The Knesset Interior & Environmental Committee convened on Wednesday 7 Shevat 5774 and addressed the Waqf’s destruction on Har Habayis. According to media reports, a confidential state comptroller’s report that probe Waqf construction on the site confirms the Islamic authority has gone out of its way to remove and destroy any trace of Bayis Rishon and Sheni towards delegitimizing Am Yisrael’s claims to the holiest site in the world.

Committee Chairperson MK Miri Regev announced the session would not address the confidential report. MK Moshe Feiglin added that governments over the years have all used “security considerations” as an excuse to hand over control of the holy site to Jordan, discarding the legitimacy of the move.

MK Orit Struk demanded addressing the fear that the Knesset is being lied to by persons with clearance to read the confidential report. She explained that she read on the internet that there has been significant damage to remnants of the Batei HaMikdash by the Waqf. She cited the error of the government following the Six Day War in 1967 when Defense Minister Moshe Dayan gave the Jordanians control following Israel’s liberation of Har Habayis.

Struk announced she feels the current administration should amend the regulations and permit davening on Har Habayis. She then decided to take advantage of her parliamentary immunity and began reading from the confidential report as Regev tried to stop the session. Struk read from the report, stating the Waqf destruction has been ongoing since 1996.

Regev then asked Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) Jerusalem District Director Dr. Yuval Baruch where the organization was and was anything done in an effort to prevent the Waqf destruction. Dr. Baruch explained that the IAA inspects daily and to the best of his knowledge there is no damage as described in the report.

MK Moti Yogev added Har Habayis is the holiest place to the Jewish People and third holiest to Muslims, and the time has come to once again proclaim “Har Habayis is in our hands!” He is calling for open passage to Jews and freedom of worship, to permit Jews and others to be mispallel as the situation should permit.

MK Shuli Moalem-Refaeli added “we must restore order…” She exclaimed one is left with the feeling that “they are trying to deceive us” and that Waqf Authority officials and supporters are working hard to destroy any and all claims to the site by Am Yisrael.

In truth, one does not require security clearance to the confidential report to know the Waqf has been working hard to eliminate and trace of the Jewish People on Har Habayis. Back in the late 1990s, before it was “confidential” there were new reports, video footage and photos of the dump trucks carrying dirt and other “debris” from the holy site.

At that time, when Chai Vekayam head Yehuda Etzion tried to access the dirt, to have Jews begin sifting through it to find artifacts from the Beis HaMikdash, he and his followers were arrested – distanced from the holy dirt by state leaders who lack bitachon in HKBH, those who prefer permitting the world to believe Har Habayis belongs to Islam chas v’sholom, government officials who themselves lack basic belief in Hashem and our rightful claim to Eretz HaKodesh.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)