Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday afternoon rebuked his newest coalition member, MK Yehuda Glick (Likud) who is about to swear allegiance to the Knesset Monday evening — for going up on Temple Mount Monday morning.
A few months ago, because of Arab MKs’ incessant provocations on the Temple Mount, Netanyahu issued a decree banning all public officials of every religion from the compound. Glick, whose livelihood until Monday was as a tour guide on Temple Mount, for which he was almost killed in an assassination attempt, decided to go up one last time, before taking on his new job.
But the prime minister still took offense, apparently, and when he shook hands with the newcomer at the end of the Knesset Likud faction’s first meeting of the spring session, he blurted, “Yehuda, it’s the last time you’re doing this to me.” The MK, who is far from being a lawbreaker, asked, “What did I do?” to which the PM answered, “Now you are a soldier!” and Coalition chairman MK David Bitan, who himself had been embroiled last term in some infighting with the powers that be in Likud, now warned Glick, “You shouldn’t deal with the Temple Mount at all.”
Now, that’s hardly going to stop the new MK, whose most cherished agenda is making The Temple Mount compound equally available to members of all faiths, and not just to Muslims. Meanwhile, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein has assigned Glick a permanent security detail, on account of that foiled assassination attempt.
MK Glick, who will take over the vacated Knesset seat of former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, told Walla, “The source of my mission is on the Temple Mount. I’m going to be a public servant and a servant of God, and I came [to the Temple MOunt] the replenish my strength and to remind myself of the source of my action.”