Tzippi Livni's latest attack is, once again, on HaBayit Heyhudi. I am not even sure why she is attacking them, as they are not her political opponents. I don't think anybody is wavering between the choices of the Tzippi Livni party or HaBayit Hayehudi. But she has, and she continues, to go on the offensive, against them. And she has regularly picked Friday nights to air her accusations and claims, a time when they can't respond, don't even know about it, giving maximum air time to the allegations.

This time Livni has picked on Jeremy Gimpel. Her people seem to have been wading through hundreds of hours of video of Gimpel, and probably of other list members, looking for dirt. And she thinks she has found it. Livni's team discovered a piece of a lecture Gimpel was giving to a group of Christians, about a year ago, in which he was explaining a biblical passage from the book of Ezra. Livni claims Gimpel was inciting to violence by floating the possibility of someone blowing up the Dome of the Rock.

Here is the relevant clip, taken out of context of the lecture:


Naftali Bennet,  head of the party, went to the media and has defended Gimpel rather than throwing him under the bus. Good for Bennet. Some other leaders would likely have forced Gimpel's resignation just out of concern of some bad press.

Here is Bennet's response to the media:


I have not yet heard the criticism being picked up by other parties and moving to critical mass, so hopefully it will remain a minor spat started by a failing politician grasping for support. Livni's criticism puts into question every religious Jew, not just Jeremy Gimpel. We all pray daily for the rebuilding of the Temple. Some perhaps want it more, some perhaps want it less, but if you ask any religious Jew if he wishes for the rebuilding of the Temple, the response will be in the affirmative. And the rebuilding of the Temple automatically means the dismantling of the Dome of the Rock.

Perhaps blowing it up won't be the precise method used to dismantle it, or maybe it will be, but that is already getting into technical details of the larger point. I wonder, as was asked in a discussion by @BenjaminOfTudela, if Livni asked Elazar Stern, the number four on her party list, a religious man himself, what he thinks about the rebuilding of the Temple.

I personally find the solution employed by the Likud in the Ulpana complex of Beit El to be a reasonable solution for the Dome of the Rock, should the opportunity arise to rebuild the Temple. That would be to cut the building out of the ground, cut it into a few sections, relocate it and reconnect the parts. That seems to me to be a far less extreme method than "blowing it up".

And it is far less extreme of a removal process than waiting until the Third Temple will fall from heaven, as some believe will happen rather than being rebuilt by man, and crush the Dome of the Rock into smithereens...