After two months of activity the Knesset Subcommittee on Jewish Visiting Har Habayis recommended the permit the current status quo to continue. The committee is headed by MK (The Movement) David Tzur, and the committee includes MKs Zevulun Kalfa (Bayit Yehudi), and Dr. Nachman Shai (Labor). The committee was appointed by the Knesset Interior Committee chaired by MK (Likud) Miri Regev.

The committee was given a mandate to probe Israel Police’s attitude towards Jews wishing to be mispallel on the holy site. The committee’s report shows that police do indeed discriminate against all non-Muslim visitors, Jews and others alike.

The committee’s report cites an increase in disturbances and violence on Har Habayis, recommending police must increase the number of arrests, orders distancing people responsible for violence from Har Habayis and criminal indictments. The report calls for returning the status quo in areas where it has been eliminated as well as to expand the authority of the Jerusalem police chief to facilitate arresting law breakers and keeping them away from the site.

“We feel the police must use the authority granted to the department to close Har Habayis to visitors in case of severe violence until order is restored” the report states.

The committee recommends additional inspection stations to reduce waiting time for Jews and other visitors wishing to go onto Har Habayis. The committee does not recommend changing or increasing the number of hours Har Habayis is open for visitors but it does recommend permitting Jews and other visitors on Shabbos, which was the case prior to 2000.

The committee also feels access to Har Habayis should also be permitted via the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Gates pending dialogue with the Waqf Authority subject to admission charges as was the case prior to October 2000. The committee explains by doing so, it will remain a high priority for the Waqf to maintain order to permit visitation.

Kalfa was a lone voice among the leftist committee members, calling for a change in the status quo which existed since Moshe Dayan returned the keys to Har Habayis to the Islamic Waqf, prohibiting Jewish tefilos.

Kalfa feels “Jews visiting should be a routine event as part of Israel’s sovereignty on Har Habayis. It is unthinkable that at a time the State of Israel is waging an all-out campaign against Hamas that on Har Habayis, the heart of the Jewish capital, we ourselves give a significant hold of the site to Hamas”.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)