The Kahanists in Israel are Pushing for an All-Out Religious War |
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The Temple Mount, also known as Haram al-Sharif, is a holy site for both Judaism and Islam, drawing the devotion of believers around the world, including nearly two billion Muslims. Because of its extraordinary sensitivity, Israel’s Supreme Court has described the site in its rulings as a “barrel of explosives” at risk of detonating.
In recent years, the voices and political standing of those in Israel seeking to ignite it have grown stronger. Yet this is not merely a “barrel of explosives,” but a “nuclear reactor” that must be handled with the utmost care.
Until recent years, under decades-old decisions by Israel’s political leadership – put in place since Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967 – to preserve the “status quo,” police were responsible for preventing open – that is, spoken or outwardly visible – prayer by non-Muslims on the Temple Mount, as opposed to private, silent devotion. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld these restrictions on Jewish prayer.
In cases of prosecution for open Jewish prayer, authorities have relied on the offense of improper conduct in a public place under Section 216(a)(4) of the Penal Law, 1977, and occasionally on additional charges.
Leading the effort to ignite this “barrel of explosives” and dismantle the “status quo” is National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who in previous years was convicted of terrorism-related offenses linked to his activities in Rabbi Meir Kahane’s movement, and is now the head of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, the successor to Kahane’s Kach party.
Over the past two years, he has repeatedly led public prayers on the Temple Mount under police escort – officers who neither intervened nor detained him – and has openly publicised and boasted of these actions on social media and in the press. In other words, Minister Ben-Gvir has not only personally broken the law, but has also encouraged and led others in mass lawbreaking.
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