The group Professors For a Strong Israel and NGO Regavim have petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court asking that the court order the Prime Minister and the Interior Security Minister to act to quash the systematic provocations carried out by the Waqf staff against Jewish visitors on the Temple Mount. The appeal says the Waqf has hired dozens of new “guards” who follow Jewish groups as they walk around the Temple Mount compound, taunting and cursing them, taking their pictures and even rubbing against them intentionally, all in an effort to intimidate the visitors.
Prof. Ronen Shoval, chairman of PFSI, told Israel Radio Friday morning that “there has been a disproportionate increase of the number of Waqf personnel on Temple Mount. Their presence there is not passive, they’re there to look for frictions, in a manner that assaults the fundamental rights of Jewish visitors on the Temple Mount.”
“It’s become a form of abuse, and invasion of privacy,” Shoval added. “Not only is ascending to the Temple Mount being made [needlessly] complicated and difficult, limiting the time and length of visits, but once they’re up there, the Jews who ascend to the Temple Mount are actually being persecuted.”
“Unfortunately there’s no place in all of the Land of Israel where a Jew is feeling more in exile than on the Temple Mount,” Shoval concluded. “All the Jews who go up there suffer persecution by the Waqf personnel.”
