That Terrible Ben-Gvir, Praying on the Temple Mount

Though Israel has been demonized by so much of the world, within that general demonization special hate has been reserved for two people, now members of the cabinet, who are inevitably described as “far right” and “lunatics” — Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. The former has just done something that the Arabs, and the world media taking its cue from them, describe as an appalling violation of previous agreements and a deliberate attempt to stir up even more trouble with the Palestinian Arabs. They are referring to Ben-Gvir’s visit, along with his supporters, to the holiest site in Judaism, the Temple Mount, on one of the holiest of Jewish holidays, Tisha b’Av, where the Jews proceeded to sing and dance and, horribile dictu, to openly pray.

More on Ben-Gvir’s visit can be found here: “Ben-Gvir joined by thousands for prayer at Temple Mount,” i24News, August 3, 2025:

On the Jewish fast day of Tisha B’Av, which mourns the destruction of the First and Second Temples, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir ascended the Temple Mount, joining thousands of Jewish visitors expected to visit and pray throughout the day.

Under Ben-Gvir’s policy, Israeli police have allowed Jewish visitors to sing, pray in the eastern section of the mount, and even prostrate, a significant shift from the longstanding status quo that prohibits overt Jewish worship at the flashpoint site.

Videos from Sunday morning showed dozens of Jewish worshippers singing and dancing openly on the mount. Police did not intervene. In one incident, an Arab man who shouted at a group of Jewish visitors was removed and arrested by security forces.

Associates of Ben-Gvir hailed the moment as “a monumental change that hasn’t happened in a thousand years,” adding that his policy is to ensure freedom of worship for Jews at all sites in Israel, including the Temple Mount. “There is no law permitting racist discrimination against Jews on the Temple Mount or anywhere else in Israel,” they said….

Despite the criticism, Ben-Gvir has maintained that Jewish worship at the Temple Mount is a matter of basic rights and national sovereignty.

The situation on the Temple Mount has been absurd for a long time. When Jordan possessed the Old City, from 1949 to 1967, Jews were forbidden from visiting the Temple Mount for any reason. In 1967, when Israel too possession of the Old City after the Six-Day War, Moshe Dayan, who was then Israel’s Defense Minister, decided on his own that, in order not to further humiliate the Arabs who were already deeply humiliated by their defeat, Jews would be allowed to visit the Temple Mount, but they would not be allowed either to pray, or to bring up with them up on the Mount any prayerbooks or other religious paraphernalia. They could not even mouth a silent prayer. These rules were enforced by the Israeli police. And that is the way things remained until the last year, when “right-wing” Jews visiting the Mount began to mouth prayers, and then to say them quietly. And with Itamar Ben-Gvir as the Minister of National Security and thus in charge of security on the Temple Mount, the police began to let alone those Jews who came to pray.

Now Itamar Ben-Gvir has just led a group of likeminded Jewish worshippers on Tisha b’Av to the Temple Mount to do what Jews should have been allowed to do just as soon as Israel took control of the Old City in June 1967 — that is, to pray. This is not meant to humiliate or to threaten the Arabs, as they hysterically claim. It is only the righting of a wrong that began when Moshe Dayan set down the rule that Jews could not pray on the Temple Mount. Now, as more and more Jews choose to follow Ben-Gvir’s example, it will be accepted, albeit with ill grace, by the Muslims who are in no position to try and stop it. After all, it is the Israeli security forces who patrol the Temple Mount and who prevent the Arabs from attacking Jewish worshippers. And even the world’s media, so ready to blame Israel, will have a hard time justifying the previous regime which prevented Jews from praying at the holiest site in Judaism.