Arab list leader backs MK who harangued Jews on Temple Mount

Arab Joint List chairman MK Ayman Odeh says his party stands firmly behind a fellow Arab lawmaker who harangued Jewish visitors on the Temple Mount today.

“Our position is clear and uncompromising. 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 ’67 borders whose capital is East Jerusalem,” Odeh says in a statement Tuesday.

“The things my friend, MK Jamal Zahalka, said today represent the position of the entire Joint List,” he adds. “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 enflame the entire region to a religious war.”

Zahalka took to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem Tuesday morning to confront Jewish visitors to the site, which is revered by both Muslims and Jews.

“Crazy criminals, you’re all Kahanists, fascists, racists, get out of here, you hurt Muslims,” he could be seen shouting at a group of Israeli Jews in video footage of the incident.

A police officer at the scene stood between Zahalka and the group, at which point the MK told him, “Why are you letting them in? It’s a disgrace, only to hurt Muslims’ feelings. This is not yours, get out of here, go home, you’re not wanted.”

“This is my home,” Zahalka later told the group. “You need to get out of my house. You put crazies in here. You have no god.” He then told the police officer who was trying to calm him down that “you, too, have no place here.”