The Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem is holy to two faith groups, Judaism and Islam, and is a point of tension between the two populations. It was the site of the Jewish Temple in the First and Second Temple period, spanning the period of 1000 years prior to the common era. It was from the Temple Mount that by Islamic tradition the prophet Muhammed ascended from there to Heaven to receive the tenets of Islam from Allah. So after the 1967 war in which the old City of Jerusalem, was recaptured by the Israelis, Jews sought to strengthen their rights, including religious Jews who sought to pray. Muslims on the other hand were concerned that their prayer rights at the El Aqsa Mosque and Dom e of the Rock would be threatened. In the end the Israeli Government preserved the Muslim rights but limited Jewish prayer rights to the Western Wall (the Kotel').
All this has produced friction and tension - which has gained expression through violence and through the mass media, including social media. In order to clarify the picture, our study has examined qualitatively and quantitatively posts on Facebook . We rfecxeiuve3d from IFAT, a media monitoring company a total of 16,001 posts which were published in 2017, in Facebook groups, that include the Hebrew phrase 'Har Habit' (meaning 'Temple Mount'). Next we picked every 32nd post to compose a sample of 502 posts representing the Hebrew discourse on 'Temple Mount' throughout the entire year.
The 502 posts may be divided under a number of sub-groupings, the largest of which were 'nationalist' which concerns the question of sovereignty over the Mount, which produced 202 posts; 'religion' which relates to the various religions, notably Judaism and Islam; the question of prayer rights, and the spiritual significance of the mount (151 posts.
A third category concerns security aspects - the Police - on the Temple Mount who impose law and order among both Muslim and Jews visiting the mount. During the period examined there was a major security incident on the Mount in which Arabs shot dead two Israeli policemen. Overall, there were 135 posts in the period examined, of which 108 posts concerned the incident.
The findings indicate that the Temple Mount is discussed in social media mainly in National, or Religious or Security contexts (and much less on Historical, Archaeological, Economic, Diplomatic and other contexts). Findings also indicate that there is a lot of discussion on the Temple Mount concerning security matters. In the rest of the year, the discussion is focused on right-wing and Jewish religious groups.