A NEW and potentially explosive row is brewing between Israel and the Palestinians over the Temple Mount area in the Old City of Jerusalem, just two weeks after the last such controversy erupted into furious fighting that cost 60 Palestinian and 15 Israeli lives.
For the past year, in conditions of great secrecy, the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount, arguably the most sensitive site in the entire Middle East, have been gradually completing work on a vast underground mosque. The building work is now nearly finished, according to the project's supervisor, Sheikh Najah Afanah, and the mosque will soon be opened for prayer for thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Muslims.
Last night, for the first time, television footage of the mosque, with its elegant marble flooring and high vaulted ceilings, was broadcast here, and brought an immediate demand from members of the coalition of the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, for the government to step in and close it down.
A Knesset member, Mr Shaul Yahalom, of the National Religious Party, a key faction in the governing coalition, said the government "must not capitulate, must not surrender to the Muslims" on the issue.
It is understood that both the previous Israeli government of Mr Shimon Peres and the current Netanyahu coalition have been well aware of the building work at the mosque - which is situated in an area known as "Solomon's Stables", underneath the section (of the Temple Mount compound closest to the Al Aksa Mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine.
Neither Mr Peres nor Mr Netanyahu, however, dared try to intervene to halt the project, for fear of provoking furious protest throughout the Arab world.
The Peres government, earlier this year, was apparently, ready to agree a "package deal" with the Wakf, the Muslim trust that administers Temple Mount, whereby Israel would open a new exit in the underground Hasmonean tunnel that runs from the Western Wall, Judaism's most holy site, alongside Temple Mount, and would in return authorise the completion of the underground mosque. As this deal was about to be implemented, however, a spate of suicide bombings hit Israel, and the issue was allowed to slide.
Right wing Israeli demands to close the mosque are bound to gather momentum in the coming days. The government will also doubtless be questioned as to why it did not pursue the idea of a package clear a move that might well have prevented the upsurge of Palestinian anger when "Israel unilaterally opened the new Hasmonean tunnel exit last month, the subsequent fighting, and the current crisis in Israel's relations with the Arab world.
That crisis dipped to a new low yesterday, with an unprecedented attack on Mr Netanyahu throughout the Jordanian media, exemplified by a cartoon in one Amman newspaper that showed the Israeli Prime Minister shooting the dove of peace.
Jordan is refusing to allow a prime ministerial aide to fly over to smooth relations, and Jordan's ambassador in Tel Aviv, Mr Omar Rifai, said yesterday that the only way to heal the rift was for Israel immediately to implement its peace accords with the "Palestinians. "This is definitely, not the peace process that was," he said dryly.
To that end, Israeli Palestinian talks on the Israeli pull out from Hebron continued yesterday, but without much progress. Israel complains that the Palestinians are unwilling to accept its security demands; the Palestinians counter that the Hebron deal has already been signed, and that there is no reason now to modify it. Only the presence of the American mediator, Mr Dennis Ross, has prevented the negotiations from breaking down completely.