Netanyahu fails to defuse tension by barring Temple Mount to MKs

The recent wave of Palestinian violence against Israeli targets has come amid a backdrop of tensions at the Temple Mount over non-Muslim visits and what the Arab world claims in an attempt to “Judaize” the site, the location of the Jewish people’s two Holy Temples. Within the past week, three separate Palestinian stabbing attacks against Jews have taken place in the Old City, killing two men and wounding a woman, a baby, and another man.

Netanyahu has said that Israel will maintain the status quo on the Temple Mount, under which Jews are allowed to enter the site but are not allowed to pray. Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi thereupon announced that he would lead a large Arab delegation to Friday prayers on Temple Mount.

Israel Police have lifted restrictions on the access of Muslim worshippers on the Temple Mount.

One government minister who is wont to visit the site is Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, who in the past has been quoted as saying that he “wants to see a third temple built here”.

Police say the move was ordered by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan.

Netanyahu made the controversial decision in order to quell Muslims’ fears that Israel was preparing to assert sovereignty over part or all of the Mount, the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, and the long-destroyed Jewish Biblical Temples.

Terror has spread throughout the country in recent days, from the roads of Judea, where a couple was gunned down in front of their four children last week, to the suburbs of Tel Aviv, where a terrorist attacked Jews at a mall in Petah Tikvah yesterday. While originally applying the decision only to Jewish Knesset members, Netanyahu has subsequently added Arab politicians in the ban.

Thursday’s prohibition against visiting the Temple Mount has angered both Arab and Jewish parliamentarians. “In order to please the King Abdullah [of Jordan], should we hurt ourselves?” He widened the ban Thursday to include all members of…