“I prayed on the Temple Mount,” said Ben Gvir, shaking up the status quo, the religious camp
With Netanyahu in Washington, the ultra-right-wing security minister is encouraging Israeli nationalists to pray publicly at the Temple Mount, where the al Aqsa mosque is located. The police say the minister had no authorisation. Other ultra-Orthodox religious leaders are against the prayer. In the background, Ben Gvir is pushing to join the war cabinet.
Jerusalem (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Benyamin Netanyahu is betting everything on tonight's address to the US Congress in Washington after a long-awaited visit during which he will defend his positions on the war in Gaza vis-à-vis US President Joe Biden, as well as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, his leadership is being challenged again by Itamar Ben Gvir, the Minister of National Security, leader of the ultra-right in the ruling but fragile coalition government.
In a post on X and in a speech to a group of supporters, Ben Gvir publicly said that he prayed during a visit last week (escorted by police) to Temple Mount, also known as Haram al-Sharif (The Noble Sanctuary in Arabic), and Jerusalem's holy esplanade in the heart of the Old City, where the holiest site of the Jews once stood and which is dominated today by the al Aqsa mosque, the most revered Islamic site in the Holy City.
In a very delicate balancing act since the city came under total Israeli control in 1967, the "status quo" – which the late Moshe Dayan upheld – provide that Jews can visit the site at certain times, but without making any ostentatious act of prayer. Ben Gvir precisely targeted this in his latest show of force.
Already last month, the Minister of Public Security stated that, as far as he was concerned, Jewish prayer was now allowed on the Temple Mount, prompting a quick reaction from Netanyahu's office, which was to declare that the status quo was unchanged.
Ben Gvir went ahead anyway. “I prayed on the Temple Mount, and we pray on the Temple Mount,” Ben Gvir said. “I am the political echelon and the political echelon allows Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.”
This could set fire to a powder keg and further damage relations with the Muslim population of Jerusalem.
But the most indignant reactions to the statements of the minister who leads the most extremist wing of the Netanyahu government came from Jewish religious leaders.
Contrary to what the nationalists claim, the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate says that Jews should not enter the complex at all, so as not to run the risk of stepping on the "Holy of Holies", the holiest part of the Temple, the ruins of which could be under the esplanade.
“The great desecration that was done cannot pass quietly, I want to express protest,” said Interior Minister Moshe Arbel, a member of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, speaking before the Knesset today.
"I demand from the Prime Minister not to allow the change of status quo on the Temple Mount, and if changes, then to close the Temple Mount to Jews,” said United Torah Judaism's Moshe Gafni.
“We do not allow [Jewish] prayer at the Temple Mount,” said Chief Superintendent Eyal Avraham, commander of Israel Police’s Holy Sites Unit (which comes under the jurisdiction of Ben Gvir’s ministry) in a video published by the Walla! news website.
Ben Gvir's religious outrage comes – not surprisingly – while the Netanyahu government is caught up in a heated debate over the war cabinet, which the Minister of National Security is pressing to enter after Benny Gantz quit.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant is firmly opposed to this. The move on the Temple Mount would seem, therefore, to be yet another sign of identity politics in a government torn by deep cleavages.
With the support of only 64 out of 120 deputies in the Knesset, every party can checkmate the prime minister.
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14/05/2024 18:57
