There is no Temple Mount status quo – Wakf, Palestinians trampled it - opinion

Of all the falsehoods promulgated about the Middle East – and they are many – one of the most dogged and pernicious of all is the assertion that an immutable status quo exists on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Indeed, whenever Jews seek to exercise their fundamental right to freedom of worship on the Mount, as they did last week, the same tired platitudes are paraded about by the media and various world leaders to denounce such activity as a violation of the status quo.

Well, I hate to break it to them, but the Temple Mount status quo is nothing more than a myth, as anyone with access to Google can easily verify.

Here are the unvarnished facts.

The facts of the Temple Mount 

It was 57 years ago this summer that Israel liberated the Old City of Jerusalem and restored the Temple Mount to Jewish control – after 1,900 years.

Then-defense minister Moshe Dayan, fearful of offending the Arabs, agreed to grant the Muslim Wakf, or religious authorities, the right to administer the site, and certain understandings about its administration were put into place.

The ostensible goal was to ensure that the Temple Mount’s immense religious, cultural, and historical significance would be preserved, along with maintaining a delicate balance between Muslims and Jews.

At the time, in June 1967, there was just one mosque operating on the Mount – al-Aqsa.

Today, in 2024, there are five.

In other words, for the past several decades, while everyone was busy focusing on whether Jews were allowed to prostrate themselves, recite a blessing, or pray on the Mount, the Palestinians were actively creating facts on the ground to change the status quo.

NADAV SHRAGAI, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs who has authored a number of books on the Holy City, has pointed out that “The status quo on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, as formulated by Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan in 1967, no longer exists.”

“Since the Six Day War,” he noted in a JCPA paper published two years ago, “changes in the status quo have greatly improved the Muslims’ hold on the Temple Mount.”

Chief among those changes, he wrote, was the illegal and unauthorized opening of the four additional mosques, most recently in 2019 when the Gate of Mercy (Golden Gate) prayer area was turned into one.

Needless to say, much of the Muslim construction on the Mount was done with the deliberate aim of erasing the historical Jewish presence at the site by destroying archaeological treasures from the First and Second Temples.

In other words, through their actions, the Muslim Wakf essentially trampled on the status quo, stripping it of its original intent and meaning.

Additional steps were taken to erode the status quo put into place in 1967. Initially, Jews were free to ascend the Mount through two gates, but today only one is allowed to them. The hours and areas on the Mount made available for Jewish visits are far more restricted than they were in the first decade or two after the 1967 war. And while the display of flags on the Mount was barred under the status quo, the Arabs regularly unfurl Hamas and Palestinian banners while objecting to the Israeli flag.

SO IT is no surprise that after the Palestinians wantonly and systematically eviscerated the status quo, Israel decided a decade ago to counter the Muslims’ creeping occupation of the site by taking steps to soften the restrictions imposed on Jews.

As a result, for years Jewish visitors to the Mount have, for the most part, been allowed to pray quietly and undisturbed. And the number of Jews from all walks of life making a pilgrimage to the Temple Mount has surged, more than doubling in the past three years to over 30,000 since the start of 2024.

Indeed, on Tisha B’Av, which fell on August 13, over 3,000 Jews visited the Mount in a single day.

So when National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced last week that the status quo had changed, he was not saying anything new. It was merely a public acknowledgment of the reality on the ground, which has been shifting for many years.

And that is what makes the fallout from Ben-Gvir’s statement so absurd. The US State Department, UN officials, and European leaders rushed to denounce what they described as Israel’s “unilateral steps” to undermine the status quo.

But these steps are not at all unilateral, and thanks to the Palestinians, the status quo was emptied of meaning long ago.

For the media and world leaders to berate Israel for violating the status quo after they have studiously ignored the Palestinians’ unilateral behavior for decades is breathtakingly hypocritical.

Furthermore, it is so obvious that it shouldn’t need to be said, but apparently it does require repeating: Freedom of religion applies to everyone, including Jews. And especially on the Temple Mount, our holiest site.

So let’s stop perpetuating the myth of the status quo, which is now just another tool that is used to bash Israel, and start recognizing reality for what it is.

Jews have every right to freedom of worship on the Temple Mount – and no amount of deceit or dissembling can or will prevent them from doing so. 

The writer served as deputy communications director under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.