On the morning of July 14, three Arab-Israeli citizens came out of the al-Aqsa mosque and shot dead two Israeli Druze policemen, setting off a deadly wave of protests and violence. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted by installing metal detectors at the entrance to the Temple Mount, which houses some of the holiest sites to the three big Abrahamic religions. This caused Palestinians in east Jerusalem to boycott the sacred compound and in the ensuing violence, three Israelis and three Palestinians were killed in the West Bank.
The increasing volatility, instability and violence, according to Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research senior researcher Yitzhak Reiter, is a result of the erosion of the status quo, which has existed at Temple Mount (Muslims call it Haram al-Sharif) since 1967. The status quo allows Muslims to worship in al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, while the Jews worship at the Western Wall.
“In the last 20 years, the religious Zionists changed the rule of the game... They issued a legal opinion saying that Jews are entitled to visit the Temple Mount. The official position of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel is that Jews are not permitted to visit the Temple Mount because of the presence of the Holy of Holies [where divine presence still exists]. So, they may never know where they step.” Mr. Reiter goes on to explain: “The [centrist] rabbis changed their position and they now call their followers to ascend to the Temple Mount.”
Israeli advocacy group Ir Amim has also warned against the growing activity of the Temple Movement, an umbrella term for about 30 Jewish groups that want to overturn the status quo and re-establish Jewish sovereignty over the site. In a report released in 2013, it noted: “There is a correlation between the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif and around it since 2000 and a parallel increase in the activity of Temple organisations.”
Institutional support
The Temple organisations, according to Ir Amim, “enjoy widespread institutional and governmental support”. “The political establishment funds — directly and indirectly — some of the Temple organisations’ activities. Particularly noteworthy is the role of the Ministry of Education, which not only funds Temple organisations but aids them in disseminating their ideas through the educational system.” One of the movement’s prominent supporters is Uri Ariel, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. Mr. Ariel, who has ascended the Temple Mount a number of times since 2006, has in the past made the controversial call for the Third Temple to be built at the Temple Mount.
One solution, according to Prof. Reiter, is sharing of the holy places, an arrangement that already exists at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, which is venerated both by Muslims and Jews since Abraham is believed to be buried there. “In 1967, an agreement was signed between the Mayor of Hebron and Moshe Dayan [the Israeli Defence Minister] that Jews will be allowed to return and pray inside [the mosque], but at particular hours between the Muslim prayers. Today, during the high holidays of Jews, Muslims roll up their prayer rugs and for 10 days the entire Cave of the Patriarchs is for Jews, including the mosque. And in the high holidays of the Muslims, Israelis take out the benches.”
Ir Amim, however, fears that implementing this model at the Temple Mount will “constitute a flagrant breach of the status quo and all but guarantee an eruption of violence in Jerusalem”.
(Sattwick Barman is a journalist who was recently in Israel)
