In a development so predictably volatile it could have been written by a committee of hungover satirists, Israeli nationalists are once again threatening to storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. The usual suspects, the ones who treat holy sites like a particularly aggressive game of Risk, have declared their intention to sacrifice a cow on the Temple Mount. Because nothing says 'interfaith harmony' like a bovine bloodbath on a sacred plateau.
Britain, ever the gentleman drunk at the global bar, has issued a call for calm. The Foreign Office, a department whose diplomatic range extends from 'mild disapproval' to 'stringently worded memorandum', has expressed its 'deep concern'. One imagines the ambassador, a chap with a stiff upper lip and an even stiffer gin, telephoning Jerusalem with a plaintive: 'I say, chaps, do you mind cutting that out?'
But let us be honest. The British government's ability to influence Israeli policy is roughly equivalent to a dachshund telling a lion to stop eating its lunch. The real theatre here is the spectacle of politicians pretending that a few paragraphs of diplomatic boilerplate will make a difference. The Al-Aqsa compound, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews, has more historical baggage than a Victorian railway station. Every stone is a memory. Every corner a grudge. And now a group of nationalists, who probably own more than their fair share of cattle, wants to make it a butcher's block.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority, a body that exists in a state of perpetual impotent rage, has condemned the plans. They have urged the world to 'take action'. But what action? Will the UN, a talking shop so inept it once held a minutes' silence for a dropped cheesecake, descend from the heavens to part the crowds? No. The world will tut, the cameras will roll, and the nationalists will most likely get their cow on the Temple Mount, creating a diplomatic incident that smells of manure and failure.
I raise a glass of gin, not to celebration but to resignation. We are living in a world where the most absurd events are the most likely. A group of men who believe their god wants them to upset other people's lunch parties might just succeed. And Britain, the nation that once ruled a quarter of the globe, can only issue a press release and hope the noise dies down. It won't, of course. But at least the gin is cold.
