Uncertain 50th Birthday Israel Celebrates A Half-century Of Statehood This Year. Gone Is At Least Some Of Its Youthful Exuberance, Replaced By High-tech Wonders, Urban Bustle - And A Wariness Among Both Residents And Tourists.

JERUSALEM — Who could tell that the carpets were not really carpets at all?

Well, they were carpets, the really pretty kind you see in the shuk, the ancient market that runs along the narrow, winding stairways that twist and ramble and get you thoroughly lost in the guts of the Old City. For thousands of years, ruling culture after vanquished ruling culture has built a market atop a home, a church on top of a cistern, a house inside an old palace, an office above an abandoned ritual bathing spot. The only real constant has been the thirst that everyone has for this space, for this enveloping, dense walled city that has been the cause of so much hope, so much prayer, so many claims, such heavy contention, such monumental history, so many cultural keystones, and, yes, so much bloodshed, suffering and disappointment.

A few weeks ago, when I saw the carpets, lined along what appeared to be a railing and fluttering high above in the sun, I thought they were a considerate touch. They were a graceful cover for some of the workers maintaining the concrete and stone masonry in one of the most sacred spots in the world.

This busy crew was on hands and knees at the southern base of the 1,307-year-old Dome of the Rock, the third most holy place in Islam, the site where Muhammad's followers believe he flew to meet God on a horse with wings.

This very place is also the Temple Mount, site of the Jews' First and Second Temples - the former built almost 3,000 years ago by King Solomon, and the latter revived about 2,500 years ago until the Romans destroyed it 1,928 years ago. The Western Wall of this base, the holiest site in Judaism - just around the corner from where the carpets fluttered in the breeze - is all that's left of the Second Temple.

About a two-minute walk from all this is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the site where Jesus died on the cross, and the Via Dolorosa, the route Jesus took while carying the cross.

In this place in Israel that means so much in the world, it is fitting that a work crew would put some handsome Arabian carpets over a construction railing. That's what I thought. And then the gentle breeze turned into a strong one, and that became a certifiable gust and - whoosh! - in a matter of seconds, the carpets heaved upward and were blown onto the base of the Dome of the Rock.