PM: Temple Mount OK for MKs

Knesset members will be permitted to enter the Temple Mount for the first time in six months, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave special permission to Likud MK Yehudah Glick, a source said on Tuesday, confirming a Channel 2 report.

Netanyahu wrote Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein that MKs should be allowed up once every three months. Glick went up in January, one month after his wife Yafi’s death to honor her memory, but there have been prohibitions on MKs going to the Mount for some two years.

Glick requested to enter the holy site in a letter he wrote to Netanyahu. In the letter, Glick wrote that the National Security Council had recommended that no MKs go up on the Temple Mount until after Ramadan, but that Arab MKs had entered the site during the Muslim holy month that ended three weeks ago.

The Likud MK said he wanted to go up on the Mount during the three weeks of mourning on the Jewish calendar ahead of the observance of Tisha Be’av, the date on which the two Jewish holy temples on the Mount were destroyed. Glick’s visit will be coordinated with police.

“I welcome the prime minister’s decision to stop the illegal and illogical prohibition against MKs going up on the Temple Mount, and I hope he will allow MKs to go up at any time like any citizen or tourist can,” Glick said.

Bayit Yehudi MK Shuli Moalem-Refaeli said she would go up on the site as

soon as possible.

Ministers Miri Regev (Likud) and Uri Ariel (Bayit Yehudi) praised Netanyahu’s decision, with Regev noting that it is the holiest site in Judaism, and Ariel saying that it should be open to all Jews all year, including elected officials.

But Joint List MK Haneen Zoabi responded that the al-Aqsa Mosque is a Muslim holy site, and no Jews belong there.

“Netanyahu wants violence to escape his criminal probes and the threats to his coalition,” Zoabi said. “This is a stupid, unethical decision but not a surprising one.” •