Muslim MK slams Christian lawmaker for visiting Temple Mount

An Arab Israeli lawmaker who ascended the Temple Mount Wednesday came under fire from a fellow Arab MK for defying an order by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stay out of the compound.

Last week, Netanyahu ordered police to prevent lawmakers from visiting the Jerusalem site in a bid to ease tensions amid flaring violence and Palestinian terror attacks.

Issawi Frej, a Muslim lawmaker with the left-wing Meretz party, criticized MK Basel Ghattas — a Christian Arab — for visiting the Jerusalem compound, considered holy to Muslims and Jews.

“The blending of politics and religion is dangerous and destructive and we must do all we can to prevent it,” Frej wrote on his Facebook page. “It doesn’t matter from which side of the political spectrum you come from, it doesn’t matter what you’re called, anyone trying to score political points on the back of holy places is neglecting his duty as a public leader. Today we must work to calm the situation and not add to the flames.”

Ghattas defended his visit in the face of mounting criticism, saying it was his basic right to visit the Temple Mount, site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, even if he is not Muslim.

“This is a holy place to the Muslims, albeit in terms of religion and worship, [but] it’s a place that belongs to the entire Arab Palestinian people,” he told Army Radio in an interview Wednesday afternoon. “It’s a cultural icon of heritage that I am accustomed to visit as a Member of Knesset every week.”

He said it was “normative” and “natural” for him to go to the flashpoint site as a Knesset member, and that Netanyahu has “no authority” to forbid him to visit. He said he wasn’t removed forcibly from the site by police, as some reports claimed, and told officers who approached him during the visit that they had no right to expel him. He insisted his visit “wasn’t meant to provoke riots or arouse violence.”

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein called upon right-wing lawmakers not to respond to Ghattas’s actions with a visit of their own to the Temple Mount. “Let us at least be human beings,” he said on Facebook. “I call on all MKs and public leaders: Enough! We don’t need to wait until we reach bloodshed. It’s possible to be an MK without being a pyromaniac. Let’s project responsibility.”

Sharon Gal, a former Yisrael Beytenu MK who resigned from parliament in September, wrote on Facebook that Ghattas, “the terror supporter, the Christian MK from the inciting [Arab Joint] List,” visited the site “just to defy and agitate.”

“I call on my friends on the right — instead of condemning and writing [Facebook] posts, take the law I put forward against incitement, pass it — and throw this human refuse out of the Knesset of Israel, together with [Joint List MKs Hanin] Zoabi, [Ahmed] Tibi and [Jamal] Zahalka,” he said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Ghattas said on Facebook that he went to the site to send a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he can’t stop lawmakers from entering the compound.

“Netanyahu and Israel cannot prevent us from entering the mosque and it continues in altering the status quo and bolstering Israeli sovereignty and occupation of the site,” Ghattas wrote.

According to the Ynet news website, Ghattas snuck into the compound wearing a disguise.

A video of him on the site showed him wearing a cap; a second video he posted showed him standing near the Dome of the Rock with several police officers nearby.

Netanyahu’s office reacted swiftly with a statement reiterating his promise to maintain the status quo on the Temple Mount and ordering members of his government to “act accordingly.”

Police responded laconically to Ghattas’s visit, saying they were implementing government decisions.

“We are doing everything to ensure that visitors and worshipers on the Temple Mount respect the holiness of the site and act in a respectful and responsible way in the holy and sensitive public space,” a police spokesperson said.

On October 8, Netanyahu barred politicians from the site in a bid to stem an ongoing wave of violence touched off by Palestinian claims that Israel intended to break the fragile series of understandings governing the site’s administration.

Muslims are allowed to pray in the compound, considered the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam, while Jews and others are allowed to visit but not pray.

Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have repeatedly vowed that they have no intention of changing the status quo by allowing Jewish prayer, and on Saturday Netanyahu agreed to a Jordanian proposal to install cameras on the site to help prevent breaches of the peace.

Several MKs who had been planning on visiting the site canceled their visits in light of Netanyahu’s order.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said Ghattas’s visit was liable to lead to more violence.

“Knesset members who infiltrate the Temple Mount are contemptible, in my opinion, and are engaged in incitement which will lead to the murder of innocents,” he told a Knesset panel Wednesday.

He also said Ghattas’s political career was built on his “provocations.”

Education Minister Naftali Bennett, in an apparent reference to Ghattas, accused Arab lawmakers of working harder than ever “to deeply harm the well-being of their constituents.”

AFP contributed to this report.