Not just Israel’s Ben-Gvir: A new Al-Aqsa provocation is rising

The Israeli minister’s visits have deep roots in religious Zionism. Such an act would be forbidden under the current “status quo” governing Al-Aqsa, referred to as the Temple Mount or Har Habayit by Jews, even though a small group of Orthodox Jews is increasingly finding ways to pray on the holy site. Following the Israeli capture of Jerusalem in June 1967, in which an Israeli flag was temporarily flown above the Dome of the Rock, Shlomo Goren, chief rabbi of the conquering Israeli forces and a leading religious Zionist, spoke to the Jewish soldiers: “Today you have fulfilled the oath of generations: ‘if I forget thee, o Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning!’ Indeed, we did not forget thee, Jerusalem city of our sanctity and home of our glory.” The Ultra-Orthodox Jewish response to June 1967 was also rapid and unequivocal, first delivered across Israeli radio waves merely hours after the Old City was captured: Jewish law strictly prohibits entry to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for all Jews owing to the sanctity of the site. And it is not just Religious Zionists, though they are the single largest group of Jews going to the Al-Aqsa compound, said Hayim Alba, a member of the non-governmental “Temple Mount Administration”, whose leader Rabbi Shimshon Elboim was photographed walking next to Ben-Gvir during his visit. Tucker pointed out that Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, the current spiritual leader of the largest bloc of Ultra-Orthodox Jews, recently requested UTJ leader and cabinet minister Moshe Gafni to urge Netanyahu to enforce a prohibition of Jews visiting the Temple Mount in general, “specifically in the current sensitive climate”.