IT IS SAID THAT THIS IS WHERE THE WORLD began and perhaps where it will end.
The true epicenter of the war in the Holy Land is not the devastated Gaza Strip, under Israeli assault since Hamas' bloody raid last October sparked the region's deadliest conflict in decades. It is a few dozen miles away in Jerusalem, at the holiest and most fiercely contested hilltop on Earth.
The war has increased religious tensions and given new impetus to a group of Jews and their evangelical Christian allies who are set on rebuilding an ancient temple where millennium-old Islamic shrines now stand-a suggestion that arouses the horror not only of Palestinians and Muslims worldwide, but of many Jews in Israel and around the globe as well as that of would-be Middle East peacemakers.
Third Temple advocates have been preparing for the day when the temple can be rebuilt, complete with rabbinically certified red cows shipped from Texas for use in sacrificial purification rituals. The architectural designs are all ready, along the lines of the detailed Biblical descriptions. Robes have been woven and utensils assembled to Biblical specifications for ceremonies at the planned temple.
Messianic Jewish supporters believe the rebuilding of the temple, rather than being divisive, would fulfill Biblical prophecy to bring an era of peace with the temple as "a house of prayer for all nations." Christian backers, meanwhile, believe it would be an important step toward the Second Coming of Jesus and an apocalyptic last battle with the Antichrist.
"Our holy warriors who are fighting in Gaza are actually fighting for the building of the Temple," one Jewish prayer leader pronounced recently on a controversial visit to the believed site of two previous Jewish temples in Jerusalem.
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