Hard-right Likud candidate arrested for praying on Temple Mount

Hard-line Likud Knesset candidate Moshe Feiglin was arrested while trying to pray on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

Feiglin, considered among the most right-wing member of the Likud party slate, was touring the site with a group of people when he reportedly prostrated himself on the ground and began to pray.

Although Jews are allowed by law to enter the Temple Mount complex, an unwritten law forbids them from praying at the site, which is administered by the Muslim religious authority, the Waqf. Police arrested Feiglin on the spot for disturbing the peace.

Police initially demanded that Feiglin sign a statement of commitment to not return to the Temple Mount, but he was later released without agreeing to the demand.

Channel 10 news reported that authorities plan to prosecute Feiglin for the unsanctioned prayer.

In December, Feiglin was filmed praying on the Temple Mount and was not arrested.

The run-in at the sensitive holy site came a day after Feiglin, who is 23rd on the joint Likud-Yisrael Beytenu Knesset campaign list, announced that his party had asked him to stop giving interviews to the press due to his firebrand views.

“My message is not always consistent with the message that my party wants to give,” Feiglin said. “Therefore I am keeping quiet and not giving interviews.”

Last week Feiglin caused an uproar among Holocaust survivors after comments he made in support of conscientious objection for IDF soldiers ordered to remove West Bank settlements, comparing them to German soldiers refusing to follow orders during World War II.