Newton’s Fire

II

Cries of outrage filled the warehouse. ‘Give ourselves up?’ demanded Danel. ‘Are you crazy? They’ll send us to prison forever.’

‘No,’ said Avram. ‘They won’t.’

‘Of course they will. They’ll lock us up and throw away the keys. And we wouldn’t even have brought down the Dome.’

Avram held up his hands against the protests. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Think about this for a moment. Think about it strategically. What are we hoping to achieve tonight? What would count as a success?’

‘We bring down that damned Dome,’ said Uri, to nods of approbation. ‘And then we get away.’

Avram frowned. ‘Why would that count as a success?’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Danel.

‘Let me tell you what will happen after we bring it down. There’ll be global outrage. You must realize that. All Europe and Asia and the whole Muslim world will revel in their outrage. They’ll convene emergency UN meetings and pass resolutions denouncing us. They’ll summon ambassadors and review aid packages and cancel trade agreements. They’ll put all kinds of pressure on our new Prime Minister, and they’ll dangle a Nobel in front of her nose too. You all know how pathetic she is. She’ll crumple like so much tinfoil, because crumpling is her nature. And so she’ll promise to have our own people — our own people — help the Arab scum build a new Dome in exactly the same place as the old Dome.’ He looked around at them, challenging them to say he was wrong. None of them did. ‘Think about that for a moment,’ he went on. ‘Not just the Dome being rebuilt, but being rebuilt with the help of Jews; because the third most holy site in Islam should obviously have priority over the holiest site of Judaism. That’s what’s going to happen. You know in your hearts it is. The question is, is that what you want?’

‘Of course not,’ said Danel. ‘But if that’s what you think, why are you even doing this?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you,’ said Avram. ‘Because our job tonight isn’t to take down the Dome. It’s never been that. Our job is to take the Dome down in such a manner that the Third Temple gets built in its place. It’s to take it down in such a manner that it will bring about a Jewish Greater Israel forever.’

‘That’s out of our hands.’

‘No, it’s not,’ insisted Avram. ‘It’s absolutely not. Let me paint you a picture. We’re all inside the Dome. Our explosives are set and ready to go. Outside, the police, the army and the Waqf are holding back lest we trigger our charges and bring it down. Then we give them our list of demands.’

‘Our demands?’ frowned Danel. ‘What demands?’

‘Prisoner releases; though that doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that they believe they can talk us out of it. They’ll send in their best negotiators. We’ll bargain. We’ll weaken. Finally, reluctantly, we’ll agree to surrender, though only to the Israeli army, and only if there are enough of them to protect us from the vengeance of the mob. Then, just as we’re being driven away …’ He mimicked with his hands the charges blowing, the Dome collapsing. ‘Can’t you see it? It will drive the Arabs crazy. They’ll hurl themselves at the army in their lust to tear us limb from limb, as you put it. And the army willhave no choice but to fight back in self-defence. And all of this will be being broadcast live to the world, remember. It will make the usual riots look like school parades. There’ll be uprisings in Gaza and the West Bank. Our neighbour governments will be forced by their outraged publics to intervene, to throw their armies against us, and then we’ll be at war, with a clear line drawn. And all the children of Israel will be on our side of that line whether they want to be or not. It will be Jew against Arab, Israel against the world. And we will win, because the Lord is on our side, praise His Name. And when we do win, there’ll be no more Arab vermin here, no more concessions, no more talk of one state or two state solutions. There’ll just be Israel, as was promised to us millennia ago. We’ll build ourselves a Third Temple and we’ll proudly proclaim our identity and our faith. And do you honestly fear for one moment that anyone will keep you in gaol while all of this is going on? The patriots who made possible a Greater Israel? The patriots who made possible the Third Temple. Gaol? They’ll be naming streets after you. They’ll be building statues. You’ll be heroes.’ He looked exultantly around at them, yet still saw doubt on their faces.

‘You’re asking us to trust our lives to crowd psychology?’ asked Danel. ‘What if the Arabs don’t charge? What if our neighbours don’t declare war?’

‘They will,’ insisted Avram.

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because there’s something else,’ he said. ‘Something that’s happening right now.’

‘And what’s that?’

Avram hesitated. Danel and his comrades were secular Zionists. They wanted a greater Israel as much as he did, but for political more than for religious reasons. Tell them what they were about to find in London, they’d laugh in his face and walk away. But show it to them … ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘It would put too many others at risk. But come to Jerusalem and you’ll see it for yourselves, I swear you will. You’ll see it long before we go in.’

Danel looked around to gauge the mood of his comrades, nodded grudgingly. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘But we see this thing of yours or it’s off. Understood?’

Avram nodded. ‘Understood,’ he said.