Equal Rights For Jews At Most Important Jewish Site ‘A Provocation,’ ‘Irresponsible’

“Insisting that Jews be permitted to exercise the same rights that others enjoy? What does he even think Zionism is all about?”

Jerusalem, August 29 – Politicians, diplomats, and commentators across the political spectrum continued to denounce today the outrageous notion that Jews might gain more than occasional, token access to the holiest and most significant location in Jewish lore, history, and practice, with specific opprobrium for the Minister for Internal Security who insists on religious freedom for Jews, a manifestly outrageous idea.

Pundits and political rivals castigated Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of the right-wing Otzma Yehudt (“Jewish Might”) Party, whose actions and rhetoric have long featured an assertive – critics say “aggressive,” “provocative,” and “dangerous” – attitude toward Jewish access to the Temple Mount, the compound in Jerusalem’s Old City where both Jewish holy Temples stood and where praying Jews continue to face in devotion through thousands of years. The site also features two significant Islamic shrines: the Dome of the Rock, which occupies much of the location where the temples stood, in the center of the plateau, and the Al-Aqa Mosque, at the compound’s southern end, which functions as an actual house of worship.

“Ben-G’vir will spark unrest,” declared Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken, as rockets continue to rain down on Israel regardless of events at the Temple Mount. “His radical kind cannot be allowed to change the status quo,” of Jews suffering exclusion from holy sites that Muslims conquered and rendered off-limits to Jews by threat of force.

“He’s an irresponsible demagogue,” proclaimed National Unity party MK Matan Kahana. “Insisting that Jews be permitted to exercise the same rights that others enjoy? What does he even think Zionism is all about? Is he trying to undermine everything we’ve achieved so far?”

Ben-G’vir’s remarked this week that he wishes he could build a synagogue on the Temple Mount so that Jews may engage in formal communal prayer there attracted particular odium. “Scandalous!” cried at least six TV pundits. “That would drive the Muslims into a frenzy and undermine decades of reconciliation work!” They made the remarks despite the racist overtones of assuming Arab-Muslim violence will inevitably result from Jews enjoying the same privileges as others.

For their part, both Israeli and international media framed the minister’s words as a statement of intended policy, reports which sparked the current flare-up surrounding the inequality they righteously defend – rather than as part of a statement he made expressing regret that he cannot do any such thing under the circumstances.

Commentators continue to try to tie Ben-G’vir – a former follower of the radical Rabbi Meir Kahane – to various sins of “the far right,” including the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, when Ben-G’vir was 19. Some did, however, show restraint, with one analyst expressing her own disappointment that Ben-G’vir’s Kurdish roots have effectively cut off the avenue of sober critique that involves calling him a white supremacist.

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