The Ghetto Third Temple: Implementing Isaiah 56:7 at Al-Aqsa Mosque
An Attempt to Get Jews and Muslims to Stop Fighting Over the Holiest Hill
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is both political and metaphysical. It is a war over sacred space, spiritual primacy, and the question: Whose God reigns from Jerusalem?
And here is the truth that no one will say out loud:
The Third Temple is a fucking Mosque.
Yeah, I said it.
It’s Al-Aqsa. Sitting right there, on the holiest hill in Judaism. Guarded by Muslims. Envied and desired by Jews.
There is no need to rebuild Solomon’s Temple.
We can’t. Not without blowing up the Middle East—literally.
Any attempt to demolish Al-Aqsa would ignite a regional firestorm that no army, no treaty, no Iron Dome could contain.
But the Temple is already here—if we have the vision and the guts to transform it.
Not just physically, but spiritually.
Not just structurally, but covenantally.
It must become a place that embodies the ideals of a shared Abrahamic destiny—a sanctuary that enshrines justice, peace, pluralism, and humility before God.
Because without that transformation, there is no endgame—only endless war.
Let’s be honest: Mecca and Medina aren’t contested— the Haram is.
It is the third-holiest site in Islam, but the first in Judaism. The Jewish yearning to return to the Mount will not vanish. Nor will the Muslim devotion. And that’s the fatal bind.
So what’s the way out?
We consecrate the Mosque as the Third Temple—not by conquest, but by covenant.
We propose a literal Tabernacle—a sacred Jewish structure—placed within the courtyard of Al-Aqsa. Not to replace the mosque nor to provoke Ragnarok.
But to fulfill it in reverse—to create a physical space where both peoples, and all Abrahamic faiths, can approach the Divine without domination.
This isn’t fantasy. It’s grounded in prophetic precedent.
The original Tabernacle was mobile. It did not conquer. It dwelt and moved.
And so too can this.
But don’t get it twisted—this transformation means nothing unless Israel makes real, irreversible concessions to the Palestinians.
No Tabernacle without withdrawal. No sacred compact without Palestinian sovereignty. A covenant without justice is pageantry. And we’ve had enough performance.
This isn’t coexistence as camouflage.
It’s the foundation of a new order for the Holy Land—from battleground to covenantal core.
And this vision isn’t without precedent:
The Ordinance of Medina, authored by the Prophet Muhammad, sought to bind Jews and Muslims into a single political community. Separate faiths, shared responsibility.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been co-managed by six rival Christian denominations for centuries under the Status Quo.
Early Muslims visited Christian and Jewish shrines, like the Monastery of St. Simeon, honoring shared prophetic traditions.
The Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron has long been (tenuously) shared by Muslims and Jews.
The Ottoman Empire governed Jerusalem through layered sanctity and negotiated religious coexistence—not monopolized holiness.
This has always been possible. What’s missing is the courage to name it.
“To the Jews their religion, and to the Muslims theirs.” — Prophet Muhammad
If Medina could attempt it, so can Jerusalem.
I’m not naïve.
This is heresy to both Muslims and Jews.
Al-Aqsa is the spiritual heart of Palestinian identity, and the Temple described in scripture looks nothing like the Dome of the Rock.
The historical precedents aren’t reassuring.
The Ordinance of Medina collapsed—undone by suspicion, betrayal, shifting tribal alliances, and irreconcilable theology.
Civilizational fault lines crushed prophetic idealism.
And this vision might suffer the same fate.
But that’s not a flaw—it’s the nature of covenantal politics.
They endure only as long as there is the will to uphold them.
So we do what our ancestors did:
We build the sacred around shared purpose, not permanence.
We consecrate the Mosque as the Third Temple.
Not as utopia, but as a real-world attempt to create a space where two wounded peoples can honor the sacred without annihilating each other.
Let the covenant be tested.
Let it fail spectacularly, if it must.
But it must be tried.
Because no one else is offering anything but more blood and more sectarian war in the Holy Land.
And if there is a long-term goal worth striving for, let it be this: that Isaiah 56:7 is fulfilled—not metaphorically, but concretely.
“My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
Let the Temple Mount become that house. Not for Jews alone. Not for Muslims alone. But for all peoples who seek God without bloodshed. The Tabernacle is the beginning. The covenant is the frame. But the destination—a sacred space where no one is turned away, where prayer replaces paranoia, and where the divine is no longer weaponized against the neighbor—that is the ultimate aspiration. That is what sanctifying the mosque as the Third Temple really means.