Monday morning, a senior political figure claimed that I am responsible for the fact that Jordan recalled its ambassador to Israel. “Feiglin visited the Temple Mount with all his media and this is what ensued,” he said, according to a journalist who called me asking for my reaction.
The senior political figure who made this accusation perfectly reflects Israel’s irresponsible and spineless Temple Mount policy, which will only lead to an escalation of violence and many more victims of terror.
The Ma’ariv newspaper reported on Monday that during his brief visit last week to Jordan, Prime Minister Netanyahu asked King Abdullah to instruct the Jerusalem Islamic Wakf to restore order on the Temple Mount. This reveals who the real sovereign on the Temple Mount is – at least according to the prime minister. None other than the king of Jordan represented by the Wakf.
I did not visit the Temple Mount this month with the media in tow. I visited it in the same manner that I have visited it every month for the past 15 years.
And as if in the theatre of the absurd, the “senior political figure” who criticized me believes that I should have canceled my visit after the attempted assassination of prominent Temple Mount activist Rabbi Yehudah Glick. Apparently, I was supposed to reward terror. Apparently, I was supposed to buy a little bit of quiet now in exchange for the terrible wave of violence that will descend upon us later.
Israel’s policy on the Temple Mount derives from the same irresponsible approach that brought about the wholesale release of terrorists; it is the same confused and fainthearted policy that prevented a clear victory in the Gaza war; it is the same policy that preferred to ignore the terror in Jerusalem that sprung up as a result of the lack of victory in Gaza; it is the same policy that now prefers to blames the Jews – not the attackers – for the crisis, and to affirm foreign sovereignty on the Temple Mount.
After the attempted assassination of Rabbi Yehudah Glick, one would have expected Israel’s “senior political figures” to send the enemy a clear-cut message: Arab “murderousness” achieves nothing. It only strengthens Jewish sovereignty on the Temple Mount – the heart of Jerusalem and the most holy place in the world for the Jewish Nation.
“I expected,” I said to the prime minister at the recent Likud faction meeting, “that after the assassination attempt, all the nationalist MKs would visit the Temple Mount under your leadership. This would make it clear to all that no assassination attempt will drive us from our holy places. That is the only way to restore calm to Israel.”
Instead, I am criticized for attempting to preserve Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount.
“We do not have rights in this land,” explained MK Ahmad Tibi when he ceremoniously visited the Temple Mount. “We have rights on the entire land.”
We cannot blame Tibi. He has simply accepted the clear invitation of Israel’s political leadership to come take the Temple Mount from us.