JEWS SHOULD NOT BE BANNED FROM PRAYING ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT WHICH IS THE HOLIEST PLACE IN JUDAISM

Ben Gvir says he prayed on Temple Mount, PM quickly says status quo hasn’t changed

Hamas calls for escalation of violence over national security minister’s visit to holy site, where Jews are banned from praying but lately have done so increasingly openly

 

The Times of Israel

Dec 26, 2024

 

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visits the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, on December 26, 2024.

 

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Thursday that he’d visited the flashpoint Temple Mount in the morning and prayed there, whereupon the Prime Minister’s Office swiftly said in a statement that the longstanding status quo — according to which Jews are not allowed to pray atop the mount — had not changed.

“I went up this morning to the place of our holy temple, to pray for the safety of our soldiers, the speedy return of the hostages, and total victory, with the help of God,” Ben Gvir wrote on X, with a photo of himself walking at the site with the Dome of the Rock visible in the background.

In response to Ben Gvir’s announcement, the Prime Minister’s Office quickly issued a statement saying, “The status quo on the Temple Mount has not changed.”

Changes to the status quo on the Temple Mount, the holiest place in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam, evoke strong emotions and are frequently cited as a Muslim motivation for religious violence.

The visit was condemned by Knesset member Mansour Abbas, of the Islamist Ra’am party, who said the far-right minister was “desecrating the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” referring to the Muslim place of worship atop the mount.

The Hamas terror group — which gave the name “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” to its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel in which invading gunmen killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostage — responded to Ben Gvir’s visit in a statement calling on “our nation [the Palestinians] to confront the occupation and to escalate the situation.”

Jews are not officially allowed to pray at the Temple Mount — the holiest place in Judaism, which served as the focal point of religious life in ancient Israel — but the Israel Police, which comes under the purview of Ben Gvir’s ministry, has increasingly tolerated limited prayer there.

 

Religious Jews are escorted by Israeli police as they tour the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, September 24, 2018. 

It was unclear whether Ben Gvir prayed openly, rather than doing so silently. He has in the past expressed support for a synagogue being placed atop the Temple Mount.

The status quo governing the compound allows Muslims to pray and generally enter with few restrictions, while non-Muslims, including Jews, can visit only during limited time slots and may not pray.

With police turning a blind eye, Jewish worshipers who in years past would have been removed by Israeli security forces for merely silently mouthing a prayer have also begun prostrating themselves on the mount.

Last Wednesday in a meeting on “Temple Mount studies,” the Knesset’s Education Committee called for changing the public school system’s courses about the holy site from elective to compulsory, but rejected the idea of taking students for visits there.

The committee is chaired by MK Yosef Taieb of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, which opposes visits by Jews to the Temple Mount, citing religious concerns over ritual purity.

At the hearing, MK Limor Son Har-Melech, of Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, said, “In fourth grade, I transferred to a religious school, and until then, I hadn’t learned about the Temple. In this war, we have to raise Israel’s children to understand what we’re fighting for, and what our vision is — the Temple Mount.

“I thank Minister Ben Gvir for the fact that today Jews can pray and prostrate themselves on the Temple Mount,” Har-Melech added.

 

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and MK Limor Son Har-Melech arrive for a court hearing at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, on the petition of Adalah Human rights organization and MK Ahmad Tibi asking to allow the visit of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, on September 11, 2024. 

Ben Gvir has publicized multiple visits to the Temple Mount since taking office in December 2022.

He has said repeatedly in recent months that his policy is to allow Jewish prayer there, drawing rebukes from US and international officials, as well as warnings from the security establishment that renewed conflict over the site could pose a risk to national security.

The far-right minister has rebuffed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated subsequent insistence that the decades-old status quo remains in force.

In September, Netanyahu told ministers any visits to the site must be coordinated with him ahead of time. It was not clear whether Ben Gvir had done so before his visit on Thursday.