Police arrest third Jewish visitor for calling Muhammad a ‘pig’ on Temple Mount

Amid heightened hostility on the Temple Mount following Arab rioting on Tisha Be’av and the arrests of two Jews who shouted “Muhammad is a pig,” a third man was arrested on Tuesday for incitement after repeating the religious slur.

According to police, the unidentified 26-year-old Jewish suspect was apprehended in the morning following a brief chase when he attempted to flee the scene just outside the Temple Mount. The man was then placed under arrest and arraigned at Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court.

Tuesday’s arrest marks the third time since last Thursday that a Jewish visitor at the contested holy site insulted the Muslim prophet.

On Monday morning, an unidentified man was arrested after police reviewed video footage from Sunday showing him shout “Muhammad is a pig” outside the gates of the Temple Mount before fleeing the site.

On Friday, Avia Morris, 20, from the West Bank’s Binyamin region, was also arrested for making the slur a day earlier after a Muslim mob shouted anti-Semitic insults at her and a group of accompanying Jewish visitors.

Despite the arrests of the three Jewish suspects for “disturbing the public order,” none of the Arab provocateurs have been arrested for their inflammatory rhetoric.

Following her release, Morris stated that despite being surrounded by police, the officers did nothing as the Arab mob continued to shout threats and encroach on her group.

“The police ignored our requests and said if we were to say one word they would take us down from the Mount and arrest us,” she said. “They did not stop [the Arab mob’s] attempts to hurt our feelings and insult Judaism.”

“Only after we began to respond, and I said ‘Muhammad is a pig,’ [did] the police distance them from us,” she said. “Suddenly they were able to keep them at bay.”

The Palestinian Authority called on Monday for an Arab League meeting in Cairo next week to discuss the heated situation on the Temple Mount.

Shortly after Tuesday’s arrest, police said Arab youths hurled rocks at Jewish vehicles near the Mount of Olives, shattering one of the cars’ windshields. No one was wounded in the attack and no arrests were made.

Meanwhile, an Arab Egged bus driver said he was attacked in Jerusalem on Monday night by two Jews who he claimed sprayed pepper spray in his eyes, beat him and tied him to the bus driver’s seat, the International Middle East Media Center reported.

Muhammad Barakat, 38, of east Jerusalem, told IMEMC that the two suspects boarded the bus, refused to pay, and remained seated for 45 minutes until it reached its final destination at the Ma’alot Dafna neighborhood.

After the attack, Barakat told the Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Silwan that police refused to take his statement, and instructed him to go to his local precinct to file a formal complaint.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said on Tuesday that she was unaware of a complaint regarding the incident.