Ground Zero: Jerusalem, holy war, and collective insanity

Ground Zero: Jerusalem, holy war, and collective insanity is a close look at the “most explosive real estate on the planet.” The area of the Temple Mount, which includes some of the holiest sites in Islam, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock, happens to sit in the most heavily weaponized area on earth. The chances of World War Three breaking out over this contested thirty-five acres is not only plausible, but probable


Ground Zero: Jerusalem, holy war, and collective insanity tries to unearth all the extreme elements which make peace in the region unobtainable: fundamentalism, messianism, evangelism, and territoriality. These represent the “dark force” which prevents a sane and reasonable peace from being achieved between Israel and the Arab world.

The first to our four horsemen of the apocalypse that is examined is radical and extreme Islamic fundamentalism which cannot rest until the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque are liberated from the “infidels.” From bin-Laden to Nasrallah and Akhmadinejhad, the fundamentalist point of view—and specifically Islamic end-times prophecy and the arrival of their redeemer, the Mahdi—plays a far larger role than most Americans think in how the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is perceived.

When we journey to evangelicals, we encounter an opposite perception. Their thirst for the Rapture requires that the Dome of the Rock not be liberated but destroyed—“cleansed” in their words—so that the third temple can be built, prophecy fulfilled, and all the logo pieces put in place for the Rapture and the glorious return of Jesus.

But these are only two collective, psychic forces predisposing this region to war. Radical and fanatic “messianists” await their Messiah too—a different one from the evangelist’s Jesus or the Islamist’s “Mahdi”—and their attempts to hasten the arrival of their Godhead, Messiah ben David, similarly will resolve their prophetic yearnings.

Unfortunately all three of these eschatologies presume horrific violence and destruction. Our three different messiahs only arrive on the scene with a great war and holocaust either accompanying them or preceding them.

Finally, the psychology of “territoriality” is examined in which the Israeli/Palestinian issue raises a deep and penetrating psychological enigma: Most wars show that an “intruder” violates the territorial space of the “proprietor,” and, at least in the animal kingdom, the proprietor generally prevails. What makes this issue unique is that both Palestinians and Israelis consider themselves true and legitimate proprietors, and thus each sees the existential other as an alien intruder. It is as if two home teams are competing with each other in the same stadium. The psychological implications for this Gordian knot are deeply foreboding.

In the final chapter, “Holocaust and holy war,” all the military options, equipment, submarines, nuclear weapons, anthrax, plague, sarin, mustard gas, thermobaric bombs, cruise missiles, surface-to-surface missiles, air-burst artillery shells, tanks, aircraft, dirty bombs, troops, settlers, reservists, militants, jihadists, holy warriors and martyrs are described, tallied, sifted, and sorted.

Conclusion: this is the most densely weaponized acreage on planet earth and consummately the most volatile.

The prospect of collective insanity breaking out in this region, with all the weaponry that is in place and ready for ignition, is nothing short of nightmarish