Yehuda Bauer gets it so exactly right in Haaretz:
"There is no truth to the well-known tradition that the Second Temple was destroyed due to baseless hatred or internecine rivalry. The Temple was destroyed because religious, messianic extremists forced the nation to rebel against a global empire that it had no chance of defeating. This time there may be a scenario (an imaginary one) in which a radical religious minority thwarts peace because the fanatic political assassins of the Second Temple period have found worthy successors."