Right-wing Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir led a group of over 1,000 Jews to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel, on Tuesday, where many performed prayers in defiance of a status quo that has held for 57 years.
Tuesday marks the fast day of Tisha B’Av, which commemorates the anniversary of the destruction of both the First and Second Holy Temples in Jerusalem, first by the Babylonians (586 B.C.) and next by the Romans (70 A.D.)
In the centuries since, Muslims, Crusaders, and others have controlled the site. The Islamic shrine of the Dome of the Rock stands near the site of the Temple, while the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, stands at the side.
Since Israel regained control of the Temple Mount in the Six-Day War in 1967, the Israeli government has chosen to defer to Islamic religious authorities on the site, so as not to antagonize the Muslim world. There are often tensions, as Islamic authorities have sometimes abused their jurisdiction to allow Palestinian terrorists to store weapons inside the mosques, requiring Israeli police to enter. Israeli police do not permit Jews to pray at the site, to avoid conflict.
Traditionally, many Jews decline to visit the Temple Mount, in deference to the idea that there are areas of the site that only the High Priest would have been allowed to visit, and no one knows exactly where they are located today.
However, some Jews do visit, as Ben Gvir has done on occasion, to confirm Israeli sovereignty over the site, or simply to experience a connection to what remains the holiest site in Judaism. On Tuesday, Ben Gvir went further, taking a large group that included hundreds of Jews who performed prayers on the site. Police, overwhelmed, allowed them to do so, which in turn triggered objections Tuesday, both from Israeli politicians and from leaders in the Muslim world.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement, showing evident irritation at Ben Gvir’s adventure (translated from Hebrew by the Government Press Office:
It is the Government and the Prime Minister who determine policy on the Temple Mount.
There is no private policy of any minister – not the National Security Minister or any other minister – on the Temple Mount. Thus it has been under all governments of Israel.
This morning’s incident on the Temple Mount deviated from the status quo.
Israel’s policy on the Temple Mount has not changed; this is how it has been and this is how it will be.
Ben Gvir responded, the Times of Israel notes, stating that there is no law in Israel that allows “discrimination” against Jews on the site of the Temple Mount.
Hamas has frequently used fears of changes to the Temple Mount as a pretext to launch terrorist wars against Israel.
One cause Hamas cited for the present war, for example, is the recent arrival of red heifers in Israel. These rare cows were used in the time of the Temple for purification rituals. Hamas claims, erroneously, that Israel intends to destroy the Islamic holy sites and to rebuild the Temple in their place, and that the red heifers are part of Israel’s grand plan.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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