Police chief: MKs who seek status quo change barred from Temple Mount

For the fourth consecutive day, Israel Police Chief Yohanan Danino criticized members of Knesset who went to the Temple Mount, saying that parliamentarians who seek a change to the status quo at the site should not be allowed there.

“I think that certain MKs, whose agenda it is to change the status quo, should be forbidden from going to the Temple Mount. I will not let these MKs access the site,” Danino said at a conference in Ashkelon.

The current arrangement on the Temple Mount allows Jewish visitors but bars them from praying at the site, the holiest for Jews and third sacred for Muslims.

The police chief was reiterating comments he made earlier in the week to that same effect, remarks which prompted critical responses from politicians, including Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein.

Danino said Edelstein did not understand the role of a police commander.

Edelstein panned Danino earlier on Friday, calling on him to focus on his job instead of giving “unnecessary advice” to  parliamentarians on what they can and cannot do.

The Knesset speaker said he “expects the police commander to be out in the field and invest his energy ensuring the security of the citizens of Israel.” Edelstein added that he would continue protecting the rights of elected officials.

Edelstein and Danino went head to head Thursday as well, with the Knesset speaker turning to Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch to complain about similar remarks Danino made Wednesday and on Tuesday.

“These [statements] are grave and inappropriate coming from a police commissioner about elected public officials. It’s unacceptable that a public servant — as senior as the position may be — would question the freedom of movement of Knesset members,” Edelstein wrote in the letter, according to the Israeli news site NRG.

Edelstein asked Aharonovitch to order Danino to refrain from such comments in the future and to respect Knesset members’ status. The Knesset speaker went to to say that the current surge of violence and terror attacks in Jerusalem are caused by the incitement in the Palestinian public sphere, and the Temple Mount issue is a fig leaf for the violence.

On Tuesday, at the Sderot Conference for Society, Danino also blasted Knesset members who called for an alteration to the current arrangement under which non-Muslim worshipers can visit, but not pray, at the holy site. He maintained that there are no efforts to change the status quo.

“I forbade [Likud MK] Feiglin from going to the Temple Mount until I lost the backing of the attorney general. It is a mistake to allow entry to those who are a symbol of changing the status quo,” Danino said.

Danino’s comments came after weeks of riots and terror attacks in Jerusalem and elsewhere, touched off in part by Palestinian fears — denied by Israel — that Israeli lawmakers would seek to change the status quo on the compound, called the Haram al-Sharif or al-Aqsa by Muslims.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on several occasions that Israel had no intention of changing the status quo at the site.

Despite his apparent critique of the attorney general, the police commissioner later said that he did not intend to criticize Weinstein.

The Temple Mount has been a source of increased tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, which have led to a number of violent clashes, Palestinian acts of terrorism and the attempted assassination of a Temple Mount activist in just under a month.

Since the attempted assassination on October 30 of activist Yehudah Glick, who agitated for Jewish prayer on the site, at least three right-wing politicians — Likud MKs Feiglin and Tzipi Hotovely, and Shuli Moalem-Refaeli of the Jewish Home party — have visited the site, claiming it as their democratic right and denouncing the double standard for Jewish and Muslim worshipers.

Under the terms of the Israel-Jordan peace treaty, the Temple Mount remains under Jordanian custodianship through the Waqf authorities, who maintain administrative charge of the holy site.