Yehudah Glick takes son to Temple Mount before his wedding

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a special dispensation to Likud lawmaker Yehudah Glick to visit the Temple Mount in Jerusalem with his son Shlomo ahead of the latter’s wedding on Wednesday.

In a Twitter post with photos of the visit, Glick wrote, “Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister,” and called the approval “a wonderful gift for a son’s wedding, a meaningful human gesture for me.”

The visit passed without incident.

In an earlier tweet, Glick posted a photo apparently of a car given as a gift to the new couple. “It is beyond exciting to marry off a son! A day full of prayer!” he wrote.

https://twitter.com/YehudahGlick/status/923056229420879872

Glick is a well-known advocate for Jewish prayer at the site, which houses the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque. It is revered by Jews as the location of the ancient Jewish temples and is considered Islam’s third-holiest site.

Under the arrangement instituted by Israel after it captured Jerusalem’s Old City in the 1967 war, the site, known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, remains under Jordan’s religious custodianship. Jews are allowed to visit the compound under the arrangement but are barred from religious worship or prayer.

The site has been a key point of contention between Israelis and Palestinians. As conflict around the site has escalated over the past few years, triggering waves of Palestinian terror attacks in Jerusalem and elsewhere, growing numbers of Jewish visitors have taken to visiting the mount.

In response to the escalating tensions, Netanyahu has repeatedly ordered a freeze on visits to the holy site by politicians.

On October 13, the government of Jordan, the official custodian of the site, condemned the influx of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount over the week-long festival of Sukkot, describing it a “storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque by settlers and Jewish extremists,” and slamming “irresponsible” Israel for permitting them entry to the compound.

At the time, Glick tweeted that 2,265 Jews visited the Temple Mount over the festival — a 40 percent increase over the 1,611 visitors the year before.

There were no reports of disturbances during any of the visits.

https://twitter.com/YehudahGlick/status/918538605462728704

In July the holy site became the focus of a major crisis between Israeli authorities, Palestinians, and Jordan over security measures taken at the entrances to the compound. Metal detectors and cameras had been installed following a deadly attack in which three Arab Israelis shot dead two Israeli police officers using weapons that had been smuggled onto the Temple Mount. The upgraded security measures were all ultimately removed.