Ariel Sharon's Temple Mount Visit Sparks Clashes That Become the Al-Aqsa Intifada

Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon toured the Al-Aqsa compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, under heavy guard on 28 September 2000, and Palestinian demonstrators clashed with Israeli police after the visit. Violence spread through Jerusalem and the West Bank the following day and escalated into the Second, or Al-Aqsa, Intifada. The episode showed that a single visit to the site could ignite a regional uprising, the kind of burden Zechariah describes when Jerusalem becomes a stone that troubles the nations.