Noah Feldman, Columnist

How a 1929 Dispute Frames Today's Temple Mount Conflict

A seemingly trivial change at the holy site risks setting off religious violence.

July 24, 2017 at 9:56 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

A sacred site.
Photographer: Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images

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Given the scale of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it may seem strange that the latest round of violence was triggered by metal detectors. But the metal detectors in question were installed by Israel at the entrances to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, arguably the most contested sacred precinct on earth, in response to a fatal Palestinian attack on Israelis. Late Monday, Israel was negotiating with Jordan over the removal of the detectors, in a bid to ease a growing crisis.

At least since 1929, when massacres associated with another superficially trivial change at the site resulted in almost 250 deaths, the holy site has been the symbolic flashpoint of the broader struggle.