The Israeli government is allowing Jews to conduct prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied territory, disturbing the site’s status quo, The New York Times reports.
Only Muslims were allowed to pray at the Al-Aqsa in East Jerusalem, also known to Jews as the Temple Mount, even after Israeli capture of the land from Jordan during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The site, sacred to Jews and Muslims, was forbidden for Jewish prayers, the newspaper says.
It published the report titled ‘In shift, Israel quietly allows Jewish prayer on temple mount’ on Tuesday, saying that Rabbi Yehudah Glick, a US-born, right-wing former lawmaker, made “little effort to hide his prayers” and was even livestreaming them.
Recently, the Times report says, the Israeli government has quietly allowed increasing numbers of Jews to pray there, a shift that could aggravate the instability in East Jerusalem and potentially lead to religious conflict.
“It’s a sensitive place,” Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli prime minister, was quoted to have said. “And sensitive places such as this, which have an enormous potential for explosion, need to be treated with care.”
The report pointed out that the prohibition of Jewish prayer on the 37-acre plateau that once held two ancient Jewish temples was part of a long-standing compromise to avoid conflict at a site that has been a frequent flashpoint between Israelis and Palestinians.
Under certain arrangement, the report says, the Jordanian government has retained administrative oversight of what the Arabs call Al-Aqsa or the Noble Sanctuary. To the Jews, it is Temple Mount.
Al-Aqsa Mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock, a shrine that Muslim tradition considers to be the spot where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven, are situated on its limestone plaza, the Times report mentioned.
Israel is said to have overall security authority and maintains a small police station there.
The Israeli government officially allows non-Muslims to visit the site for several hours each morning on the condition that they do not pray there, the report said.
The policy reportedly began to change during the tenure of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, who led coalitions of right-wing and religious parties.
That changed last month, after Netanyahu was replaced by Naftali Bennett, the report said adding that suddenly, Israeli news outlets published images and footage of dozens of Jews praying openly on the mount, including a lawmaker from Bennett’s party, forcing Bennett to address the issue publicly.
According to the report, Bennett initially appeared to confirm a formal change in policy, saying that all religions would have “freedom of worship” on Temple Mount, to the delight of some members of his own hard-right party.
A day later, the report pointed out, after criticism from Jordan and leftist and Arab members of his governing coalition, he backtracked, issuing a statement that the status quo ante remained in place.
“To many Palestinians, the shift is provocative and unfair. They feel that Muslims have already made a big concession at the Western Wall, which is now used mostly by Jewish worshippers despite its also being important to Muslims,” wrote the report.
Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani, the director of the mosque, was quoted to have said that Al-Aqsa should be reserved for Muslim prayer, in recognition of its importance to Muslims. Many Palestinians consider Al-Aqsa the embodiment of Palestinian identity, the animating force behind the aspiration for a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, the report said.
“It has been named Al-Aqsa since the Prophet Muhammad rose to heaven there,” al-Kiswani was quoted to have said.