Ben Gvir boasts of letting Jews pray on Temple Mount; Netanyahu: Status quo unchanged
‘My policy is very clear on this matter: Jews can be anywhere in Jerusalem, pray anywhere,’ says national security minister. ‘Jews pray on the Temple Mount and that’s a good thing’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Wednesday evening that as far as he is concerned, Jewish prayer is now allowed on the Temple Mount — prompting a quick rebuff by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, which released a terse statement insisting that “the status quo” at the flashpoint Jerusalem holy site “has not changed and will not change.”
In what would constitute a breach of the longstanding unwritten arrangement on the Temple Mount, the ultranationalist minister, who is in charge of the Israel Police which is responsible for security at the site, told Radio Galei Israel that his policy was to allow Jewish prayer in the compound.
“I am also happy that Jews went up to the Temple Mount and prayed there today,” said the minister, who spent part of the day taking part in the annual Jerusalem Day Flag March through the Muslim Quarter of the capital’s Old City. “It is very important. My policy is very clear on this matter: Jews can be anywhere in Jerusalem, pray anywhere.”
Asked during the radio interview whether prayers were not being conducted only informally, in a whisper, Ben Gvir said: “No, no, no, no one whispered. Jews prayed on the Temple Mount. That’s the ministerial position and Jews pray on the Temple Mount and that’s a good thing.”
The Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City is the holiest place in Judaism, as the site of the two biblical temples. Known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif or the Noble Sanctuary, it is home to Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam.
Hebrew media reported that some 1,600 Jewish pilgrims entered the Temple Mount on Wednesday morning, including one activist who wore tefillin, or phylacteries, while walking around the site, an act of worship that has long been forbidden.
תיעוד חסר תקדים: ישראלי עוטה תפילין בהר הבית.
מדיווחים של פעילים עולה כי לא מעט עולים מניפים דגלי ישראל, שרים שירי הלל ושמחה בהודיה על שחרור ירושלים והר הבית.
57 שנים אחרי שחרור העיר, צעד חשוב לריבונות.
צילום: ארגון "בידינו – למען הר הבית" pic.twitter.com/G2zzheyryi
— חנן גרינווד (@hanan_green) June 5, 2024
The vague status quo governing the compound allows Muslims to pray and enter with few restrictions, while non-Muslims, including Jews, can visit only during limited time slots via a single gate, with visibly religious Jews only allowed to walk on a predetermined route, closely accompanied by police. While Jews are not officially allowed to pray, police have increasingly tolerated limited prayer.
Many Palestinians and Muslims reject the very notion that the Temple Mount is holy to Jews, having accused Israel and Zionists for around a century of plotting to destroy the mosque and replace it with a Jewish temple — a notion that is rejected by mainstream Israeli society.
The Temple Mount has been the scene of frequent clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces, and tensions at the disputed compound have fueled past rounds of violence.
Responding to Ben Gvir’s comments, MK Waleed Alhwashla of the Islamist Ra’am party tweeted that by calling to “undermine the status quo,” the national security minister was doing “everything he can to set Jerusalem and the entire country on fire.”
Stating that “every additional day he spends as a minister responsible for the police and law enforcement is a clear and tangible danger to all of us,” Alhwashla asserted that it was not enough for Netanyahu to release a statement contradicting Ben Gvir.
“It is time to fire him,” he said.
Netanyahu’s subsequent statement stressing that the status quo “has not changed and will not change” didn’t go into specifics or explain how it reconciled with Wednesday’s events at the site.
Ben Gvir, who heads the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, is an ardent proponent of greater Jewish access to the Temple Mount and has made several visits to the site during his tenure as minister.
A video posted to X last month showed Jewish members of Ben Gvir’s entourage praying during a visit, which many saw as inflammatory.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has visited Al Aqsa compound / Temple Mount this morning.
In this video some of the people he is with are praying, which violates the status quo. Police seemingly watch on: pic.twitter.com/VuuLc7C1wd
— Alistair Bunkall (@AliBunkallSKY) May 22, 2024
Speaking during the Jerusalem Day march, Ben Gvir repeatedly emphasized that the Jewish people own Jerusalem and its holy sites.
Addressing marchers before setting off for the Old City, he declared that this year’s Jerusalem Day celebration sent a message to Hamas that “Jerusalem is ours.”
“The Damascus Gate is ours. The Temple Mount is ours. And, God willing, complete victory is ours,” he said at the beginning of the nationalist march, flanked by Otzma Yehudit lawmakers and Social Equality Minister May Golan of Netanyahu’s Likud party.
Addressing the press at the Damascus Gate following the march, Ben Gvir spoke in a similar vein, stating that he wanted to convey a message to the many Palestinians who keep pictures of the holy site in their homes.
They hang “pictures of the Temple Mount and there are pictures of Jerusalem, and we tell them: Jerusalem is ours. Damascus Gate is ours. The Temple Mount is ours,” he said.
“Today, according to my policy, Jews entered the Old City freely. And on the Temple Mount Jews prayed freely. We say in the simplest way, it’s ours.”
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
