Right-Wing Lawmaker Moshe Feiglin Told To Avoid Temple Mount in Jerusalem
No Go Area: Likud lawmaker Moshe Feiglin has been told by party leader Benjamin Netanyahu to stay away from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Image by getty images
Right-wing Likud lawmaker Moshe Feiglin was told not to ascend the Temple Mount on orders of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Feiglin, who visits the Temple Mount on the 19th of every Hebrew month, had planned to visit it on Monday, the 19th of the Hebrew month of Iyar.
He said in a post on his Facebook page Sunday night that Israel Police Commander Moshe Bareket had called him and informed him of Netanyahu’s orders.
“The Prime Minister has no legal authority to give such an instruction, since it violates three Basic Laws,” Feiglin wrote, citing Israel’s Basic Laws that allow freedom of movement, freedom of access to holy sites in Jerusalem, and immunity to Knesset members.
The order to prevent Feiglin from visiting the Temple Mount came after the Wakf, the Muslim religious administration charged with managing the Temple Mount site, warned the Prime Minister’s Office that a visit on Monday from Feiglin would touch off “World War Three,” the Jewish Press reported, citing a “source close to Feiglin.”
“When, just before Jerusalem Liberation Day, the prime minister orders an Israeli Knesset member that – contrary to Israeli law – he not to go up to the Temple Mount, it means that the prime minister has officially and openly revoked Israeli sovereignty on the Mount and given it to the Muslim Wakf,” Feiglin wrote on his Facebook page.
Feiglin was prevented by police from visiting the Temple Mount on the second day of Passover in March, after information that hundreds of Arabs planned to protest his visit. He had coordinated his visit in advance with security officials.
Earlier in March, Feiglin was prevented from entering the Dome of the Rock and then removed from the Temple Mount. He had asked to be allowed to enter the Dome of the Rock in his capacity as a Knesset member.
Feiglin was detained by Israel Police in January for praying on the Temple Mount. He also was arrested in October for praying at the site. In December he led a minyan at the site that was caught on video and widely distributed.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
