“I was at the Temple Mount last week. I prayed at the Temple Mount and we are praying at the Temple Mount. I am in the political echelon, and the political echelon allows Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount,” Ben Gvir told attendees at a Knesset conference encouraging Jewish visits to the holy site.
He made the statement hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s was to speak to a joint session of Congress on a high-stakes trip during which Netanyahu will meet with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican nominee former president Donald Trump.
It was the second time in as many months that Ben Gvir, challenging Netanyahu, said it was official policy to allow Jews to pray at the site, after he made similar claims in June.
As in the case of those comments, Netanyahu’s office quickly countered Ben Gvir’s assertion, releasing a statement declaring that Israel’s policy “to maintain the status quo on the Temple Mount has not changed and will not change.”
In a subsequent statement, Ben Gvir said that allowing Jews to pray on the Mount had been his position for months and insisted that on his watch “there will not be racist discrimination against Jews, who alone are forbidden from praying… in the holiest place for the Jewish people.” READ MORE
