(Jerusalem) Itamar Ben Gvir, an Israeli far-right minister, provoked a new controversy on Monday by questioning the validity of the status quo on the Esplanade of the Mosques in Jerusalem, where he would like to build a synagogue.
Since entering government in December 2022, National Security Minister Ben Gvir has visited the disputed holy site in the occupied and annexed area of the Holy City at least six times, visits denounced as provocations and attacks on the status quo by the Palestinians and many foreign capitals.
“If I could do anything I wanted, I would put an Israeli flag on the site,” he said in an interview with Israeli military radio Galei Tsahal on Monday.
As for building a synagogue there if he could? Pressed by the journalist several times to answer this question, Mr. Ben Gvir finally said: “Yes.”
The third holiest site in Islam, the Esplanade of the Mosques is built on the ruins of the second Jewish temple, destroyed in the year 70 by the Romans. For Jews, it is the Temple Mount, the holiest place in Judaism. The place is at the very heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the subject of recurring tensions that can sometimes degenerate into war, as was the case in spring 2021.
Under a status quo decreed after Israel’s conquest of East Jerusalem in 1967, non-Muslims can visit the esplanade at specified times without praying, but this rule is increasingly flouted by a growing number of nationalist Jews.
“Arabs can pray wherever they want,” the minister said in his interview with Galei Tsahal, “so Jews should also be able to pray wherever they want.”
Although the site is administered by Jordan, access to it is controlled by Israeli security forces. Ben Gvir is therefore responsible for enforcing the status quo, but he himself flouted it spectacularly on August 13 by going to the esplanade with several hundred Israelis for a prayer on the occasion of a Jewish holiday.
PHOTO TEMPLE MOUNT ADMINISTRATION, PROVIDED BY REUTERS
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited the Esplanade of the Mosques in Jerusalem on August 13.
“Irresponsible”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office then called the “incident” a “disruption to the status quo” and said that only “the government and the prime minister […] define the policy [israélienne] on the Temple Mount,” and not this or that minister.
“Politics [actuelle] allow [aux juifs] to pray on the esplanade, Mr. Ben Gvir nevertheless affirmed on Monday on military radio, forcing once again the services of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to publish a laconic press release, assuring that there is “no change in the status quo on the Temple Mount.”
More incisively, while Israel is at war in the Gaza Strip against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas since the bloody attack launched by the latter on October 7, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant judged on X that “Ben Gvir’s actions endanger the security of the State of Israel.”
Challenging the status quo on the Temple Mount is a dangerous, unnecessary and irresponsible act.
Yoav Gallant, Minister of Defense
Mr Ben Gvir’s remarks come the day after a sudden outbreak of violence on the front between the Israeli army and the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah – an ally of Hamas – on the Israeli-Lebanese border for almost 11 months.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid mocked X, saying that Mr Netanyahu’s statement was correct because “indeed there is no change in the status quo, which was and remains that Ben Gvir does not care and that Netanyahu has lost control of his government.”
“The holy places are the red line that we will not allow to be crossed,” said Palestinian Authority presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina.
Hamas called Ben Gvir’s remarks “dangerous” and called on “Arab and Islamic nations to take responsibility for protecting the holy sites.”
Saudi diplomacy expressed “its categorical rejection of these extremist and incendiary statements” and stressed “the need to respect the historical and legal status” of the al-Aqsa mosque on the Esplanade of the Mosques.
The Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for its part, denounced a “provocation” against Muslims around the world.
“Jordan will take all necessary measures to put an end to the attacks on the Holy Places,” responded its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is “preparing the necessary legal files to bring an action before international courts” on this subject.