Police to grill Arab Knesset member over Temple Mount tirade

Knesset member Jamal Zahalka was summoned for questioning by police on Wednesday after he was filmed haranguing Jewish visitors to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount on the previous day.

Zahalka’s summons was set for next Sunday, Channel 2 reported. Police did not say what the allegations against him were, though he was seen confronting police officers during the incident.

Zahalka was quick to denounce the police probe. Noting that he too was not provided with a reason for the summons, but assuming it was related to the Temple Mount incident, he called the move “a political investigation… riding on a wave of incitement.

“Everything I said at al-Aqsa… I’ve said from the Knesset podium dozens of times,” he said in a statement. “Police know I’ve received hundreds of threats [in the past] but haven’t lifted a finger, but they were quick to call me in for questioning [now] even though they know there’s nothing to investigate.”

Video footage of Tuesday’s face-off showed Zahalka, a member of the Joint (Arab) List party, confronting Jewish visitors at the compound and demanded they leave the holy site, revered by both Muslims and Jews.

Zahalka was seen shouting, “This is not yours, get out of here, go home, you’re not wanted,” to Jewish visitors to the compound, which houses the al-Aqsa mosque and was the site of two Jewish temples. “You’re all fascists, racists,” he cried.

https://youtu.be/QO1P310JP2A

Some Jewish lawmakers demanded official action be taken against him, saying he had incited to violence against Jews.

Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev (Likud) called on Joint List Chairman Ayman Odeh to remove Zahalka, and two colleagues who accompanied him, from the party. Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman said Zahalka should be put on trial for “assaulting Jews and police.”

Zahalka issued a statement in response, saying he was aware his actions “infuriated the racists,” which is what encouraged him to persist in his campaign.

“Al-Aqsa is in occupied territory, and resisting this occupation is both a right and a moral obligation,” he said in a statement on Tuesday, referring to the fact that Israel captured East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount during the Six Day War in 1967. “Defending its sanctity is also a right and moral obligation,” he added.

Odeh issued a statement firmly supporting his fellow lawmaker, and said Zahalka’s remarks reflected the position of the Joint List on the issue of the Temple Mount.

“The al-Aqsa Mosque belongs to the Muslims, and the only way to defend it is to continue our struggle for the end of the occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the 1967 lines whose capital is East Jerusalem,” Odeh said.

“It is the government of Israel that is violating the status quo, that continues to act in the service of the settlers in what looks like a conscious attempt to incite and inflame the entire region to a religious war,” he said.

The Temple Mount has seen recurring clashes between Palestinian rioters and police for the past month.

Tamar Pileggi contributed to this report.