Word: mount
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Religion offers one obvious explanation for the bloody clash. Muslims call the Temple Mount al-Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary. It is home to both the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque and is Islam's third holiest site after Mecca and Medina. To Jews, it is the sacred spot where Solomon's Temple and later the Second Temple once stood. The adjacent Western Wall, a retaining wall from the Second Temple, is the holiest site in Judaism...
...Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by escalating the uprising in the occupied territories. Although Palestinians could not have anticipated how deadly the Israeli reaction would be, and it remains unclear just who attacked first, evidence strongly suggests that they were looking for a fight. The Temple Mount Faithful, which never entered the site, offered the perfect pretext to mobilize the masses, while the Jewish holiday provided a headline-grabbing backdrop for a demonstration...
They could not have done it without the Israeli police. Despite warnings by the Shin Bet, the nation's domestic security service, and the unusual presence of thousands of Palestinians on the Temple Mount on a Jewish holiday, the police inexplicably failed to deploy adequate reinforcements. (Police Minister Ronni Milo lamely explained that his forces mistakenly believed the riot would start at 3 a.m. that morning.) Said Yossi Sarid, a left-wing Knesset member: "There is no doubt that had the police prepared for this, this riot would have been prevented...
...repeatedly to drag Israel onto center stage in order to convince his fellow Arabs that the enemy is not Iraq but the Zionists and their American backers. Israeli security forces played right into his hands last week when they fired into an angry Palestinian mob on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, killing 19 Palestinians and wounding 140. The deaths, said Boutros Boutros Ghali, Egypt's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, were "Israel's great gift to Saddam Hussein...
Thus ended the low profile Israel had maintained in the gulf crisis at the request of the Bush Administration, which had persuaded Jerusalem that its silence was essential to keeping most of the Arab world united against Saddam. The tragedy on the Temple Mount, one of the most sacred sites in Islam, put Israel under diplomatic siege. Saudi Arabia decried the "brutal and savage attack," and Jordan denounced it as "racist and criminal." Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accused Israel of "brutal repression," while Syria . alleged that Israel actually orchestrated the clashes to force Arabs out of the occupied territories...