Long-term consequences of short-lived metal detectors

As Israeli authorities begin dismantling the metal detectors from the Temple Mount, less than a week after the new security measures had been implemented at the site in response to an attack outside the compound which killed two policemen, the contributors to the country’s leading Hebrew-language newspapers are all extremely critical of the Israeli cabinet and of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but the types of criticisms featured in each publication fall into two distinct categories.

Breaking things down by publication, the daily Haaretz considers the initial decision to hastily place detectors at the entrance to the sensitive holy site as the main flaw in the cabinet’s judgement, as the move was greeted with a boost in support for anti Israeli activities, as well as an immediate escalation in violence, while the analysts in Israel Hayom view the walk-back on policy as the government’s major mistake, arguing that the turnaround will gnaw away at the Jewish state’s ability to deter Palestinian terrorism in the long run. Yedioth Aharonoth is less definitive than its competitors, but for the most part, the paper’s contributors present arguments similar to those featured in the other two dailies.

“Now it is clear that if we would have known how the events would unfold, the metal detectors would never have been placed on the Temple Mount,” Barak Ravid writes in Haaretz. “The lesson has been clear to Netanyahu ever since the Western Wall Tunnel riots during his first term: As long as Israel controls the Temple Mount, its head must think twice, thrice, and one hundred times before taking any step in this powder keg.”

Ravit Hecht also in Haaretz, extends Barak Ravid’s condemnation of the Netanyahu government to the entire right-leaning political camp, arguing that the Likud party and its allies have no real policy solutions when it comes to dealing with the Palestinians. “No less than a crisis of leadership, the storm surrounding the Temple Mount reflects the failure of the Israeli right, which proved again that it has nothing to offer aside from empty slogans that evaporate once they exit social media and take a trip to reality,” Hecht charges. “Netanyahu’s loyal associates zealously defended a dangerous and hurried decision, until panic caught up with them as well and they began … to search for a respectful exit.”

In Yedioth, Nahum Barnea says that the tense standoff between the Jewish state and Jordan following a stabbing attack at the Israeli embassy in Amman was, in a sense, a blessing for the prime minister. “Netanyahu should send a bouquet this morning to Ziv, the security officer in Amman, and thank him, and his good fortune, for the altercation at the embassy,” Barnea writes. The incident caused a diplomatic flare-up between the two countries, as the guard killed his attacker and another Jordanian national, and the situation was only resolved after Netanyahu spoke by phone with the Jordanian monarch who reportedly demanded the removal of the metal detectors at the Temple Mount. “The confrontation cost two Jordanian citizens their lives, but gave Netanyahu the ladder he needed in order to climb down from the idiocy of the metal detectors,” the Yedioth contributor says.

On the other end, fellow Yedioth columnist and Netanyahu’s former director of communications Yoaz Hendel says giving in to the demands of the Palestinians and Jordanians, while beneficial in defusing the tensions that had built up over the past week, is a strategy that will prove problematic in the future. “Military and diplomatic determination pays in the long run while folding only pays in the short run,” writes Hendel in his piece titled And After All — Metal Detectors. “The Temple Mount creates rounds of violence every couple of years… My premise is that in order to decrease the accumulative violence we must reach decisions [such as placing metal detectors at the entrance to the compound].”

Dror Eydar’s piece on the matter in Israel Hayom is much more hard hitting, with criticisms being flung not only at the Israeli government, but at the Jordanian monarchy as well. “Twenty-two years ago in our stupidity we handed the Jordanians the right to make decisions regarding the Temple Mount and now we are reaping the sour fruit. But why should we have to contain the rage of the public in Jordan? The local government there should deal with its own problems,” Eydar writes. “If Israel will not help the [Jordanian] king, I have been told, Jordan will collapse, and into that vacuum will enter Islamist factions who will sit on our eastern border. Yes, that is a serious consideration. But already today we are providing respiratory assistance to the government there. Jordan is a kingdom living on borrowed time, and Israel is investing there in an attempt to reap benefits. But these are short term benefits.”

The long term consequences of the government’s decisions regarding security arrangements on the Temple Mount are yet to be seen, but for now, it is almost certain that any incidence of violence that may occur in the near future will be attributed by members of the Hebrew-language media to the events of the past week.