On Sunday, Tisha b’Av—the traditional day of mourning for the destruction of the two Jerusalem Temples—coincided with the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. While the Israeli government had initially banned Jews from the Temple Mount on that day, it later reversed its decision and allowed a few dozen to visit. Muslim worshippers greeted them by throwing chairs and stones, and police had to quell the riot by force. Just yesterday, an Israeli policeman was stabbed nearby. Maurice Hirsch and Itamar Marcus place the blame for Sunday’s violence squarely on the shoulders of the Palestinian Authority:

In an attempt to disrupt Jews’ right to access the Mount, the Palestinian Authority (PA) took a number of steps, including changing the times of the Muslim prayers and calling for mosques around Jerusalem to remain closed in order to “recruit” as many people as possible to defend the site against the [Jewish] “invasions.”

While the published schedule for the five daily Muslim prayers set the first prayer time for 4:29 am, the second for 5:56 am, and the third for 12:44 pm, the PA-appointed grand mufti decided to delay the second prayer to 7:30. The [purpose for doing so] was to ensure that as many people [as possible] would be present on the Temple Mount when Jews were scheduled to start arriving. . . .

Broadcasting from the Temple Mount, PA television showed how this tactic had succeeded and that, as the Jews were planning to enter the Mount through the Mughrabi Gate, crowds of Palestinians gathered at the site in order to prevent them from passing through. When the time came [for the Jews to arrive], the mufti called for an impromptu prayer session at the entrance to the gate. . . .

In anticipation of the violence, last week the PA’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates prepared the official narrative in advance, blaming the violence on President Donald Trump’s decisions regarding Jerusalem and the international community’s silence regarding the so-called “Judaization” of the al-Aqsa mosque.

On the same day the cease-fire went into effect along the Israel-Lebanon border, rebel forces launched an unexpected offensive, and within a few days captured much of Aleppo. This lightening advance originated in the northwestern part of the country, which has been relatively quiet over the past four years, since Bashar al-Assad effectively gave up on restoring control over the remaining rebel enclaves in the area. The fighting comes at an inopportune for the powers that Damascus has called on for help in the past: Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and Hizballah has been shattered.

But the situation is extremely complex. David Wurmser points to the dangers that lie ahead:

The desolation wrought on Hizballah by Israel, and the humiliation inflicted on Iran, has not only left the Iranian axis exposed to Israeli power and further withering. It has altered the strategic tectonics of the Middle East. The story is not just Iran anymore. The region is showing the first signs of tremendous geopolitical change. And the plates are beginning to move.

The removal of the religious-totalitarian tyranny of the Iranian regime remains the greatest strategic imperative in the region for the United States and its allies, foremost among whom stands Israel. . . . However, as Iran’s regime descends into the graveyard of history, it is important not to neglect the emergence of other, new threats. navigating the new reality taking shape.

The retreat of the Syrian Assad regime from Aleppo in the face of Turkish-backed, partly Islamist rebels made from remnants of Islamic State is an early skirmish in this new strategic reality. Aleppo is falling to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS—a descendant of Nusra Front led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani, himself a graduate of al-Qaeda’s system and cobbled together of IS elements. Behind this force is the power of nearby Turkey.