Netanyahu tells ministers they can’t visit Temple Mount without his permission
PM insists status quo in place, despite far-right legislators encouraging new leniency on Jewish prayer at holy site; security heads warn issue could spike anti-Israel violence
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ministers at the beginning of Sunday evening’s security cabinet meeting that they must coordinate any visit to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount holy site with him ahead of time, after a far-right lawmaker entered the flashpoint compound earlier that day, and after security officials reportedly warned of a major escalation.
“The prime minister repeated his directive that the ministers not ascend the Temple Mount without his prior approval via his military secretary,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office read.
The move came hours after MK Yitzhak Kroizer of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party visited the site, and weeks after police began allowing overt Jewish prayer there, changing a decades-long policy under an unwritten status quo, according to which Jews can visit at limited times and with numerous restrictions, but not pray.
The Prime Minister’s Office said Netanyahu also told the security cabinet that there is no change in the status quo, although ostensibly the premier has done little to prevent the noticeable changes in what is now allowed at the Temple Mount.
למרות האזהרות של מערכת הביטחון, יו"ר סיעת עוצמה יהודית, ח"כ יצחק קרויזר עלה להתפלל בהר הבית, עם ראש מינהלת הר הבית הרב שמשון אלבוים ומפקד הר הבית רפ"ק גיא טל pic.twitter.com/hFCyDxkwRd
— חזקי ברוך (@HezkeiB) September 8, 2024
The number of Jewish visitors has ballooned over the past few years and authorities have quietly allowed Jewish prayers.
Late last month, a Times of Israel reporter observed open prayer and prostration on the Temple Mount, hearing from activists for prayer rights at the holy site that this is now a matter of routine and permitted by the police on a daily basis.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, the head of the Otzma Yehudit party, has publicized multiple visits to the Temple Mount since taking office in December 2022.
He has said repeatedly in recent weeks and months that his policy is to allow Jewish prayer, and he has rebuffed Netanyahu’s repeated subsequent insistence that the decades-old status quo remains in force.
Netanyahu’s remarks to ministers on Sunday also came after security chiefs reportedly warned the political leadership that Palestinian anger over the Temple Mount issue could trigger a major escalation of violence against Israel in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The Temple Mount, considered the holiest place in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam, draws strong emotions and is frequently invoked as a motivation for religious violence.
When Hamas launched its October 7 attack on Israel last year, starting the ongoing war, it called the massacre “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” using the Muslim name for the Temple Mount complex.
The security warning, reported by Channel 12 over the weekend, is said to have highlighted the particularly dangerous period in the days ahead of the High Holidays when many Jews go to the Mount, noting that Iran and its proxies are already pushing hard to inflame the West Bank with funding and weaponry.
On Sunday morning, hours after the report was published and before a Jordanian truck driver killed three Israelis in a terror shooting attack at the Allenby Bridge Crossing between the West Bank and Gaza, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said that the warning was “a red flag raised in the security system.”
“If the government ignores them again, any disaster that happens is on their heads. Estimates are needed for the Tishrei holidays and we need a government to manage the event,” he wrote in a post on X.
The IDF has already allocated significant resources to the West Bank, but there is concern that a worsening of the situation would require the allocation of primary resources to that front, with harmful implications for the war in Gaza, the north, and Israeli deterrence against Iran.
President Isaac Herzog, in a meeting with American Ambassador Jack Lew on Sunday, also stressed Israel’s “unequivocal commitment to preserving the status quo at the holy site.”
An official at The President’s Residence referred in a statement to both “political agreements laid down since 1967” and “the spirit of the rulings by leading rabbis and religious figures over the last 100 years.”
Some Orthodox Jewish authorities have long prohibited any Jewish visits to the Temple Mount, due to concerns of treading on holy ground while ritually impure, which dovetails with the status quo arrangement. Ultra-Orthodox communities maintain the prohibition and their leading rabbis have denounced the rise in visits and open prayer there.
