Note: the following article was written at the beginning of the Intafada, November 2000. As you will see though it is still highly pertinent. Ed

It was almost like something from a movie. A mob of angry Palestinians kill what turn out to be Israeli Special Forces men operating undercover in the occupied territories. In response Israeli helicopter gunships launch rocket attacks on Palestinian Police stations whilst Israeli and Arab armies eye each other warily across the desert sands. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem itself events unfold that would appear to be the opening stages of the fulfilment of Biblical prophecy.

The film could be called: Armageddon, the countdown begins . . .

Unfortunately, if you’ve been following the news you’ll know that you don’t have to imagine any of this: it’s all happened plus a whole lot more that the mainstream media has largely ignored.

The rioting and anger amongst Palestinians was a feature of the nightly news some time back. What the media did not cover was something of the background to events: a background that news editors either did not known about or maybe thought was a little too over the top to even contemplate.

And don’t make the mistake of thinking that the Western media won’t delete stories if certain interested parties decide that they are not in their interest. We came across a series of photos published on BBC Online a while back that perfectly illustrates this. On Thursday 12th Oct a group of Israeli soldiers in plain clothes were captured and killed by a mob of irate Palestinians in the occupied territories. The Israelis said that they were simply off duty soldiers who had taken a wrong turning. The Palestinians however claimed that they were an Israeli assassination squad operating in civilian garb and out to assassinate selected Palestinian activists. Neither side had much to corroborate their claims but on the morning of Saturday 14th Oct a page of photos, which appeared to substantiate Palestinian claims, appeared on BBC Online. The photos showed Palestinian protesters in action; in a series of pictures one protestor in particular appeared to lead on others and then suddenly turned on them, pulling a mask over his face and, assisted by a group of Israeli soldiers, who were conveniently nearby, proceeded to beat them up and help arrest them.

It provided clear evidence that Israeli security personnel were operating undercover amongst Palestinian protesters and suddenly it disappeared. After no more than a few hours on BBC Online the report vanished without mention and despite an extensive search we were unable to locate any reference to it. Regardless of its obvious significance and subsequent disappearance we noted that an article covering what the Israeli Embassy’s press attaché in London described as “the myth of Palestinian victimhood,” which had appeared at the same time, remained prominent for days after. Evidence that the Israelis are beginning to use disinformation and the press with the same heavy handed arrogance that characterizes their military.

Thus in the aftermath of the shooting of a 12 year old Palestinian boy in Ramallah with his father, images of which shocked the world, an Israeli inquiry announced that the boy had been shot, not by Israeli soldiers but by….Palestinian snipers.

Essentially Sharon and his allies want to build or rather rebuild the third Temple on the Mount in Jerusalem; the first was destroyed by Israel’s enemies, rebuilt and then destroyed again by Roman legions. The trouble is that to build the third Temple will mean encroaching on or even demolishing the Al-Aqsa mosque, a site of some significance to Muslims, and that in turn could trigger even greater violence.

To compound matters still further, archaeologist, biblical scholar and theologian Dr. Ernest Martin contends that the third Temple was not located on the Mount at all – which may account for Israeli negotiators readiness to bargain with the site. Yet despite this Sharon remains adamant; he wants the third Temple rebuilt on the Mount, in spite of such scholarly objections and the prospect of further bloodshed.

But Sharon is not alone in his quest to rebuild the Temple. Alongside Sharon there are an array of Zionist fanatics, many of whom belong to the Gush Emunim movement. Headed by Rabbi Moshe Levinger the movement operates in much the same way as their fanatic counterparts in the Muslim world, although they don’t get nearly as much media attention. A good example of their tactics and beliefs occurred in 1994. In the wake of the Oslo peace accords a Gush Emunim zealot, Baruch Goldstein, massacred scores of Muslim worshipers at prayer in a Hebron mosque. Today the Gush Emunim hails Goldstein as a hero and martyr.

Some of Sharon’s other allies aren’t so obvious or even recognisably Jewish. So we suggest that for a few moments you put aside all your preconceptions, for we are about to unravel a tangled web of intrigue; a scheme so unlikely and bizarre as to seem almost inconceivable. Even more bizarre are the actual participants, some of whom would not have been out of place in some old horror movie like the Omen.

Apart from members of the American based Christian identity movement, whose members recently attempted to lay a ceremonial corner stone at the Temple; would you believe that some of Sharon’s most important allies come from within the British aristocracy and European nobility?

That’s right. Foremost amongst them is the Queens first cousin, the Duke of Kent, who heads the Quatuor Coronati “research” lodge of the Grand Mother Lodge of British Freemasonry. The Lodge has an ongoing operation on Temple Mount itself, run on a day-to-day basis by the Seventh Marquis of Northampton, Spencer Douglas David Compton. Admittedly it may seem a little odd that British aristocrats are involved in the goings on at Temple Mount but take note, it gets even stranger. Because the Duke of Kent and Lord Northampton are both adherents of British Israelism: a doctrine that holds that the cream of British aristocracy is descended from one of the lost Tribes of Israel.

According to Lord Northampton: “I think the tradition of the Kabbalah is very strong in England, because I think one of the lost tribes came to England. And I think you can spot them, quite clearly, in old English families. I am sure you can. I know they came to Ireland, then to the North of Wales, and then down into England. And then became some of the oldest families we have.” In Lord Northamptons view America was also colonised by another of the lost Tribes. “That was all predicted, that one would go to Hyperborea, the land of the north, and one would go across the sea.” He told an interviewer: . . “so I think that America and England got the Two Lost Tribes, and that is why they then, in a very intellectual Jewish way, started to run the world!”

It gets even stranger because Lord Northampton is, by his own admission, a practitioner of the Golden Dawn rituals of occultist Aleister Crowley.

Lord Northampton’s right hand man on the Temple Mount project is Giuliano de Bernardo, Grand Master of Italian Regular Freemasonry. In addition to which the notorious Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith director Abe Foxman is also said to be in close collaboration because, according to Di Bernardo: “There are strong relations between B’nai B’rith and Freemasonry.”

Another key figure is architect Leen Ritmeyer, whose work has dovetailed with Quatuor Coronati activities on Temple Mount. And once again some familiar names start to reappear. Ritmeyer’s work on Temple Mount work has been financed by Lord Jacob Rothschild, son of Lord Victor Rothschild, a former head of MI5 and MI6. One other central character in all this is Dr. Lambert Dolphin, a physicist at the Stanford Research Institute in California. Like many of the participants he sees the proposed Temple Mount venture as the fulfilment of prophecy; others might view it as pure insanity. Nonetheless he remains undaunted by the fact that the Temple Mount project could precipitate even more bloodshed. In fact he almost seems to view it in terms of sacrifice, the sort of ritual that was once required to consecrate holy ground.

“Some things are clear,” Dr. Dolphin wrote. Sinful man cannot approach a holy God without a suitable sacrifice. The shedding of blood is somehow necessary . . .”

Which is perhaps why he and his allies seem to welcome the prospect of further conflict that the building of the third Temple on the Mount could trigger. And that could well happen; according to a 1988 CFR report, if Jewish fundamentalists like Gush Emunim and ultra-nationalists within the military were to seize power then an “Israel decoupled from the United States, opposed in principle to a negotiated peace …unfettered by the norms of liberal democracy” could pose a serious threat to world peace. The report, written by Ian Lustick, Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, offered two possibilities: the best-case scenario was an all out religious war as devastating as the Thirty Years War in Europe (1618-48).

The worst-case scenario was a thermonuclear World War III.

Sources include: Executive Intelligence Review December 2000. WorldNetDaily.com, Dr Ernest Martin interviewed by Jeff Rense on his radio show, and thanks for nothing: British Bullshit Corporation.