Netanyahu Considers Lifting Ban on Lawmaker Visits to Temple Mount

The Times of Israel reports: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering lifting a nearly 18 month-old ban forbidding ministers and lawmakers from visiting the flashpoint Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Channel 2 reported on Monday.

The decision was apparently made at a meeting on Monday, which was attended by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Netanyahu confidante Yitzhak Molcho and representatives of the internal security services and police. Visits will be permitted again in three months, after the passage of politically sensitive dates in the Jewish and Muslim calendars, the report said.

These include Passover in April, and May’s scheduled celebration of 50 years since the reunification of Jerusalem in the Six Day War, along with the Muslim festival of Ramadan, which ends in late June.