IT was Dennis Ross, US special envoy to the Middle East at the time, who hit the nail on the head.

“I can think of a lot of bad ideas, but I can’t think of a worse one,” he reportedly commented on hearing of Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon’s intention to go walkabout on Haram al-Sharif.

I was there that day back on September 28, 2000, working as a reporter covering the tumultuous events that resulted from what many saw as a deliberately provocative gesture by Sharon.

For those readers unfamiliar with the significance of Haram al-Sharif, suffice to say that it is the third holiest shrine in Islam and known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

Its site is also equally revered by Jews, who call it Temple Mount, the location of the Biblical First and Second Temples, and the most sacred place on Earth.

Sitting high overlooking East Jerusalem, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, this 35-acre esplanade has lain at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it remains one of the greatest obstacles to securing a meaningful peace.

In a play on words using Sharon’s nickname, I recall a colleague I knew at the time likening Sharon’s gesture to that of “the bulldozer in the china shop”.

In all, Sharon’s visit could not have lasted more than 45 minutes – 45 minutes that would leave in their wake a trail of fury that ignited like a brush fire across the Palestinian territories and would lead to violence and bloodshed, known as the second intifada or Palestinian uprising, one of the most tumultuous periods in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Fast forward then to last Tuesday, less than a week after Israel’s new far-right government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assumed office, and once again, another Israeli leader has repeated Sharon’s infamous visit in what many see as an equally provocative gesture albeit this time lasting only 15 minutes.

On this occasion, the Israeli leader in question is Netanyahu’s newly appointed national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right politician convicted of anti-Arab incitement in 2007, and it doesn’t take much to realise how dangerous a moment this helps create.

Ben-Gvir once called for Jewish prayer at al-Aqsa, which is controversial enough, but it’s the timing of his visit this week that could not be worse, coming as it does in the wake of a year in which tensions between Israelis and Palestinians mounted in the West Bank and proved the deadliest for Palestinians in the territory since the end of the second intifada in 2005.

In a way, you can’t help feeling it’s a bit like throwing down a marker, an ominous sign if you like of things to come from an Israeli government and security apparatus now dominated by right-wing extremists.

While the Palestinians – as ever – stand to be the biggest losers in the recent changes in Israel’s government, so too does Israeli democracy. Already some of the most influential voices in the Israeli media and civil society have pulled few punches in their condemnation of the “racist” and “authoritarian” nature of some in Netanyahu’s current coalition.

Just a few months ago Yaakov Katz, editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post described Ben-Gvir, as the “modern Israeli version of an American white supremacist and a European fascist”.

Meanwhile, Katz’s editorial counterpart on the generally regarded more liberal newspaper, Haaretz, Aluf Benn, set out in some detail his own views of what he described as Netanyahu’s “mission” since returning to power.

According to Benn, Netanyahu is hell-bent on “making Israel into an openly racist authoritarian state, one that puts Orthodox Judaism ahead of human rights, treats its Arab citizens as an enemy, and demolishes the checks and balances imposed by a strong, independent judiciary.”

If the current coalition has its way, there would be a sweeping judicial overhaul enabling politicians to “override” High Court rulings with a simple majority and give them control over appointing judges.

Writing in Foreign Affairs magazine, Benn identified three politicians as the driving forces behind the coalition’s “ideological zeal. The first is Ben-Gvir. The second, Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of extremist Jewish settlers in the West Bank, who also once described himself as a “proud homophobe”.

The third political figure is Avi Maoz, who according to Benn “leads a small but fanatical religious and ultranationalist party that wants to purge Israel’s education system, civil service, and media of liberals, feminists, and LGBTQ people”.

With Ben-Gvir’s provocative visit to Haram al-Sharif this past week, it’s as if the global community has also woken up to the potentially incendiary makeup of the coalition.

From the European Union’s Middle East envoy Sven Koopmans to diplomats from Egypt the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Turkey and Israel’s ally the United States, the response has been an overwhelming condemnation of Ben-Gvir’s action.

Israel's immediate neighbour, Jordan, the custodian of al-Aqsa and whose 1994 peace deal with Israel is unpopular at home, meanwhile summoned the Israeli ambassador and said the visit had violated international law and “the historic and legal status quo in Jerusalem”.

While some point to the fractious nature of Netanyahu’s coalition as an inherent weakness that will be their undoing, others argue that the electoral success of the far-right parties – which won 10.8% of the vote in last month’s election – combined with Netanyahu’s lack of alternative partners mean that their leverage over Israel’s longest-serving prime minister is likely to continue.

That it has come down to this is in great part the result of the political trajectory in which Israel has been heading unchecked for some time. It’s a result too of Netanyahu’s lust for power and willingness to do deals to ensure his own political survival.

That it will have far-reaching implications for Israel’s democratic institutions; for its civil society; and for Palestinians – in Israel and in the Palestinian territories that Israel has occupied since 1967 is a given.

As Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Yaakov Katz, rightly pointed out recently, what Israel faces is “grave danger from within”.This time though, it can’t simply lay the blame squarely on the Palestinians.