Israel - High Court to hear petition on plan to visit Temple Mount

Ha'aretz ^ | August 6, 2003 | Nadav Shragai, Gideon Alon and Moshe Reinfeld

[HAL9000]

The High Court of Justice will continue hearing Wednesday a petition by the Temple Mount Faithful against the police's refusal to allow members of the group to visit the mount on Thursday.

Thursday, Tisha B'Av, is the traditional Jewish day of mourning for the destruction of the First and Second Temples.

The petition argued that there was no justification for the police's decision to close the mount to Jews again after it had successfully been reopened without causing any problems.

Both the Temple Mount Faithful and other, similar organizations said that if they were not allowed on the mount, they at least planned to conduct various activities in its vicinity on Tisha B'Av.

Members of these groups also expressed support for the Likud MKs' planned visit to the mount, citing a similar event in the mid-1980s, when members of the Knesset Interior Committee insisted on visiting the mount despite the police's urgings that they not do so. Hundreds of police turned out to guard the MKs, but in the end, despite threats by the Muslim Waqf, the visit passed peacefully, they said.

"Is Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, who supported the MKs then, incapable of ensuring that MKs can visit the site now that he is public security minister?" asked one.

Israel Radio on Wednesday quoted Sephardi chief rabbi Shlomo Amar as saying that MKs should not go to the Temple Mount for religious reasons.

After a brief period during which the mount was reopened to Jews, police closed it again for two weeks for what they termed "operational considerations." A few days ago, they clarified that the ban also applied to visits by MKs.

MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud) responded Tuesday that the police must be made to understand what parliamentary immunity means, so that parliamentary activity would not be undermined. One component of this immunity is a very broad - though not unlimited - freedom of movement that allows MKs to enter many areas closed to ordinary citizens.

MK Inbal Gavrieli (Likud) announced that she intends to ascend the mount Thursday even if the police forbid it, while fellow Likud MKs Ehud Yatom and Yehiel Hazan issued similar announcements.

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin urged his colleagues to cancel the planned visit, lest they incite riots on the mount that could spread to East Jerusalem and the territories.

"Jews should not be forbidden to ascend the mount," he told Haaretz. "But the ascent of the mount should not under any circumstances be turned into a demonstration, and we cannot ignore the pleas from the public security minister and the police commissioner that MKs not ascend the mount in groups tomorrow."

Knesset House Committee Chairman MK Roni Bar-On (Likud) added that he has seen the classified information on which the police based their opposition to the MKs' planned visit, and this information must be taken seriously.

Edelstein has asked the House Committee to meet Wednesday to discuss the police's decision to ban MKs from ascending the mount tomorrow, and Bar-On has invited Jerusalem Police Chief Mickey Levy and Shin Bet security service officials to attend.

Deputy Industry Minister Michael Ratzon (Likud) said that Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi had asked him to refrain from visiting the mount, but promised to make the pilgrimage with him if he would wait until next week. Ratzon said that he had acceded to this request.

Not surprisingly, the rightist MKs' plans aroused a storm of protest from left-wing ministers and MKs. Interior Minister Avraham Poraz (Shinui) said that "a visit to the Temple Mount by MKs would be an unnecessary provocation and should not be permitted;" while Infrastructure Minister Joseph Paritzky (Shinui) added: "Apparently there are MKs who are tired of the quiet and of the attempt to reach a diplomatic agreement and they want to reignite the fire of the intifada."

[thoughtomator]

Or maybe they're tired of sacrificing their own beliefs on Moloch's altar.

[goldstategop]

The ban should be lifted. Jews should not be punished for Arabs fomenting terrorist activities by keeping them from peaceful assembly on one of their holiest sites. If the Arabs riot, the police should ban the Arabs from the Temple Mount, not the Jews.

[Naspino]

If the whole Temple Mount issue doesn't prove God's existence I don't know what does. Its so amazing that in two religions that are some opposed to one another that one would allow the other to exist on one of its most holy sites preventing itself from rebuilding its own temple until the time is come.