Window on Israel: You want moderation? Not here

Muslim and Jewish religious leaders are competing to heat up their followers in defense of incompatible rights to the Temple Mount/Haram e-Sharif. And Ha'aretz is marking the 14th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination with a front page story revealing that his late widow, Leah, said that Binyamin Netanyahu was corrupt.
 
Should we comment first on the madness of religion, or the madness of journalism?
 
On religion and the Temple Mount/Haram e-Sharif, one can go on forever parsing the history and the rights of Jews and Muslims. Did Moshe Dayan make a fatal mistake in 1967 when he ordered that the flag of Israel be removed from the Dome of the Rock and turned over the management of the whole site to Muslim religious authorities? Did that contribute to peace, or did it contribute to Muslim insistence on a monopoly of their rights and their denial of a historic Jewish presence, and provoke Jews to demand the right to pray on the Mount, erect a synagogue, or start construction of the Third Temple, which might entail the removal of Muslim holy sites?
 
The controversy is fascinating for its historical and political elements, but Jerusalemites content to live without solving religious mysteries are left with the effects of simmering conflict. Currently we are in the midst of what may be an escalation that, at the least, will tie up traffic in the area of the Old City.
 
Muslims claiming to be religious leaders are inciting their people to flow into Jerusalem to protect al Aqsa from Jews intent on defiling it with their presence and their prayers, and destroying it altogether. Rabbis identified with the settler movement are prominent among those resisting Muslim claims of a monopoly, and are urging their followers to go the Mount and pray. Muslims quote the rabbis in urging their own people forward to jihad. Rabbis then quote the Muslims.
 
Muslim and Jewish leaders each have their enthusiastic followers. If the Arabic speeches are as dramatic as the Hebrew speeches, it's easy to understand the excitement. Extremists are serving one another by providing reasons for their adversaries to escalate.
 
So far there is no indication that other rabbis of the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities are abandoning their prohibition against Jews visiting the Temple Mount, and being dragged into assertions of Jewish rights. And while we sit here analyzing an interesting case, pondering how far the escalation will proceed, the police are doing their best to control both Jews and Muslims.
 
The late Leah Rabin was an attractive and articulate advocate for her husband. The assassination of a prime minister, military hero and husband could not have been easy. Netanyahu's first term as prime minister represented a defeat of Rabin's Labor Party, and provided material to all who would charge corruption.
 
In letters written a decade ago, during Netanyahu's first term, Mrs. Rabin wrote:

I hope, pray, that the days of this government are numbered. Benjamin Netanyahu is a corrupt individual, a contentious liar who is ruining everything that is good about our society. He is breaking it to bits, and in the future, we will have to rebuild it all over... We all want this nightmare to end, that this monstrosity called Netanyahu will get lost, because he exhausted our patience a long time ago." 

Was the discovery of these letters news of sufficient importance to justify a prominent headline on the front page? There were charges of corruption against Netanyahu during his first term, when Mrs. Rabin was writing. So far in the history of this government, no claims of his recent corruption have become prominent. Perhaps the editors of Ha'aretz are engaging in wishful thinking, moved by opposition to some of Netanyahu's present policies. Someone may be hoping that old letters written by the widow of a Labor Party icon can revive the prospects of a party whose declining remnants are being consumed further by internal squabbles.
 
It is not likely that publication will add to the standing of Mrs. Rabin. The letters might excite those who identify with her, or are convinced that a Netanyahu government was a disaster, then and now. Ha'aretz may lead some to fume about what happened years ago, but others fume about its efforts to heat up an old story.