During a 1995 Root and Branch conference in Jerusalem, Professor Nahum Rakover, author and then Deputy Attorney General of Israel, publicly agreed with me that it’s not it is illegal for Christians or Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, even if the police forcibly prevent it.
I expressed the frustration we (the Temple Mount Faithful and, thankfully, now, many others) feel when we comply with the law, receive the necessary police permits for our legal demonstrations, and even obtain written approval from the Supreme Court for our actions. , only to be denied “freedom of access” to our holiest place, the Temple Mount, and harshly treated with contempt for even trying to exercise our democratic rights!
I asked Assistant Attorney General Rakover why the Israeli government was, in effect, encouraging people to act outside the law (which they know we’ve never done, unlike other groups who feel why bother wasting their time trying to reason with corrupt officials) as well as rewarding Muslim militants for their terrorist threats of riots and violence (if Israel really upheld its 1967 law guaranteeing, in writing, “freedom of access” to the Temple Mount) and bizarrely punishing people respectful of the law by denying them entry to the Temple Mount. . Why not remove the threat? Isn’t that logical? Isn’t that cool?
Professor Nahum Rakover basically said that we are in this situation today because NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE WANT TO EXERCISE THEIR RIGHT to that religious place – the Temple Mount!
Why should Israel change the status quo when it is under no pressure to do so? It has been said that politicians don’t see the light until they feel the heat. The fault is ours! As I have written in a letter published in the Jerusalem Post, the Temple Mount is not in our hands, because it is not in our hearts and minds.
I was later wrongfully deported for highlighting the plight of the Temple Mount under Nazi-Muslim occupation in an article published in Jerusalem and Israel, which called for the restoring of the Temple Mount as the Temple Mount – a House of Prayer for All Peoples – which Israel’s High Court has ruled out as dangerous ideas.
Why should Jews continue to pray at the Western Wall, a site designated by the Turks for Jewish worship instead of the Temple Mount, and continue to submit to such a Gentile decree rather than obey the Biblical command to ascend the Mount? From the temple?
Why obey men rather than God? Isn’t that idolatry? Isn’t that immoral? Is not God the King of Israel, the only Husband of Israel? Who are the nations to dictate what the bride of God should do?
Why do the Jews gather at the lamentable Western Wall to mourn the destruction of the Temple? do something constructive and DEMAND the legal and biblical rights of Jews to the Temple Mount.
Fortunately, the Third Temple is coming soon!
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Law for the Protection of the Holy Places
June 27, 1967
1. The Holy Places will be protected from desecration and any other violation and from everything that may violate the freedom of access of members of different religions to places sacred to them or their feelings regarding those places.
2nd Whoever desecrates or otherwise violates a Holy Place will be punished with a prison sentence of seven years.
b. Anyone who does anything that might violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings regarding those places, shall be punished with imprisonment for five years.
3. This Law will complement and not repeal any other law.
4. The Minister for Religious Affairs is in charge of the implementation of this Law, and may, after consultation with, or on the proposal of, the representatives of the religions concerned and with the consent of the Minister of Justice, issue regulations on any matter. related to said implementation.
5. This Law shall enter into force on the date of its adoption by the Knesset.
Levi Eshkol
Prime Minister
Zeraj Warhaftig
Minister of Religious Affairs
shneur zalman shazar
state president