The Bloody Mountain

It is the holiest place on earth for Jews and one of the most sacred for Muslims. An inside look at the revered ground that has become the bleeding edge of an Arab revolt

The Palestinian youth in a yellow T shirt teeters on Herod's massive wall, hewn from limestone more than 2,000 years ago, and throws stone after stone at the Israeli riot police. Below him, a middle-aged Jew flees the barrage, holding on to his black yarmulke as he runs, shouting, "Death to the Arabs!" A minute before, these two were praying in the midday heat--one at al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest shrine in Islam, and the other 100 yards away at the Western Wall, revered by Jews as the place of prayer closest to the site of their biblical temple. That abrupt...

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