Israel over the weekend was busy on two fronts: locally, trying to provide solutions to the security problems on the Temple Mount; and more broadly, preventing a conflagration after closing the holy site to Muslim worshippers. The local, tactical effort is nothing new and rekindles after every terrorist attack in the area of the Old City. In the wake of last month's terrorist attack as well, which claimed the life of Border Police officer Hadas Malka, security forces had to deal with the same problem of terrorists exploiting the religious/civilian pretext -- last month in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City near Damascus Gate; on Friday near the mosques on the Temple Mount -- to surprise and attack. Every solution proposed, in the past and present, is complicated. The Old City of Jerusalem is not an airport or shopping mall, where visitors can be checked physically. The Muslim masses -- sometimes in the hundreds of thousands -- worship at the mosques every Friday. It isn't practical to inspect everyone, one at a time, to ensure that no one is a terrorist with a weapon. Doing so would require vast investments of money and manpower, and would mainly force the thousands of worshippers and other visitors to the Old City to wait in endless lines, which in turn would become targets themselves for attacks. What's worse, such a measure would lend legitimacy to those claiming Israel is actively taking over the mosques on the Temple Mount and preventing prayer services there. Regardless, Fridays' unprecedented closure of the Temple Mount compound sparked an immense firestorm in the Arab and Muslim world, one that required a considerable diplomatic-public relations campaign to quell (with mixed results). Additionally, Israeli leaders, via international mediators, have had to provide personal assurances that Israel has no intention of altering the status quo on the Temple Mount. This broad, strategic campaign is critical to preventing an escalation of tensions on the Temple Mount and its environs. The Temple Mount has always been the Archimedean point in Israel's relations with the Muslim world, and as a consequence it has always been a target for anyone seeking to throw oil on the flame. The constant incitement against Israel regarding the Temple Mount persistently motivates young Palestinians to carry out attacks in east Jerusalem: as with the terror wave of 2014, the one that began in 2015, along with the recent terrorist attacks as well. Professional rioters, such as the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel or Hamas, have consistently operated under the slogan "the Temple Mount is in danger." Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has occasionally joined the chorus, giving Palestinians an "official" reason to go out and protect the Mount with their bodies. Israel, following the two previous waves of terror, understood that it cannot tinker with the Temple Mount issue, because even the most innocuous of actions there can serve as motivation for violence. Thus ministers and Knesset members were banned from visiting the site, and all Jewish-religious activity there was forbidden. Now, too, we can expect Israel to proceed with restraint, transparency and cooperation in an effort to lower the flames. Abbas' unequivocal condemnation of Friday's attack has undoubtedly helped in this regard, even amid the deafening silence from the majority of Arab-Israeli political leaders. The fact that Arab-Israelis carried out the attack should first and foremost concern the Arab population, because it paints them as a fifth column in the eyes of many Israelis. Introspection in this context is required by everyone, Jews and Arabs, on all levels: political, religious, educational and defense. On the security front, the terrorist plot hatched in Umm el-Fahm flew under the radar of the Shin Bet security agency, while police are struggling to get a handle on the issue of illegal firearms in the Arab sector. In all likelihood we will now see increased efforts in these two areas, despite apprehensions over friction with the Arab population. Unlike the Temple Mount issue, where tensions need to be alleviated, the potential for terror among the Arab street -- where many youths in recent years have begun looking to ISIS for answers -- combined with the amount of illegal weapons in the sector, necessitates intensive preventative action before the next attack. This has to happen, of course, alongside social and economic initiatives to integrate Arab-Israelis rather than isolate them. These efforts must be parallel to the preventative measures aimed at stopping the next attack in east Jerusalem. Since the beginning of 2017, nine Israelis have been killed in terrorist attacks, eight of them in east Jerusalem. Seven of those were security personnel (four IDF officer cadets and three Border Police officers), who sacrificed their lives to save civilians. Considering the high ratio of Druze-Israelis serving in the Border Police, it was inevitable that they, too, would be among the victims. However, it's hard to ignore the symbolism in their deaths. Druze men, serving in the Israeli police, killed by Arab Israelis while guarding the Temple Mount.
