Jerusalem: A Growing Powder Keg in Mideast Impasse -- Time Magazine
On the face of it, the project sounds innocent enough: Since the early 1990s, the Israeli organization Elad has been rehabilitating the City of David, a once neglected area nestled at the foot of the southern walls of Jerusalem's Old City. The site is believed to have been the seat of power of the kingdom of David, before King Solomon built his temple higher up on Mount Moriah. Until a few years ago, only a few thousand tourists a year visited the City of David, but Elad's efforts — digging tunnels, uncovering ruins and building a visitor's center — drew at least 460,000 people to the site last year. The organization hopes to make its project the flagship of a series of religious and historical theme parks in a loose ring around the Old City to boost its appeal as a tourist destination. But the enterprise also has a potentially explosive ideological purpose: to cement Israel's claim to all of Jerusalem — a claim that is hotly and often violently disputed by Palestinians and the wider Muslim world.
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My Comment: A growing powder keg ?!?!?!? .... this keg blew up a long time ago.