Shot Temple Mount activist awake, asking for chocolate mousse
Father of Yehudah Glick, who was seriously wounded in an attempted assassination, ‘optimistic’ his son will recover fully
Rabbi Yehudah Glick, a right-wing activist who was shot in an attempted assassination two weeks ago, is awake and communicating with people around him in writing, his father said Tuesday.
“He is alert now… He’s awake, writing. He wrote that he wants chocolate mousse,” Shimon Glick told Army Radio on Tuesday. “There is light at the end of the tunnel… The doctors are optimistic” that he’ll fully recover.
Later Tuesday, Glick was able to breathe on his own, and telephoned Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein to thank him for all the support he has received, Edelstein reported.
Glick was shot four times by a Palestinian gunman outside the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in central Jerusalem on the night of October 29.
He was taken to the hospital in critical condition, but through the course of several surgeries has been gradually improving.
The rabbi, 48, is a central figure in a campaign by activists to permit Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, which Israel captured in 1967. According to a deal struck in 1967 between defense minister Moshe Dayan and the Waqf, the Muslim organization overseeing the holy site, Muslims may pray on the Mount, while Jewish prayer is limited to the Western Wall. Jews and others may visit the Mount as tourists.
Israel closed the Temple Mount for one day following the attack on Glick and the killing of his shooter during an arrest operation, a move that drew sharp condemnation from Palestinians, the Jordanian government and others.
Since the site opened again to Jewish visitors, several right-wing MKs have visited the site, contending that it is their democratic right to do so, despite a plea from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for calm and restraint.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman also accused MKs and ministers who visited the holy site of adding “fuel to the fire” of already high tensions between the Palestinians and Israel.
Netanyahu has repeatedly pledged in recent days to preserve the status quo on the Temple Mount.
Shimon Glick declined to comment on the issue, saying he’s “a doctor…not a politician.”
Shimon Glick does not visit the Temple Mount himself, and has not backed his son’s campaign for Jewish prayer at the site. But Yehudah, he said Tuesday, is a “moderate” who doesn’t seek to prevent Muslim prayer at the contested holy site.
“[Mahmoud Abbas] is deemed a moderate yet he wants to bar all Jews from the Temple Mount,” Shimon Glick said, referring to the Palestinian Authority president.
“So who’s the moderate and who’s the extremist here?”
His father said he did not know whether or how his son would choose to advance his campaign for Jewish prayer at the Mount following the assassination attempt against him. It wasn’t for his father to say, said Shimon Glick. “He’s not a child.”
The Times of Israel Community.