Ben-Gvir is playing a dangerous game with the Al-Aqsa status quo

The recent call by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to change the fragile status quo of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound to allow Jewish prayer at the holy site deliberately escalates tensions.

“I am the political leader and the leader allows Jews to pray on the Temple Mount (Al-Aqsa Mosque), and I prayed there last week. There is no reason to prevent Jews from accessing certain parts of the Temple Mount,” the far-right minister said during a Knesset session on July 24.

A week earlier, the Jewish Power leader had visited the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in a provocative gesture, posting a video claiming that he had gone there to pray.

Under the status quo that has prevailed since Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, Jordan’s Islamic Endowments Department is responsible for managing the Al-Aqsa compound, while Israel controls its entrances.

Non-Muslims are allowed to visit the site, but not to pray there. The Chief Rabbinate of Jerusalem has banned Jews from entering the Al-Aqsa compound since 1921.

Jordan’s guardianship of the holy site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, dates back to 1924 and is recognized by the United Nations, UNESCO, the Arab League, the European Union (EU) and by the 1994 treaty between Israel and Jordan.

Since Israel’s creation, and especially since the occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967, Israeli extremists have advocated for the return of Jewish prayer to the site, with some calling for the destruction of the mosque and the rebuilding of the Jewish temple.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, these calls have intensified.

“Extremists, including Israeli government ministers, want to impose a bitter reality on the mosque that will affect the faith of all Muslims, because Al-Aqsa is not just for Palestinians but rather for all Muslims around the world,” an Islamic Endowment official said. The New Arab.

These extremists are taking advantage of the current situation to commit “crazy and reckless” acts that could set the entire region ablaze, he added.

“This calm and silence about what is happening at Al-Aqsa may be followed by an explosion whose consequences we do not know if the feelings of Muslims continue to be provoked.”

Israel’s gradual takeover of Al-Aqsa

Israeli extremists have regularly stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque since 2003, entering through the Mughariba Gate in the mosque’s western wall and exiting through the Silsila Gate in the same wall.

Israeli authorities then banned Palestinians from using the Mughariba Gate, reserving it for Israelis.

Before 2000, Israeli officials generally justified these visits as individual actions, but the highly controversial visit to the holy site by Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon in 2000, surrounded by thousands of security forces, which sparked the Second Intifada, confirmed a political alignment with the actions of these groups.

As Israeli politics has shifted to the right, the religious settler agenda has become more prominent, with Israeli officials increasingly promoting the right to Jewish prayer and the division of Al-Aqsa’s courtyards into Jewish and Muslim areas.

In October 2021, an Israeli court ruling allowed Jewish settlers to hold silent prayers at the Al-Aqsa compound for the first time, sparking fears of Israeli encroachment on the holy site.

Visits by extremists, accompanied by Israeli police escorts, have also increased, with a 2023 report citing a 16% increase over the previous year. The Palestinian Christian-Islamic Commission for the Safeguarding of Jerusalem reported that 4,700 Israelis had visited Al-Aqsa as of April 2023.

The Temple Mount Movement, a collection of organizations calling for the removal of the authority of the Jordanian Waqf and full Jewish control over the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, has also grown more powerful.

Ben-Gvir, himself a Temple Mount activist, is now part of the Israeli government, the most far-right coalition in Israel’s history.

This means that there is increasing pressure on the Israeli political establishment to increase the number of visits by extremists and impose more restrictions on Palestinian access.

For Abdullah Marouf, a researcher on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Ben-Gvir’s latest statements constitute a concrete change in the status quo, something the far-right minister has never hidden his desire.

He said The New Arab that Ben-Gvir sees Jerusalem as his political playground, where he can show his strength to his political base.

Although Ben-Gvir and other extremists such as Bezalel Smotrich do not represent the entire political spectrum in Israel, they exercise considerable control over Netanyahu and his decisions as members of the coalition government.

Although Jordan is in custody of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, day-to-day control is in the hands of Israeli authorities, who storm the compound at will and restrict Palestinian access whenever they wish.

Israel’s arrest last week of Sheikh Ekrema Sabri, the imam of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the decision to bar him from the holy site are testament to this power and its abuses, which, if not curbed, could lead to an unprecedented escalation in Jerusalem and beyond.

Fayha Shalash is a Palestinian journalist based in Ramallah.