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Knesset members may return to the Temple Mount regularly, as long as they do not do it more than once every three months and coordinate their visits with the police at the same time. In advance, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Knesset Speaker Edelstein, Israeli television reported on Tuesday.
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For three years, Netanyahu has significantly restricted the MK's access to the thr complex, according to an agreement reached between Israel and Jordan via mediation US. The agreement was reached following a wave of Palestinian attacks in Jerusalem in 2014 and 2015, which was spurred by claims that Israel was planning to change the status quo at the site.
Netanyahu's decision was first reported by Israel Television News.
The restrictions greatly reduced legislators' visits to the Temple Mount. In the last two years, MP Yehudah Glick (Likud) has visited three times and MP Shuli Moalem-Refaeli (Habayit Hayehudi) once. All these visits pbaded quietly.
Last week, Netanyahu met in Amman with King Abdullah of Jordan, but it is unclear when they discussed the issue of deputies visiting Mount.
On July 14, 2017, an Israeli Arab killed two Israeli policemen in a shootout at the entrance to the Temple Mount. Since then, however, the complex and the old city of Jerusalem have been relatively quiet, with almost no terrorist attacks this year.
>> The real – and mythical – history of the Temple Mount >>
The past year has also seen an increase in the number of Jewish visitors on Mount. According to the Yeraeh organization, which promotes such visits, more than 22,000 Jews have visited the Temple Mount since the Rosh Hashanah holidays last September, the highest number since Israel took control of the site in 1967.
Last week, Glick asked Netanyahu to let Jewish MPs return to the Mount, noting that Muslim MPs visited the site during Ramadan. In his letter, he noted that the three-week annual period of mourning for the destruction of the Temple, which the Jews observed for nearly 2,000 years, was to begin on July 1, and this period "is of particular importance to the Jews. " the Temple Mount. "
Moalem-Refaeli, who co-chairs the Knesset caucus to strengthen Jewish ties with the Temple Mount, said Netanyahu's new decision was "important, but perpetuates discrimination against members of the Jewish Knesset at the most sacred of the Jewish people.
"After a pilot in which MK Yehudah Glick and I boarded the mountain, nothing bad happened," she said. "Defense officials have repeatedly said that members of the Knesset who ascended the Mount posed no risk and did not cause trouble [among the Palestinians] contrary to the Arab incentive apparatus which does not want a Jew to step in. We urge the Prime Minister to adopt the recommendations of the defense officials and allow the members of the Knesset to climb the Temple Mount without any restrictions, like all other Jews in Israel. "
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