Tension Erupts Over Israeli Minister’s Visit to Temple Mount

The visit today to the Temple Mount at Jerusalem by Israel’s new minister of public security, Itamar Ben Gvir, might complicate Prime Minister Netayahu’s diplomatic efforts to widen the circle of Arab countries at peace with the Jewish state. It marks, though, a principle that a number of high-ranking Israeli officials, including the late Ariel Sharon, have felt it important to assert.Mr. Ben Gvir, a proponent of hardline policies toward Palestinian Arabs, strode for some 15 minutes around the Jerusalem site where the ancient Jewish temple stood until 70 A.D. The site is the holiest in Judaism and the third holiest for Islam, and has been a flashpoint throughout history. Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, tells the Sun that Mr. Ben Gvir has not changed a long-held status quo on the Temple Mount. He should know. Like Mr. Ben Gvir, Mr. Erdan visited the mount as minister of public security in 2019, to little fanfare. Yet, Mr. Ben Gvir, who is globally seen as an anti-Arab provocateur, has created a stir. Mr. Netayahu was tentatively scheduled to fly to the United Arab Emirates next week, his first foreign incursion during his current stint as premier. The visit with the Abu Dhabi ruler, Mohammed bin-Zayed, was designed to signal the centrality of the 2020 peace treaties with four Arab countries, known as the Abraham Accords, in the foreign policy of the new Israeli government. This morning, though, the UAE issued a strong condemnation of Mr. Ben Gvir’s Temple Mount visit, and later called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting. Jerusalem then announced a postponement of the Abu Dhabi visit. Although Mr. Netanyahu’s office cited a need to finalize the logistics involved in the trip, the postponement was widely perceived as a setback.Global reaction to Mr. Ben Gvir’s Temple Mount visit was swift and harsh. “We are interested in preserving the status quo, and any action that prevents this is unacceptable,” the American ambassador at Jerusalem, Tom Nides, said, adding, “We said this clearly to the Israeli government.” In reality, Mr. Ben Gvir made no change to the site’s vaunted status quo — tentative agreements made between Israel and Jordan following the 1967 Six Days War. According to the agreement, an Amman-appointed Muslim body, the Waqf, is charged with running the site’s day-to-day affairs. Israel is charged with maintaining security. Visitors of all religions are permitted at the site, but Jews are banned from praying there. Mr. Ben Gvir has in the past called for allowing Jews to pray on the mount. Yet, on Tuesday morning he did no such thing. He reportedly walked along a path designed for non-Muslims visitors. “The Temple Mount is the most important place for the Jewish people,” he said later in a statement. “We will maintain freedom of movement for Muslims and Christians,” and “Jews will climb the mountain.” Mr. Ben Gvir is far from the first Israeli Jew to visit the Temple Mount. In 2000 Sharon famously took a tour there as opposition leader. What followed was an eruption of Arab violence known as the Second Intifada. Although ample evidence has emerged that the violent campaign had been planned by the late Yasser Arafat far in advance of the event, the world press has long perceived Sharon’s visit as a “provocation” that lit the intifada. Since then, Jews have taken tours of the site in increasing numbers. Some, including Mr. Erdan, have called to change the ban on Jewish prayers. Yet, in deference to Muslim sensitivities and fear of violent eruptions, the status quo was by and large maintained, both by Israel and the Arabs. Mr. Ben Gvir’s visit “clearly isn’t a violation of the status quo,” Mr. Erdan told the Sun. “I went there too. According to the status quo Jews are allowed to visit the Mount and — to my regret — only Muslims are permitted to pray there.” Nevertheless, Hamas and other Iranian-backed factions have long used allegations of status quo violations to instigate violence: Although the previous Israeli government was widely perceived as centrist, in contrast to the current far right version, Arabs cited such violations last summer as an excuse to throw rocks at Jewish worshipers praying at the Western Wall, just below the mount. One of the loudest critics of Israeli policies at the holy sites is King Abdullah II of Jordan. On Tuesday, Amman’s foreign ministry summoned the Israeli ambassador there to protest what it called Mr. Ben Gvir’s “break in.” In 1994, Jordan became the second Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Yet, King Abdullah, a Hashemite, presides over a restive majority-Palestinian population, which explains his hardline diplomatic stance on Israel.The states of the Abraham Accords — the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan — have determined that the benefits of relations with the Jewish state outweigh their solidarity with their Palestinian brethren. That assumption is now being tested. The current crisis is likely to fizzle soon. Yet Mr. Netanyahu’s challenge will remain: how to navigate between the reality — and global perception — that his coalition partners are too hawkish, and his desire to widen ties with countries like Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world.

Tension Erupts Over Israeli Minister’s Visit to Temple Mount

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