Lechi veteran Shabtai Ben-Dov (1924-1979) wrote:
Even when the rumor that the “last mosque” (Al Aksa) had been torched in order to give way to the Temple, nothing out of the ordinary happened, either in the Muslim world or among the Muslims in Jerusalem itself. Even if it really transpired, and we had taken away the Temple Mount mosques and replaced them with the Temple, there would have been no practical background for the Islamic world to have aroused itself to launch any kind of jihad, to storm us seriously, or even harm us in some other manner much more efficient and significant than that with which it tries to hurt us anyway. It therefore seems that even if we were to rise up and carry out this “terrible act,” which so shocks our public today, nothing would really happen to us here, and the Muslim world would quickly adjust to the new situation.
(Written after the 1968 incident where an Australian tourist attempted to set Al Aksa mosque on fire.)
Excerpted from Save Israel here.