W.I. Israel gained full control of Al-Aqsa?

Suppose that Israel completely conquered Jerusalem with the city now overwhelmingly Jewish: what would the arrangments for Al-Aqsa be? The same? Jews allowed to pray at designated times on the Temple Mount?

I'll assume a Third Temple isn't happening.
 
Already done iOTL.

How're you thinking that would happen? The backstory would be hugely significant for your question.

Say more Jews survive the Holocaust/stronger foreign backing allows Israel to take over the whole West Bank in the 1948 war. Thus, the same population movements happen, leaving Jerusalem overwhelmingly Jewish and absolved from caring about what it's Muslim minority thinks about what it does to Al-Aqsa.
 
Say more Jews survive the Holocaust/stronger foreign backing allows Israel to take over the whole West Bank in the 1948 war.
Well, for one, more Jews surviving the Holocaust would lead to a stronger Ashkenazi presence in Israel, with very significant implications for Israeli culture. I don't know enough to say where that'd go, but IIUC it'd probably mean less religious influence, which means more Muslim-favorable arrangements than otherwise.

But all the same - there would've been less precedent set, and more international recognition of Israel owning the West Bank. The whole Israeli-Arab mess would probably be more stable than iOTL. All that would mean more Jewish-favorable arrangements than otherwise.

And then to mess things up further, one of the few "facts on the ground" I know about this situation is that many religious Jews would refuse to go on the Temple Mount even if it were allowed, because they don't want to inadvertently step where the Holy Place of the Temple stood, since only the priests were allowed to go in there. (Much less the Holy of Holies, which only the High Priest was allowed to enter, and him only once a year.)
 
Suppose that Israel completely conquered Jerusalem with the city now overwhelmingly Jewish: what would the arrangments for Al-Aqsa be? The same? Jews allowed to pray at designated times on the Temple Mount?

I'll assume a Third Temple isn't happening.
Any attempt to turn the Temple Mount into any Jewish shrine or temple, or likely even to pray at it, would lead to near instant resistance from Muslim and Christian leaders in the Holy Land. The Temple Mount would probably end up a corpus seperatum, as would nost Muslim and Christian sites in the area.
 
Would say the reaction of the rest of the world would be relatively lukewarm, especially if Israel managed to not screw things up in the aftermath of the 6-Day War in 1967 like in OTL allegedly due to anti-religious secular ideology and politics within the Israeli establishment.

On the other hand full Jewish control over the Temple Mount would likely provoke quite a "lively" debate (even a spectacle) within Israel as well as the Jewish diaspora (potentially for decades to come...), over whether to pray on the Temple Mount as well as whether to build the 3rd Temple or at least some sort of structure. Legitimacy-seeking Heterodox sects in the diaspora may attempt to make a play for control over the Temple Mount, though not sure what the position would be of the Anti-Zionist religious sects regarding full Jewish control of the Temple Mount.
 
Well, for one, more Jews surviving the Holocaust would lead to a stronger Ashkenazi presence in Israel, with very significant implications for Israeli culture. I don't know enough to say where that'd go, but IIUC it'd probably mean less religious influence

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the bulk of Ashkenazi Jews who died (Galician and Lithuanian) were quite religious themselves.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the bulk of Ashkenazi Jews who died (Galician and Lithuanian) were quite religious themselves.
Quite possibly. I don't know that much about the situation; I just read one book on Israeli history which said a lot of Zionists were planning Israel as a secular mostly-Ashkenazi state, and linked the failure of the one to the failure of the other.
 
Top