If two neighbors really don’t like each other, it’s probably unproductive for them to spend time and energy thinking of ways to burn down the other dude’s home. Especially if they live in a duplex.

Yet that’s exactly what both sides appear set to do in Jerusalem. You cannot ask for a more reckless way to cook off a full scale disaster. The Temple Mount and/or Haram al-Sharif (whichever you prefer, we’ll just call it Religion Hill), is just about the most explosive location you could ask for.

In 2000 just a little light stroll by Ariel Sharon, albiet alongside one-thousand of his armed drinking buddies, touched off the Second Intifada. Apparently folks thought that was just a grand old time, because that’s exactly what’s about to happen again.

The forest is really, really dry right now. The peace process is dead, the entire region’s economy isn’t doing well, every other neighboring country is already at war, politics on both sides is militant, and generally speaking you get the idea that everybody’s approaching the point where they think they’ve got nothing to lose.

For nearly fifty years it’s been a no-no for non-Muslims to pray atop Religion Hill. Now folks have decided it’s time to change that. For whatever reason. Gee, I can’t imagine why this would be a big deal.

Now generally, I’m against anybody banning anything. If I want to pray to Lucifer in a Baptist church in Alabama, I should be able to. Likewise a Jew should be able to pray on Religion Hill. Or a Muslim inside a Orthadox synagogue in Brooklyn. I’m pretty sure Satan, Jesus, Yahweh, and Allah would all approve of this. On the other hand, any of the above actions would create some slight problems. So common sense should perhaps apply.

But whatever, risking war seems like the better idea. And around and around we go.

If you’re Hamas, and your dude just killed an Ecuadorian woman and a baby with his car, he’s a hero and a martyr. Because nothing will set the Palestinian people free faster than killing folks at light-rail stations. It’s a tactic so successful that nobody’s ever succeeded with it in all of human history. The genius of this strategy is unmistakeable. Please carry on.

If you’re Netanyahu, the mature appropriate response to such an action is to bulldoze the guy’s home. Because nothing says you’re the more moral power than by making a whole family homeless. I guess Muslim wives who wish to keep their homes are supposed to shoot their husbands in the back of head while they sleep if they say they hate Jews?

Somebody’s going to do something stupid. All it’s going to take at this point is one big senseless act. Which side will do it first? Doesn’t matter. Who will win? Nobody.

The thought has occurred to me, that if we evacuated Jerusalem, and then hit it with about ten nukes until there was nothing left but sand? That humanity would be a lot better off.