have been ground zero for a major violent escalation in the conflict, and it is therefore tempting to interpret this vengeful frenzy as merely the latest eruption of an atavistic devotion to ancient stones, one bound to spiral out of control. But this is a misleading story: the political significance of these places – and their very meaning – has changed dramatically over the past century, particularly for Jewish Israelis.
Judaism, as it developed in antiquity and the middle ages, is a religion shaped by the absence of the Temple – destroyed by the Romans in 70CE. And while Jewish prayers speak about yearning for its reestablishment, the biblical practices associated with the Temple (such as animal sacrifice) are antithetical to the praxis and spirit of Judaism. The Western Wall (part of the supporting wall of Herod’s Temple) is sacred as a remnant – a symbol of the destruction that shaped Judaism. The current site has been venerated by Jews since the 16th century. By the 19th century, it was the most important Jewish site of pilgrimage and worship, but for the Zionist movement, it represented an ideological conundrum.
The modern Jewish national movement, calling for a return to Zion, wanted to reclaim the wall. From the early 20th century, Zionist leaders called to “redeem” it by purchasing the houses in its vicinity and paving a plaza for worshippers. They sought to transform it into a monument of national revival. But the wall itself, as a remnant of the destroyed Temple’s compound, was a symbol of ruin, and nothing could change that fact. For Judaism, the wall was a constant reminder of God’s exile – an exile that the modern Zionist promise to “ingather the Jewish Diasporas” could not overcome. This simple and insurmountable contradiction has never ceased to haunt the Zionist engagement with the wall.
This ambivalence was noticeable in early Zionist attitudes. The wall was largely absent from early Zionist iconography, and appeared (if at all) as a metaphor for destruction, contrasted with symbols of Zionist revival such as the agricultural colonies. The Labourdominated Zionist movement sought to harness Jewish religious symbols in favour of secular nationalism, but was strongly opposed to ideas of the reconstruction of the Temple. So much that, as historian Hillel Cohen revealed, in 1931 the Zionist Hagana militia murdered a Jew who planned to blow up the Islamic sites of the Haram.
After the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, Israeli officials were in direct control of the holy sites. They pledged to maintain the status quo on the Haram, which remained under effective Palestinian Muslim control. When it came to the Western Wall, the desire to make the site into a national Jewish monument was finally achieved. Within days, the Mughrabi Quarter, a medieval neighbourhood that stood next to the wall, was entirely depopulated and razed to the ground to make room for a huge plaza. From a hidden wall, seen only from close proximity, it became a monumental stage, used not only for prayer but also for state and military ceremonies.
But the transformation did not resolve the basic contradictions embedded in the wall, and indeed has only served to accentuate them. Now much more than before, the wall’s liminal position as a sharp border between Jews (below) and Muslims (above), between ruin (the wall) and redemption (the unattainable Temple Mount), was rendered visible. The wall remains a memorial of destruction, a site of absence, while the Muslim sites loom from above.
After 1967, the secular Labour movement lost its position as the Zionist vanguard. Religious settlers claimed the language of Zionism as they spearheaded the colonisation of the occupied territories. The secular-Zionist project of “normalisation” – making Jews a territorial nation “like any other” – was overtaken from within by those who continued the colonising mission, but interpreted the biblical promise of the land literally as manifest destiny. In that context, the holy sites – now under Israeli control – assumed a new meaning, and became a new frontier. Some religious Zionists were no longer content with the Western Wall, given that the Temple Mount was within reach.
In the 1980s, there were two attempts by Jewish militant groups to blow up the Islamic sites on the Haram. Since then, the Temple Mount Faithful, calling for Israel to assert Jewish control of the Haram, has grown from a tiny fringe group to a movement with political backing. The Temple Institute in the Old City, funded partly by the Israeli government, produces ritual objects for the Temple, in anticipation of its reconstruction, while performances of simulated ritual sacrifices by priests in white robes are held annually before Passover, in close proximity to the Haram al-Sharif. Such practices represent no less than a reinvention of Judaism – given that it has been shaped for 2,000 years by the Temple’s destruction. These activities remain minority pursuits; more popular are frequent group visits of religious Jews to the Mount, despite Palestinian protests. Orthodox rabbis had long forbidden visits to the compound because of its sanctity. But more and more rabbinic authorities have lifted the ban, and these visits assume ritual significance, even though, formally, Jewish prayer remains forbidden, in keeping with the status quo.
In the last few years, Jewish supremacism has emerged as a hegemonic ideology that legitimises Israeli control over the entire country, from the river to the sea. For the Israeli radical right, Israel’s inability or unwillingness to take complete control over the Haram is a symptom of “weak sovereignty”. This frustration accentuates the theological insufficiency of the Wall – as the site of permanent ruin and absence – and turns the attention to the Temple Mount.
The ongoing Palestinian presence in al-Aqsa Mosque therefore appears as the last significant obstacle to Israeli domination – the site has huge mobilising force among ordinary Palestinians who come to defend it in their thousands in times such as this, and it is no surprise that Hamas sought to associate itself with its defence, through the firing of rockets from Gaza.
Palestinians remain in control of the country’s holiest place for Muslims and Jews, not through military force or diplomatic negotiations, but simply by continuing to be there, with the moral authority that confers.
The Haram al-Sharif thus represents a symbolic challenge to Jewish-Israeli hegemony that is far more significant than the weakened Palestinian Authority or Hamas’s rockets. This may explain the violence of the Israeli police in storming the mosque, and the high number of injuries among Muslim worshippers this week – just as it explains the crowd of young Israelis singing genocidal songs of vengeance as fires burn on the Haram al-Sharif. But what has gone largely unremarked is the extent to which these events signal the emergence of a version of Judaism that fetishises rock and soil – and pursues a fantasy of redemption in the physical takeover of the Temple’s site. For now, such an apocalyptic scenario is still unlikely. But already the events of this week – with the country engulfed by an unprecedented wave of vigilante violence that threatens to explode into civil war – are a demonstration of how dangerous this trend has already become.
Yair Wallach is a senior lecturer in Israeli studies and head of the Centre for Jewish Studies at SOAS, the University of London
gold and other “stores of value” (their description-cum-hope) aren’t squeakyclean either. True, but the difference with bitcoin is that the puzzle-solving method of discovery makes the energy consumption more intense over time. And the plea in some quarters that the computers’ vast appetites will boost the advance of low-cost solar energy is, to put it mildly, elaborate. In the here and now, bitcoin mining is a dirty business.
True believers weren’t happy about Musk’s U-turn but Tesla’s shareholders ought to be delighted. The founder’s talent for publicity has saved the company a fortune in advertising, but there were clear dangers in tying his personal brand, and Tesla’s, to a single cryptocurrency.
A plunge in the price of the coins would not help his popularity. Being seen to step off the rollercoaster when the price is 25% off its highs but, critically, up massively over 12 months, may prove smart timing.
More importantly, dirty bitcoins and clean Teslas just don’t sit well together. That was also true in February, of course, when Tesla was a buyer of $1.5bn-worth and said it would accept payment in the tokens. Don’t expect Musk or the board to explain the aboutturn, but it may be a belated recognition that bitcoin’s dire environmental record was a business risk too far for
Tesla. Maverick geniuses can get away with a lot, but hypocrisy tends to take a toll in the end.
All BT needs to do now is to dig
BT had to be cajoled and threatened over many years, but it is finally in a defensible position on fast-fibre broadband rollout. The company will aim to reach 25m premises by the end of 2026, an upgrade on the previous promise of 20m by the mid-to-late part of this decade.
The City, in its dull way, preferred to concentrate on the short-term hit to cashflows, the consequence of investing more money sooner. The shares fell 6%.
Investors ought to count their blessings. BT has secured its “fair bet” on financial returns – the cause of all the wrangling – and has been gifted “super deductions” on infrastructure spending for two years.
Meanwhile, the last lot of 5G licences were secured at lower-than-expected prices. The dividend is back at 7.7p a share. Even the pension fund has become slightly less heavy.
The financial cherry would be jointventure deals with infrastructure investors to fund the rollout to 5m of the 25m premises, but the chief executive, Philip Jansen, is adamant that BT can take the solo route if necessary.
When the trenches have been dug and filled, BT should account for somewhere between one half and two-thirds of the UK’s fast-fibre network. The rejigged plan has tilted the odds towards the higher figure, which is surely a good thing for investors. One wonders how the directors, reportedly, find so much to quarrel over. The outlook looks clear for the next half-decade. Just dig.
James Anderson’s Amazon tease is intriguing
James Anderson, one of the world’s best technology investors, signed off his last set of figures as co-manager of the £15bn Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust by taking a pop at all favourite targets: the “irretrievably broken” fund management industry, media doom-mongers, and more.
He’s right on all his main points, of course. The investment game changed when it became possible for companies to grow their revenues at a compound rate of 41% for over two decades, as Amazon has done. It is amazing that Scottish Mortgage’s success has not spawned more fund imitators that hunt for such “extreme upside” opportunities.
But there was also a tease on Amazon as Jeff Bezos steps down as chief executive. “Amazon is now seen as good value, safe and acceptable. It no longer has a founder CEO. We fear that in his inimitable terms it is no longer Day 1 in Seattle.” From an investor who knows Bezos’s creation inside out, that’s intriguing.
labor laws are against workers. Because unionization pulls power toward workers and away from managers and owners, employers go to extreme lengths – from outright intimidation to illegally firing leaders – to suppress unionization. Penalties for violating workers’ rights to organize are negligible, letting managers violate workers’ rights with impunity.
New legislation – like the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act – can help rebalance bargaining power in the labor market, supporting workers’ ability to bargain on more-equal terms with representatives of concentrated wealth. If passed, the PRO Act would repeal state laws that undermine unions, institute tougher penalties for employers who violate workers’ rights to organize, and recognize gig workers’ right to collectively bargain.
Independent of the PRO Act’s legislative future – a future made uncertain by the Senate’s long history of obstructing progressive labor reform – the swelling public support for labor and simultaneous declining support for big business suggests a transformational shift in terrain. While previously, public perception of organized labor and organized capital was balanced, that no longer holds. These days, Americans worry far more about organized capital than organized labor.
Emily DiVito is program manager for the corporate power program at the Roosevelt Institute
Aaron Sojourner is a labor economist at the University of Minnesota, a Roosevelt Institute fellow, and a former senior economist for labor at the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers under Presidents Obama and Trump
is a guide to some questions you might be asking about post-pandemic dating, answered by the experts.
Should you do a lateral flow test before going on a date?
Dr Eleanor Draeger, a sexual health and HIV doctor, says: “What I worry about is giving people false reassurance. When you do a lateral flow test, this means it is likely you were not infectious on the day the test was done. That’s probably not the green light you’re looking for.” If you want to be absolutely sure you won’t infect or be infected with Covid, whether having dinner or having sex, lateral flow tests will not deliver that.
In terms of manners, therefore, it becomes a matter of whether you can live with uncertainties and individual discretion. William Hanson, a 31-yearold etiquette coach and host of the podcast Help! I Sexted my Boss, says: “It would not be right for me to criticise somebody for their own interpretations of what’s safe; it’s fine for them to be in control of their life and risks, but I’m in control of my life and risks.”
A note from Draeger: it’s not just about the tryst. It might be more important that you take a lateral flow test or self-isolate afterwards, before you see a friend or relative with compromised immunity.
Is it OK to go on a date having just had one dose of vaccine, or should you wait until you’ve had two?
Medical opinion is pretty solid: two doses offers better protection, so wait for the second. However, Will Nutland, honorary assistant professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, co-founder of the Love Tank, which researches health inequalities, and author of a brilliant online resource, How to Have Sex These Days: Navigating Covid When Horny, offers some insight from the longer view. “We can stand collectively and say: ‘Don’t have sex, it’s dangerous’, but what we learned from 30 years of HIV is that telling people what to do doesn’t work. If you help people reduce their risks, they’ll listen to you.” That goes doubly for Covid-unsafe-sex, since, even at the height of HIV, sex was never against the law. “For me this is the fundamental problem with the abstinence message,” Nutland says. “People then won’t come to you for help and support, since you’re asking them to disclose something you’ve already said is morally and ethically wrong, and also illegal.”
Wait until you’ve had two doses, in other words, but don’t feel like a pariah if you didn’t.
Is it OK to ask someone for proof of vaccination status?
In a word, no. Hanson says: “I think that if you’re that worried, don’t go on the date. Just wait until you know statistically that their age bracket would have been covered. Asking for proof is a mood-killer.” (The mood you’re looking for, incidentally, is a modicum of human trust.)
And what about putting your vaccination status in your dating profile?
Opinion is divided. Debora Robertson, the author (with Kay PlunkettHogge) of the book Manners: A Modern Field Guide, says: “Like anything you put on any kind of profile, you’re saying that this is important to you – like if somebody says: ‘I am a competitive cyclist’, or ‘I climb mountains’. If you were the other person and you thought: ‘That’s a bit much’, that’s OK as well. But somebody who would ridicule you for doing that is somebody who would ridicule you for your other boundaries as well.”
Hanson, though, thinks it’s de trop. “Most of the younger generation haven’t been vaccinated yet, so it’s a bit: ‘Look at me, I’ve got something you haven’t got.’ It’s showing off, and showing off is never right.”
I had Covid months ago – would it still be possible for me to pass it on to someone?
You’re not infectious from that episode of Covid. But we know it’s possible to catch Covid more than once, so you should behave as you would if you’d never had it.
What is more dangerous – kissing with tongues or having sex (with no kissing)?
“Intuitively and pragmatically,” Nutland says, “if there’s lots of close mouthto-mouth contact involved, that will increase the risk.” There’s a lot we don’t know about how the disease is passed on, says Draeger. She adds that it’s not a sexually transmitted infection in the normal definition of the term, but “if I talk about where the virus is, that might help: it can be found in saliva, in semen and in poo ... Ebola stayed active in semen for six months; that isn’t a sexually transmitted disease, but can be transmitted sexually.”
Is oral sex Covid-safe?
Even though there’s a perception that oral sex is safer, it doesn’t pay to be too literal. “What I say to teenagers,” Draeger explains, “is if you’re going to have sex with somebody, body fluids are going to touch other body fluids. Not exchanging saliva will lower the risk of getting or spreading Covid but won’t take the risk away.”
If we decide to have sex, should we wear masks?
Masks are definitely the new condoms, sex-wise. The same caveats apply, as Draeger says. “If you think about using condoms for gonorrhoea, even wearing a condom does not totally prevent you passing on the infection. A lot of touching goes on when people are in that situation that isn’t just when the condom is on.” Experts in the fields of both etiquette and sexual health agree that expecting people to keep masks on while having sex is quite unrealistic.
Is dating a fully vaxxed person actually
any safer?
Yes. It’s as much safer as doing anything else with a fully vaxxed person, which is to say, it is still not impossible to pass on the virus, but is 80-97% less likely, depending on which vaccine you have had.
Is it safer to kiss outdoors than indoors?
Nutland says: “Can I put my hand on my heart and say that only having sex outside is absolutely safe? No. But the global evidence right now suggests that it’s much easier for Covid to be transmitted in closed, poorly ventilated spaces.” That being said: if you have Covid and cough directly on someone, being indoors or outdoors won’t make any difference.
Would passionless (non-sweaty) sex be safer than passionate (sweaty) dancing?
It’s not really about the activity – oh, and it’s not transmitted through sweat, by the way – it’s a numbers and indoor/outdoor game. If we take it as read that everyone is without symptoms and assumes themselves to be Covid-negative, then it’s safer to be outdoors having sex with one person than indoors dancing with 100 people. What you’re trying to weigh up is the probability that someone will have Covid and not know it, rather than the probability that you’ll get close enough to catch it. So the more people there are, the more likely that is.
What extra precautions should you take if you want to date a former shielder?
The most cautious you can be is to take a lateral flow test, be moderately sure that you didn’t have Covid on that day, then self-isolate for two weeks, then go on the date. But it’s very infantilising to think that shielding people can’t make their own decisions. It’s better to ask them what precautions they would like you to take, and make a call on whether you’re happy to follow them.
How do you work with the fact that everyone has had different experiences of the pandemic?
Robertson says: “The most important thing is to be understanding about things you don’t quite get. Dating is excruciating anyway, we’re going to have to be patient with each other.” On the specific subject of bereavement, be careful about minimising the virus – for instance, making any jokes about it being no worse than a hangover – until you know whether the other person suffered a loss, or had long-term health effects themselves.
If someone says they have been bereaved, Robertson says: “Don’t do that horrible thing of trying to close anything down. Don’t look at your shoes not knowing what to do, or try and relate it to your own experience of grief, so suddenly it’s all about you. ‘I’m really sorry that happened,’ is a full sentence. You don’t have to waffle on. Because sometimes that person wants to say that just to get it said, but then they’ll want to talk about something else.”
What should you do if your date turns out to be a Covid-denier?
“Find something else to talk about,” Hanson says. “Move the topic along. If they keep going back to it and you cannot stop them, be quite bold and just say: ‘Shall we talk about something else?’ You don’t owe them anything in this exchange and you’re probably not going to take the date any further anyway. But don’t be mean to them.”
I’m really anxious about Covid – is there still a good argument for me going out and having sex this summer?
Robertson counsels being kind to yourself. “It’s your health, and there’s nothing more important than that.” Draeger agrees: “Everyone needs to be kind to themselves and to other people. Because we might find a lot of things anxiety-provoking right now. I’m single, and I’m listening to myself talk, thinking: ‘I’m never going to meet anyone again.’” Nutland has a variation on that theme: just walk a mile in another’s shoes. “Imagine being 25 and being a little horndog and being locked up for six months. I couldn’t have done it when I was 25.”
Cheney. And gay people, and Asian people. And black people. But we’re going to give them a separate but equal tent.”
Cheney remained defiant on her way out, telling reporters she’d “do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office”.
“And she’s serious about it,” Colbert added. “Today she was seen blocking the door to the Oval Office with a wall of salad.”
Cheney also delivered an impassioned speech on the House floor just after several GOP congressmen decried “cancel culture”. “Railing against cancel culture right before you cancel someone for holding a different opinion is like shooting a Just Say No commercial and then celebrating by doing a line of coke off of Nancy Reagan’s ass,” Colbert joked.
Trevor Noah
On the Daily Show, Trevor Noah looked into Elise Stefanik, the woman expected to replace Cheney as the GOP’s third-ranking member. Stefanik was elected to Congress at age 30 in 2014, as a moderate conservative from upstate New York, and “for awhile, Stefanik was pretty much what used to be called a normal Republican”, someone committed to the party but not afraid to criticize Trump’s so-called Muslim ban, wall initiatives, and misogynistic comments captured on the Access Hollywood tape.
But starting in late 2019, “she saw an opportunity to make like Billie
Eilish and give herself an eye-catching new image”, Noah said. Stefanik pivoted hard toward back the president’s baseless claims of a liberal conspiracy in hearings for Trump’s first impeachment, prompting Trump to tweet that “a new Republican star is born”. Her fundraising and profile exploded, and she started appearing regularly on Fox News.
“To outsiders, this might have seemed like Stefanik suddenly embracing the dark side, like Anakin turning into Darth Vader – except for the part about wearing a mask,” Noah said. “But the truth is, she probably just made a straightforward calculation. She saw where the party was going, and she decided to go along with it.
“In the end, Elise Stefanik surrendered her principles, her dignity, and even her voice to Donald Trump, and what did that get her? Enormous amounts of cash, the support of a passionate base of voters, the inside track to a powerful position in party leadership,” Noah concluded. “Was it worth it? Because it seems like it was kinda worth it.”
Jimmy Kimmel
“I never thought I’d be pro-Cheney in any way, but it has happened,” said Jimmy Kimmel from Los Angeles. “She was removed basically for telling the truth.”
“I mean, you can’t have Republicans going around saying Biden won the election – people might get the right idea,” the host deadpanned. “I’m confused – I thought these guys hated cancel culture? Aren’t they the ones?”
“Why are Republicans so afraid of Donald Trump?” he added, noting that the president’s website reads like insult MadLibs. “They’re the ones giving him power by pulling stunts like this.”
“She’s used to this, her dad was a dick too. [Which] tells you all you need to know about the Republican party right now.”