Likud MK refused entry to the Dome of the Rock

New Likud MK Moshe Feiglin visited the Temple Mount on Monday and attempted to enter the Dome of the Rock, but was turned back by security personnel at the site, who said it was closed to non-Muslims.

A large crowd gathered during the incident, and Feiglin had to be extracted by police.

Feiglin, a well-known settler activist and an avid campaigner for open Jewish access to the Temple Mount, said in a Facebook post that he was attempting to use his immunity as a Knesset member to enter the site, and that the fact that he was refused entry is “a clear admission of the loss of Jewish sovereignty on the Mount.”

According to many rabbinical opinions, Jews are forbidden from entering the Temple Mount at all, but there are authorities from the religious Zionist stream that do permit Jews to enter the larger compound. Even they, however, say that entry to the Dome of the Rock, the general area where the Temple is believed to have stood, is forbidden.

Feiglin, who is Orthodox, cited a halachic ruling by former chief rabbi Shlomo Goren to support his attempt, which said that “there is no doubt that… when there is the danger of a foreign takeover of the Temple Mount, it is permitted to enter even the [former] Temple grounds,” where the Dome of the Rock is located.