A Peace Offering

A Peace Offering

Hundred of people were on the Temple Mount. The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Treaty, the comprehensive agreement between Israel and the new Palestinian state, had just been signed. Dignitaries from around the world had flocked to the Holy Land to witness this momentous occasion.

Mahmoud Halabi, chief negotiator for the PLO, shook hands with Shaul Brinner, the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel. After a year of intense negotiations, the two sides had agreed to a formula for implementing the peace accord. The Israelis surrendered about ninety percent of the occupied territories to the Palestinians; but in addition, both sides committed to engaging in joint economic projects, cultural exchanges, scientific research, and cooperation between their respective security forces and intelligence communities.

“What better place to celebrate this wonderful peace between our two people,” said Mahmoud. “Who would have thought this would happen right here in Jerusalem?”

“Not I,” replied Shaul. “It’s amazing.”

“And after so much turmoil and violence.” Jamal Kasem, the newly appointed Foreign Minister of Palestine, joined the discussion.

“Jamal. Ma alesh habibi?” Shaul gave him a warm hug.

An Israeli band from Hebrew University performed some Arabic melodies. Their counterpart, a Palestinian ensemble from Nablus played Israeli folk songs. Dance groups from all over the world performed in selected locations on the Temple Mount. A Japanese theatrical group reenacted religious episodes which took place in ancient times.

No sooner had the diplomats sat down at their table when a young boy wearing a k’fiyah approached Mahmoud. He tapped him on the shoulder and started speaking in Arabic. “Mr. Halabi. Mr. Kasem. You have to come down to the Damascus Gate.”

“What are you so anxious about, young boy? Relax,” replied Mahmoud.

“It's not safe here. We're going to be in trouble.”

“Leave now, crazy boy. You´re disturbing us.”

“But ...”

“Enough! Get out of here, immediately.”

“Mr. Halabi. Please. Please listen to me.”

Mahmoud motioned a security officer. “Guard, please escort this troublemaker off the premises.” The guard yanked the boy by the front of his shirt. He tried breaking free of his grip, but the guard yanked harder, slightly ripping his shirt. The boy started to scream. At that point, another guard approached him. They lifted him, one grabbing his legs, the other his body, and walked down the west side of the Mount.

There were a few US diplomats joining the Israelis and Palestinians at the main dining table. Most notable was the Vice President of the United States. He had played a major role in brokering this agreement. He proposed a toast for everlasting peace. The diplomats klinked their wine glasses and started drinking.

Without any warning, the table started to rattle. A wine glass fell off of it and shattered on the ground. Shaul looked around. He became very anxious. The earth started to shake more violently. “Earthquake, looks like a big one,” he cried out.

Jamal grabbed onto Yitzhak, the mayor of Jerusalem. Yitzhak tried calming him down. “Just duck under the table. It will stop in a few seconds.” Within a few seconds, however, a very sharp object pierced through the concrete ground. It smashed the table into pieces. Jamal cried out in agony. “Aaaaaah. It’s cut my leg. Ooooooh. A sign from Allah. He doesn’t want us to make peace with you damn Zionists.”

“You must not speak that way.” replied Yitzhak. “We’ve fought so hard to overcome all these obstacles ...” Another sharp object went right through Jamal’s chest. This killed him instantly.

The earth continued to shake violently. A large monolith emerged from beneath the Dome of the Rock. It penetrated the golden dome and knocked down its walls. Through cracks in the concrete, a mysterious blue light appeared. It ignited some of the tables where the foreign dignitaries were sitting.

The Al-Asque Mosque was breaking apart. A few worshippers escaped, trembling. Diplomats were scattering in all directions. As people tried fleeing to safety, many were trampled in the stampede.

At the base of the Western Wall, a group of Hassidic Jews were fervently davenning. They perpetually rocked back and forth like parrots chirping at their perches. Some large stones fell from the top. This did not stop them from praying. A Rabbi frantically waved at the faithful to leave the area. “Our lives are in danger. We can´t stay here.” Most took heed. A few people ran out of the nearby grotto. Nevertheless, many kept praying, even as they faced being harmed. The wall crumbled. Those that remained died a slow, agonizing death.

Yitzhak managed to escape from the pandemonium. He was about 200 meters from the Temple Mount. As he was fleeing the area, he heard some loud, grating sounds. He turned around. “It’s ... What the ... can’t be.”

A gigantic structure emerged from the Temple Mount. It was slowly rising. As sunlight bathed its smooth stones, it sparkled. Each stone was perfectly cut and in pristine condition. It continued rising for a couple more minutes. A large, rectangular building now towered over the Old City. It was basqueing in blue and white laser light. There was a holographic projection of the Star of David shining above it.

“The Temple of Solomon has returned,” shouted a nearby ultra-orthodox Jew. “God has brought it back to us.”

“No, my foolish friend,” replied his bearded friend with earlocks. “This is the Third Temple. And I don’t think God had anything to do with it.”

“I have no idea what the f*ck happened,” shouted Ronny Merkado, the Israeli Prime Minister, into his cellular phone. He was speaking with Muhammed Abdullah, President of the Palestine. “What? How dare you accuse me of that ... You bastard. I worked so hard on this accord, dealing with all of your crap ... Look, my people were killed, your people killed. This large building appears out of nowhere and everything is ruined. All our dreams and aspirations. Gone. And we caused all of this? ... Right, another Zionist plot. Very funny. My fellow Zionists were buried in that plot ...” He threw his phone across the room.

Shaul walked into the Prime Minister’s office. He started to talk, but Ronny pointed right at him. “I’m in no mood for any more bad news.”

“Unfortunately, it’s all bad news.”

“Then please leave. I can’t handle it. The Palestinians have nullified the treaty. The Syrians are amassing their troops along the Golan. Egypt and Jordan are giving us hell. The UN is talking about imposing sanctions. The US is threatening to break off diplomatic relations. What more could go wrong?”

“You forgot about the Russians.”

“The Russians? What about them? Don’t tell me. They’re coming.”

“They’re threatening to drop a nuclear bomb.”

In a dark cavern deep beneath the Temple Mount, a group of zealots were meeting to discuss the next phase of their plan. Saddam Bashawa, Deputy Commander of the Palestinian Resistance Front, a staunch anti-peace terrorist organization, offered a toast to the success of their operation. “We have great reason to celebrate. Today, we have killed this so-called peace process, and a few of their supporters as well.”

Saddam raised his glass of wine towards Zvi Berman. Berman was one of the leaders of a right-wing extremist group in Israel, the Zionist Defense Network. This group had several members jailed because of public bombings, assasinations of Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and other terrorist activities. “Yes, a job well done,” offered Zvi, as he and Saddam raised their glasses.

“And let us not forget about our role,” remarked Richard Knight. Knight was a rogue CIA agent who vociferously attacked U.S. Middle Eastern policy. He vehemently fought against the peace process. One faction of the CIA argued this process would undermine U.S. interests in the region. They claimed that the ongoing conflict in the area helped to promote “various intelligence services” useful to both the Israelis and Arabs. This faction disavowed any ties to Knight’s activities, but Knight himself claimed that he was still on the CIA’s payroll.

“We are in great debt to you, my good friend,” said Saddam. “All those arms and training you’ve supplied us with.”

“And more importantly,” interrupted Zvi, “we’re eternally grateful that you supplied us with these brilliant technical experts to construct our beloved temple.”

“Those high-powered industrial lasers and razor-sharp metallic teeth sure did the trick. Got a real kick out of seeing them smash right through the ground,” said Knight.

“The hydraulic lifts worked pretty good, I must say,” said Marty Pritchard. Pritchard, an industrial engineer with a U.S. materials firm, had long been affiliated with clandestine sales of industrial equipment and materials to Middle Eastern terrorists. They often used these to manufacture explosives.

“Of course. Imagine all that weight that it needed to support. A giant temple for God’s sake,” said Zvi, as he made a repetitive verticle motion with his hands, palms facing up, above his head. “Baruch Hashem.”

“Baruch Hashem,” responded Rinna Goldberg, sardonically. A Russian immigrant to Israel, she was a computer consultant who helped design the firmware controlling the hydraulic movements. She puffed laboriously on her cigarette. “You religious shitheads thank God for everything. Pathetically boring.”

“And you heartless atheists could benefit from prayer and worship,” replied Zvi.

“Pray for what? It was OUR expertise that lifted that damn thing,” said Rinna. “Not to mention the software we wrote to run that generator Marty sneaked in.”

“Generator? What generator? I didn’t hear about anything like that.” Zvi looked around the chamber room.

“Of course not, you were too busy praying to your make-believe God. That generator created the resonance waves which helped break up the ground.”

“I thought the lasers did that.”

“Yeah, right. The lasers did all that. You´re such a bonehead. The lasers bored through the ground after it was weakened by the resonance waves.” She stubbed out her cigarette on the floor.

“Those mechanical supports and shields we built to protect the temple from the collapsing surface held up real good,” interjected Marty.

“Our expert systems ran all of that, you fool,” replied Rinna. “That’s what determined the density of concrete and structural support beneath the Temple Mount. And precisely when to fire the lasers, then finally move all those shields and supports.”

“OK, folks. Enough already,” said Knight. He put his arm around Rinna’s shoulders. She immediately brushed it off.

“The key thing is that we got the temple above the surface,” said Saddam. “It will undoubtedly provoke a war between our peoples. A very valuable temple indeed. Surely we’ll achieve our objective. Then we can convert it back into the two Mosques.”

“Convert it back? What are you talking about?” Zvi replied, angrily.

Yaakov Rosenblum stumbled as he entered the room. He fell to the floor as did his yalmulka. As he retrieved it, he looked around for his watch. The wrist band had broken. “Gut in himel, not again. The third time this week.”

“Rosenblum, stop fooling around. We got serious issues to tackle.” Detective Shlomo Bernstein was chewing intensely on a piece of gum. He stood up from behind his desk, removed his thick-rimmed glasses and squarely looked at Rosenblum.

“Right. Yes, I can see your point. Indeed,” said Rosenblum.

“Good to see you’re in crisis mode, Rosenblum. Now listen up.” Shlomo walked from behind his desk. He offered an extending hand to Yaakov and helped him get up.

“Thank you chief.”

“OK. Let’s get started. As you know, this country is in a severe crisis right now. We’ve been commissioned by the Knesset Security Committee to investigate these recent events. How that monstrosity appeared out of nowhere. Who is behind it. How the culprits managed to plan this for so many years.”

“They bribed city officials.”

“What? Get serious, Rosenblum.”

“How else could they have entered the underground, built this beautiful temple, run it with such advanced technology, and without anyone knowing about it? They had to ...”

“Don’t let anyone hear you talk that way.”

“Of course some of them could have actually participated in it.”

“Hey, stop clowning around,” he yelled at Rosenblum, pounding his fist on his desk. “We need some good leads.”

Yitzhak was getting an earful from Ronny. They were meeting in the mayor’s office. “Ronny, calm down.”

“What’s to be calm about? We’ll be at war soon.”

“We have our best guys investigating it.”

“It’s too late for investigations. Shit, we have to act now.”

“But we already discovered some interesting things.”

“Like what?”

Yitzhak turned on his computer. He launched his browser and went to a secure web site. On the screen appears a few aerial photographs. He double-clicked on one of them to zoom in.

“You see this spot right here, on the Mount of Olives? Our experts identified that as a secret entrance to an area beneath the Temple Mount. Notice that it’s covered with a small grove of trees. We’ve notified the City Parks officials, instructing them to question all of the groundskeepers who work in that area.”

“And?”

“So far, no luck. But we did pry open a metallic cover that was six feet beneath the surface. It was close to one of the tombstones.”

“Hmm. Probably was meant to be operated with some hidden switch.”

“We looked everywhere. Behind tombstones, in the gardens, and so forth. But no luck.” Yitzhak turned off the computer. “So we just decided to go inside.”

“What did you find?”

“A very good question. There were steps leading down to a group of hidden passageways. It turned out to be one giant labyrinth. Some of the passageways were circular, just returning us back to the beginning. Probably diversionary.”

“No doubt. What else was there?”

“Some electronic equipment in one room. A couple of computers. Not much besides that.”

“That’s it?” replied Ronny. “Hardly sounds like enough to light up a room much less build a temple.”

“They must have cleaned things out.”

“Or maybe you just didn’t find the other secret rooms. Look, Yitzhak, if we don’t get any other serious leads, the Mossad is going to take over. They’ve already threatened to push us aside as it is.”

“We’ll find out what’s happening. I give you my personal assurance.”