How strongly do we really feel about Temple Mount?

Police have barred non-Muslims from Temple Mount today, Tisha B'Av, out of 'concern for public safety.'
The Jerusalem Post reports 'outrage' at the decision -- although they can only back this claim up with two quotes from National Union MKs and the Temple Mount Faithful. The fact is, I suspect, that while most people think it is wrong for Jews to be barred from their own holiest site because of what amounts to Muslim threats, they are not outraged.
The Jewish ambivalence towards Temple Mount -- taking a few crazies who want to blow the place up out of the equation -- has been particularly noticeable over the past few years: there have been no mass protests over the destruction of Jewish antiques by the Waqf, and until last year, when Temple Mount was re-opened to non-Muslims, there were no mass demonstrations on the matter either.
A couple of years ago on the 35th anniversary of the capture of Temple Mount I wrote about this ambivalence in The Jerusalem Post, interviewing a range of Israelis about their feelings or lack of feelings towards Temple Mount. To this day, I am mesmerized by Haredi MK Ravitz's admission he went up to Temple Mount as a soldier, and had a rapturous experience, knowing full well he was committing a sin. Read the full article here; in a nutshell:

Does the lack of action suggest that Israelis do not care about the Temple Mount as much as they are reputed to?
'If the issue really hit home, we would have seen some more action,' says Yehuda Etzion, former leader of the Jewish underground that in the early 1980s planned to blow up the Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount. But the facts also suggest something about the subtle way in which Israelis care about the Temple Mount.
According to head of the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University and Israel Prize laureate Professor Avi Ravitzky, the nation is deeply bound to the Temple Mount as a symbol, although what exactly it symbolizes varies from group to group. The public is not, however, interested in the physical place itself.
'They are even slightly wary of it,' says Ravitzky.
He says this is consistent with a deeply ingrained Jewish tradition, whereby the Temple Mount is regarded as out of bounds until the coming of the Messiah.
'It is a deep and spiritual idea, that there is a place which we do not approach or control, but leave beyond history,' says Ravitzky.
There is an alternative explanation. For many Israelis, both secular and religious, the dream of returning to the Temple Mount may be attractive, but the reality of controlling the Temple Mount is simply too complicated. It poses too many awesome problems religiously, politically and ideologically.
If Israelis are in danger of losing or have already lost the Temple Mount, then it may be because they have no real desire to be there under current conditions.

I am particularly proud of this article, which I thought was one of the most interesting I ever wrote, and remember wondering at the time why I received so little response to it. I hope it was just another proof of how uninterested most Israelis are in their holiest site, and not a reflection of my writing!