Nuke Jerusalem. That's the cause of it all.

Taking out holy sites as a retaliatory move will only enrage all the adherents of a religion. It will not "scare" moderates to threaten to do it, either, but will push them toward radical thought.

How can we be their friends, ever, if we blow up their holiest places in an act of revenge? How can they take any offer of friendship or claim of respect seriously if we threaten them with such a devastating loss?

We can't even claim Mecca and Medina have strategic military value. It would be an act of pure meanness and cruelty. It would be the act of a bully.