The following pertains to the group that visited Har Habayis on Tuesday 6 Tammuz in memory of terror victim Hallel Yafeh Ariel HY”D.

Police detained a man and interrogated him of suspicion of planning to carry out “provocations” during the memorial. He was also interrogated concerning a photograph of himself waving an Israeli flag with Har Habayis in the background which he had posted on his Facebook page. The photograph is apparently Photo-shopped and has a quote from a poem written during the First Aliya: “Raise the flag of Zion high”.

Honenu Attorney Rehavia Piltz arrived at the police station to provide the detainee with legal counsel.

In response to the detention, Piltz, who is Hallel’s uncle, said that, “It is a great shame that the police who did not prevent the murder of Hallel are also not allowing the event in her memory to proceed in a dignified manner. Today a new low was reached concerning the harassment of Temple Mount activists. After a man was interrogated for posting on Facebook a photograph of himself with an Israeli flag on the Temple Mount, we can only expect a thorough interrogation of the paratroopers who were photographed waving an Israeli flag on Har Habayis [during the Six Day War].”

In the Facebook post, next to the photograph, a text describes how Avraham Moshe Luntz was arrested by the Turkish government during WWI after he compiled the first songbook of Hebrew songs called “Kinor Tzion”. The booklet contains 50 Zionist-nationalist songs, among them “Nes Tziona”, which the detained activist quoted in his post.

The text: “At the time of the First World War Luntz was summoned for interrogation by the Turkish government for the crime of incitement to nationalistic revolt. The interrogators had versions of the songs ‘Nes Tziona’ and ‘Hatikvah’ translated into Turkish. ‘What do you have deep in your heart’, asked the interrogator of Luntz [in reference to ‘Hatikvah’], ‘And what flag do you call to be waved in ‘Nes Tziona’?’ Luntz patiently explained and Rachel Yana’it, the interpreter, tried to soften the hearts of the interrogators. In the end Luntz was fined, his print shop was closed, and his books were confiscated.

“The dream of the Jewish nation which is being realized in our time is the dream of the return to Zion. Zion is one of the names of Har Habayis, the heart of the Jewish nation. Zion symbolizes our connection with G-d. Jews everywhere in the world have been praying for thousands of years towards Zion. For 2000 years we have been yearning for the return to Zion and this is definitely the right time to realize this yearning. I call on you to join those ascending Har Habayis on Independence Day in order to wave the flag of Zion! Because neither detentions nor sanctions will genuinely stop us from striving for the redemption of Israel.”

Gedolei Yisrael over the generations and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel prohibit visiting Har Habayis.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)