US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has published a video of his visit to Israel on his Twitter page, which omits Muslim shrines in Jerusalem but includes a model of the Third Temple there.
The footage shows Pompeo visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Western Wall in Jerusalem, which is followed by a model of the Third Temple.
Some Jewish groups want to erect the structure on the Temple Mount and have triggered concerns that Muslim sites such as the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque would be affected. The Temple Mount is one of the holiest sites in the world for Muslims, Christians and Jews.
Most Jewish-Orthodox scholars believe that the Third Temple will be rebuilt by the Jewish Messiah; an event that some believe may herald the end of the world. An apocalyptic mood was reflected in Twitter users’ reactions to Pompeo’s Jerusalem tour.
In Pompeo’s video, the Third Temple model is accompanied by his mentioning US President Donald Trump’s recent decision to recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights; the occupied land was described by Pompeo as “hard-fought real estate” and an “important place”.
In a separate development, he told the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) on Thursday that as a Christian, he “certainly believes it’s possible" that “President Trump right now has been sort of raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace".
The Golan Heights were occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly underlining that the Jewish state would not meet Syria's demands that it retreat to the 1967 lines because they were “indefensible”.