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JERUSALEM — Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited a sensitive holy site in Jerusalem on Tuesday, despite reported objections from the prime minister and top security officials.
Israeli media said Benjamin Netanyahu and others had warned that a provocative visit to what Jewish Israelis call the Temple Mount in the heart of the Old City could exacerbate an already escalating conflict with the Palestinians and sour ties with the Arab world at large.
Though there were no immediate demonstrations in Jerusalem, the move was condemned by nations across the region, including those with whom Israel hopes to sign normalization deals.
On Tuesday morning, Ben Gvir said he would not “surrender” to threats from Hamas, the Islamist militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, over his planned visit to the disputed site.
“The Temple Mount is open to all and if Hamas thinks they will deter me by threatening me then let them understand that times have changed,” he tweeted, along with a photo of himself flanked by security officials .
ממשלת ישראל שאני חבר בה לא תיכנע לארגון מרצחים שפל. הר הבית פתוח החמאס חושב שאם הוא יא era עליי ירתיע אותי, שיבינו שהשתנו. יש ממשלה בירושלים! pic.twitter.com/vgDYBYacJG
— איתמר בן גביר (@itamarbengvir) January 3, 2023
A visit by then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon in 2000 with an army of security forces sparked the years-long fighting of the second Intifada. More recently, confrontations have erupted over trips by right-wing Israeli lawmakers to the site revered in Judaism. Palestinians see the moves as part of an effort to extend Israeli control over the compound — which is also revered by Muslims, who call it the Noble Sanctuary.
In May 2021, Ben Gvir’s support for settlers in a neighborhood in east Jerusalem near the entrance to the Temple Mount was among the triggers of an 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas.
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Ben Gvir’s visit comes less than a week after the inauguration of Israel’s new government, which is led by Netanyahu but anchored by a bloc of one-time far-right parties whose members have vowed to annex the West Bank and wipe out any remaining opportunities for a Two -state solution, in which a Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.
Ben Gvir, who has a new position as Minister of National Security in charge of police, has long campaigned to change the status quo on the Temple Mount, which has been administered by the Jordanian religious authority known as Waqf since the 1967 war. It bans all non-Muslim prayer on the premises, and Israel Police require non-Muslim visitors to keep religious items such as prayer books at the entrance.
For decades, as the prospect of a two-state solution dwindled and the site’s status as a symbol of national sovereignty increased, Israeli and regional leaders have warned that the slightest change could ignite the region.
Ben Gvir’s visit “could lead to more tension and violence and an explosive situation,” Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement. He called on the US government to “assume its responsibilities and force Israel to stop its escalation and storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque before it is too late,” the statement said.
His criticism was echoed by Israel’s neighbors; Some of them – including the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt – have signed peace treaties or normalization agreements with Israel.
Jordan “strongly condemned the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the violation of its sanctity,” and Egypt’s Foreign Ministry warned “of the negative impact of such measures on the security and stability in the occupied territories and the region and so on.” future of the peace process.”
Saudi Arabia, which is keen to add Israel to the list of Arab nations with which it has signed deals, strongly condemned the “provocative practices” and also described them as “storming” the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Mosque. The State Department expressed regret at Israeli activities “which undermine international peace efforts.”
The US Embassy in Israel said Ambassador Tom Nides “has been very clear in discussions with the Israeli government on the issue of maintaining the status quo in Jerusalem’s holy sites. Measures that prevent this are unacceptable.”
Even Netanyahu has condemned site visits as provocative, including in a 2020 speech justifying rejecting a proposal by Ben Gvir to allow Jewish prayer there in exchange for his party’s withdrawal from the elections.
“The Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, while it sounds like a reasonable thing, I know it would have ignited the Middle East,” he said. “There is a limit. There are things I’m not willing to do to win an election.”
But this time, Netanyahu’s return to power after 18 months on the sidelines was made possible by Ben Gvir and his far-right partners. They have moved from the political fringes to the mainstream in recent years, along with a relative Grassroots movement of Temple Mount activists.
Its members include many youth living in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank who have defied an edict issued by established Orthodox rabbis forbidding Jews from climbing the mountain for fear of inadvertently accessing the inner sanctum of the ancient Temple to go where only the high priest was allowed to step.
A decade ago, only a handful of Jews climbed the Temple Mount and secretly prayed into their hands or cell phones. But in recent years the numbers have swelled to hundreds, sometimes thousands during holiday periods, and sometimes visitors pray in open violation of the rules.
Miri Eisen, a former senior intelligence officer in the Israeli military, said the right-wing movement, with its unprecedented representation in the Israeli government, seems willing to use the region as a price for fulfilling its mission of “enforcing the notion that their rights as Jews prevail over all other considerations, including security issues.”
“Extremism leads to confrontations that immediately turn violent,” she added. “And all confrontations begin on the Temple Mount.”
Hazem Balousha in Ramallah and Sufian Taha in Jerusalem contributed to this report.