05 April 2017
On March 27, 2017, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed plans to lift an 18 month long ban barring ministers and lawmakers from visiting al-Aqsa, Israeli media reports.
Al-Aqsa is a compound above the Western Wall in Jerusalem that houses the al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock. Since the 1967 occupation, an agreement between Jordan and Israel has maintained that Jewish prayer takes place at the Western Wall plaza, whereas Muslim prayer occurs at al-Aqsa. This status quo allows non-Muslims to visit al-Aqsa as a sightseeing activity.
Netanyahu banned members of Knesset from visiting the site at the onset of the al-Quds Intifada in November 2015. At the time, Palestinians were outraged by the willingness of Israeli police to block the movement and worship of Palestinians and Muslims in order to allow right-wing settlers to provocatively tour the site and sometimes pray there.
Monday’s decision to revoke the ban was announced at a meeting with Israeli public security minister Gilad Erdan and other security officials, including the Jerusalem district police chief. They hope to institute the policy change after the holy month of Ramadan ends in June. “Security considerations” (Palestinian resistance), however, could thwart the plan, the officials admit.
The Times of Israel reports that settler, temple movement leader, and Likud Member of Knesset (MK) Yehuda Glick helped bring about the decision by threatening to take the ban before the Israeli High Court. Glick agreed: it is “regretful,” he said, “to think that it took my threat to petition the High Court to lead to the decision [to resume Temple Mount visits.]”
The day after Netanyahu’s meeting, on March 28, 2017, Glick filed a petition on the ban with the Court anyway, claiming that it violates the rights of MKs. However, on Wednesday, the Court rejected Glick’s request for an immediate injunction. Instead, Netanyahu must disclose his rational for the policy by May 14, 2017.
Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi pointed out that Netanyahu’s ban is irrelevant because the Israeli prime minister lacks sovereign authority over al-Aqsa:
The decision whether we visit or not was never in Netanyahu’s hands. Al-Aqsa Mosque is a Muslim prayer mosque only, and the people who are inciting and fanning the flames here are Netanyahu’s friends and supporters – a group of right-wing politicians that are entering the compound.
Indeed, there is a growing movement of Israeli settlers and politicians who work to upend al-Aqsa’s status quo and force it open to Jewish prayer. Organizing Jewish tours to the site with the intention of exceeding sightseeing activities is a key part of these efforts. During such tours, settlers utter Jewish prayers or walk barefoot, at the same time as armed Israeli police escorts exact violence and restrict the movement and worship of Muslims and Palestinians.
Palestinians as well as the Jordanian Islamic Waqf officials who oversee the compound say that settler incursions have already distorted al-Aqsa’s status quo. Many attest to the gradual imposition of a spatial and temporal division of the compound, similar to that of Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, where there are separate prayer spaces and entry points for Muslims and Jews.
Indeed, last week Israeli forces arrested an astonishing 11 Waqf officials. Moreover, just this morning 52 settlers stormed the compound, as they typically do on multiple days each week with the help of the Israeli police.
(Alternative Information Centre)
