The Jewish Press just received the following text of a letter sent earlier to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, regarding the latter’s order preventing the entry of MK Moshe Feiglin to Temple Mount.

Dear Sir,

We, members of the Joint Staff of the Temple Mount movements, read with great concern the news of your order preventing the entry of MK Moshe Feiglin to the Temple Mount area.

To our knowledge, MK Moshe Feiglin has been ascending to the Temple Mount each month for more than ten years. Every one of his visits has gone without any damage whatsoever to the public order.

Recently, the GSS has arrested a terrorists cell who tried to harm Jews climbing up to the Temple Mount. Once again it was proven publicly that Jewish visitors are not the source of violence on the Temple Mount.

In recent years we have seen a very welcome increase in the number of Jewish visotors to the Temple Mount, and the prevention of the entry of Jews in general and so much more so a Knesset Member from entering the Temple Mount, the holiest place for the Jewish people, constitutes a clear message of encouragement and support to parties that incite and perpetrate violence.

We fear that this step will give our enemies the tools to continue their incitement to violence and the violation of the Jewish freedom of worship in our capital.

We call on you at this time to immediately revoke your order preventing the entrance of MK Moshe Feiglin to the Temple Mount, and if you think there is a fear that his assent to the Temple Mount would endanger the public order, it is required that you instruct the numerous security personnel who are scattered all over the Temple Mount area to provide MK Moshe Feiglin with full protection of his liberty and of his immunity as a member of the Knesset.

The Joint Management of Temple Mount Organizations

Aviad Visoly – Chairman, Rabbi Israel Ariel, Rabbi Yosef Elbaum, Yehuda Glick, Einat Ziv, Shimshon Elbaum, Israel Medad, Professor Hillel Weiss, Arnon Segal, Assaf Lerner, Pinchas Engel, Baruch Ben-Yosef, Rebbetzin Rivka Shimon, Michael Brook, Aryeh Sonnenberg, Rabbi Itai Elitzur

For the past ten years, MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud-Beitenu) has been visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on the 19th of the Hebrew month, every month. But on Sunday, April 28, 2013, Feiglin received a phone call from Deputy Commander Moshe Barkat, Chief of the Israeli Police David Precinct, which includes the Old City of Jerusalem.

“He informed me that, on direct order from the prime minister, I would not be permitted to enter the Mount tomorrow,” MK Feiglin wrote in his Facebook page.

A source close to Feiglin told The Jewish Press that the deputy commander told the MK that the Waqf, the Jordanian charity organization which runs the Temple Mount, warned the Prime Minister’s office that should Feiglin go up on the Mount on Monday, it would “start World War Three.”

No one wants that. Except that the same Waqf has been cautioning about new world wars frequently, and is often involved in organizing, rather than trying to prevent them.

According to Feiglin, the prime minister has no legal authority to give such an order, because it violates three basic laws:

1. Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, which gives each person freedom of movement, and requires the state to protect this right.

2. Basic Law: The Knesset, which grants every MK complete immunity in carrying out his duties.

3. Basic Law: Jerusalem, which says: “The sacred sites shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the religionists to the sites they hold sacred, or their feelings concerning those sites.”

Also: “Any and all authority applying to the area of Jerusalem that is granted by law to the State of Israel or the Jerusalem Municipality, shall not be transferred to a foreign entity, political or governmental, whether permanently or temporarily.”

“The only legal way to prevent me from going up to the Temple Mount tomorrow (without changing existing law),” says MK Feiglin, “is if, in the opinion of the officer in charge of the place there exists an immediate, clear and present danger.”

But, having given him the warning a full day in advance, Feiglin argues, security forces should have ample time—had the prime minister only told them so—to organize and prevent dangerous gathering and violence.

According to MK Feiglin, the Prime Minister’s decision “confirms what I was told by the police command when I asked to tour the Dome of the Rock, that the Temple Mount is under Muslim sovereignty.”

This unfortunate decision, writes Feiglin, can be added to reports this week about transferring broad supervisory authority to UNESCO in Jerusalem, as well as the reality of a de facto construction freeze in Jerusalem, as Housing Minister Uri Ariel warned last week.

The source close to Feiglin says the MK will obey Netanyahu’s directive, but that as of tomorrow Feiglin would no longer be voting the Likud-Beitenu party line.

“When, just before Jerusalem Liberation Day, the Prime Minister orders an Israeli Knesset member that—contrary to Israeli law— he not to go up to the Temple Mount, it means that the Prime Minister has officially and openly revoked Israeli sovereignty on the Mount and given it to the Muslim Waqf,” MK Feiglin wrote.

“This is an entirely new situation, more severe than before, and I must consider now how to force the Prime Minister to respect the sovereignty of the State of Israel in its capital Jerusalem,” he concluded.

The following is my response to a woman who criticized me for visiting the Temple Mount. In a letter to me, she claimed that I broke the law and irresponsibly provoked Arab anger. She suggested that my actions should conform to the will of the “majority.”

Dear S.:

1) In your letter, you claim that I broke the law. I am sorry to say that from your letter it is obvious that you are not familiar with this issue. The legal situation on the Temple Mount is the complete opposite of what you describe. There is not and there cannot be a law that prohibits the entrance of Jews to the Temple Mount. There is not and cannot be a law that prohibits Jews from praying on the Temple Mount. There are laws that emphasize the rights of all religious groups to enter their holy places (similar to their rights to enter any other public place) and to pray there.

I would like to remind you that the nation of Israel also has a faith. It also has a holy place and – wonder of wonders – the Jewish people also have feelings, such that these laws relate to me as much as it does to any other citizen.

The courts have time and again upheld our legal right to enter and pray on the Mount. On Sukkot of this year, I was arrested for praying on the Temple Mount. Despite all of the police’s best efforts, the judge released me without bail due to “absence of guilt.”

Thus, I suggest that you may want to consider whether the situation is not completely the opposite of what you claim. Perhaps I am the one abiding by the law, while those trusted with upholding the law are actually breaking it. As you are a responsible citizen, I am certain that this disturbing possibility will cause you to lose some sleep.

2) Regarding your claim that I acted irresponsibly, I say this: Although you try to be objective, this claim is up to its neck in a typically one-sided worldview. You conclude that we must give in to the Arab threat of violence. You place the responsibility for the outcome on whoever does not surrender.

I wonder if you would respond in the same way if a bully would take over your house and prevent you from entering. How would you relate to someone who would point the accusing finger at you, reprimand you for demanding that the police arrest that ruffian and blame you – not the intruder – for the outcome? You are correct that in light of the de facto surrender (in secret, against the public’s will, without any Knesset decision and against the law) of Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount, there is a certain probability that my entrance to the Mount would initially arouse attempts to react violently. But does capitulation to the Arab threat of violence bring quiet?

Our experience on every front that we have tested the capitulation innovation is completely clear. Both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem have become legitimate targets for rocket attacks as a result of our recent withdrawals. As a Jerusalemite, you certainly must remember the exploding buses. Try to remember a similar attack before the Oslo Accords.

Simple logic shows that it is not the one who refuses to capitulate to violence and demand his legal and ethical right to enter the Mount who is irresponsible – but vice versa. Those who evade their responsibility to maintain Israeli sovereignty on the Mount are irresponsible. Ultimately, they will find themselves in a never-ending bloody conflict over our sovereignty over the entire land of Israel. The thousands of Oslo victims – soldiers and civilians – who paid with their lives, and the constant danger that there will be more victims are the direct result of this irresponsibility.

3) Democracy: This claim is a bit awkward, both from a factual standpoint and even more so in its essence.

I do not know how you justify your statement that I do not represent the views of the majority of citizens. I have read numerous studies that reinforce the fact that our nation feels a strong connection to the Temple Mount.

The Jerusalem District Attorney on Thursday filed in District Court an indictment against five young residents of East Jerusalem, accused of participating in a conspiracy to commit kidnapping and shooting attacks against Jewish civilians in the city. According to the indictment, in February the group leader, Nur Hamdan, decided to launch a shooting attack on Jews coming to pray on the Temple Mount and against the police in East Jerusalem.

The indictment says that Hamdan recruited a gang of four young residents of Ras al-Amud and of a-Tur. To reach the recruits, Hamdan was in touch with the Hamas military wing, the Izz a-Din al-Qassam Brigade, and Fatah’s military arm, The Al-Aqsa martyrs Brigade, and with terrorists in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Those organizations gave their support to the new gang with training and weapons to carry out the plan.

During the months of February and March, the gang members, most of them in their 20s, held meetings in which they drew plans to shoot Jewish worshipers on the Temple Mount and police forces stationed in Jerusalem. Also, the members planned to kidnap a Jew in order to take his gun and kill him, and then commit more criminal offenses.

According to the indictment, early last month two defendants, Imad Shaar and Jalal Qutub, planned to grab a Jews and kill him in order to obtain his weapon. They decided to ride between pickup stands for hitchhikers, and welcome into their vehicle an armed Jewish civilian (many Israeli civilians who live east of the green line carry handguns), grab his weapon and then murder him.

The two men, along with defendant Amjad Razem, drove two vehicles towards the Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood, with one of them carrying a weapon. They picked up a Jewish civilian who was at a bus stop, looking to reach the Adam settlement. But once it became clear that their passenger did not carry a weapon, the defendants dropped him at the entrance to his destination.

So, really, the only thing the terrorist gang actually managed to execute is giving a lift to a Jew.

During his interrogation by the General Security Service, the head of the cell confessed to planning to carry out military operations on the Temple Mount, “to protect the Al-Aqsa Mosque.” The plan was inspired by videos bio he had watched on You Tube about attacks carried out in Jerusalem, especially the attack against the Merkaz Harav yeshiva in 2008.

According to the indictment, Hamdan contacted the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in Gaza and Shchem, and asked for assistance to carry out a shooting attack against security forces on the Temple Mount. He later recruited his friends, Omar Wazwaz, Shaer and Qutub, who live in aTur, for the attack.

Members of the cell carried out several gun target practices near the Qalandia refugee camp, north of Jerusalem, and were planning to go to Shchem to meet with a local Tanzim terrorist, to ask him for assistance with weapons and money for their activities.

The indictment also states that two guns, magazines and a pipe bomb were seized from the home of another defendant, Firas Dajani, a resident of aTur.

Likud Knesset Member Miri Regev announced Wednesday she will visit the Temple Mount to try to understand the problem with Jews praying at the holy site. The Jerusalem Islamic Waqf officially controls the Temple Mount, a power granted to it by the Israeli government shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967.

MK Regev, who chairs the Knesset Interior and Environment Committee in the new government, said, “I don’t understand why a Jew is not allowed to pray in his most sacred place.”

After MK Regev’s announcement, Meretz MK Michal Rozin said the idea of a Knesset Member ascending the holy site is “a perverse attempt and cynical use of religion and political measures.”

She said that an appearance by Regev at the Temple Mount with the intention of clearing the way for Jews to pray there would incite Muslims.

The Waqf forbids Jews from praying on the Temple Mount or even carrying with them a prayer book, religious articles or acting as if they are praying.

The Chief Rabbinate has ruled that Jews are not allowed to ascend the Temple Mount because it still is holy despite the destruction of the First and Second Temples and that no rituals can be performed because it is impossible to be ritually pure today according to guidelines set out in the Torah.

Many national religious rabbis permit ascending to certain areas of the Temple Mount.

Natan Sharansky has come up with a plan that he feels is a workable compromise between Charedim and heterodox movements. It will enable people to attend egalitarian prayer services (where men and women have equal stature in all ritual aspects of a Minyan) at the Kotel (the Western Wall), Israel’s holiest accessible site. I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu supports it.

There has been a lot of controversy at the Kotel in recent times where some women have tried to buck traditional practices at the Kotel by holding unusual services there. The Women of the Wall (WoW) have tried to have a monthly women’s prayer service there that includes such traditional male modalities as wearing a talit, and reading the Torah.

This has disturbed the Haredi world since it is such a wide departure from tradition – which has always dictated practices at the Kotel. They complained to the government. The government responded with new rules about a woman wearing a talit that has resulted in multiple arrests every Rosh Hodesh (new month of the Jewish calendar) when WOW tires to hold its services at the main plaza. It happened again a few days ago.

I have in the past argued against this group because I felt that they were more about demanding women’s religious rights than they were about serving God in ways they choose to do so. There was no rule against their having any type of service they choose at a different location along the Kotel called “Robinson’s Arch.” But they have chosen to do their service at the main Kotel Plaza and thereby upset the traditional worshipers there who feel that at best they are a distraction.

That these women are sincere in their devotion to God is somewhat undermined by their insistence that they use an area used by traditionalists who have always done their prayer services quietly and individually without drawing any attention to themselves.

The argument by WoW and their supporters is that people should have the right to pray anywhere they choose along the main Kotel Plaza and they insist on doing so to make a point of that.

I have come around to the view that these women should be left alone. As long as they are not disruptive – who cares if they are wearing a talit… or reading from the Torah?! At the same time if conflict can be avoided – it should be. If WoW could be given a place that is both free and similar in size to the main Kotel Plaza, I think they should take it and avoid any future conflict.

Sharansky’s proposal addresses another women’s issue – egalitarian minyan. This is not WoW. There are no men in their group. Technically I suppose there are no Halachic issues with WoW – other than breaking traditional non-Halachic taboos.

But feminism has given rise to egalitarianism in heterodox movements. In order to preserve the peace and accommodate both Haredim and those who seek egalitarian minyanim – he has proposed that Robinson’s Arch (which is out of view from the main Kotel plaza) be expanded so that its space equal that of the main Kotel Plaza… and that there be free access to it in the future. This would in essence be the actual realization of separate but equal rights for heterodox movements.

Just to be clear about mixed setting for prayer at the Kotel… I don’t think this is an issue. The only place where there is a requirement to separate the sexes via a mechitza (partition) is where there is Kedushat Beit HaKnesset. That means that only in a synagogue does a woman’s presence interfere with the minyan. Outside of a synagogue, women may be present… as is the case at weddings or banquets in hotels where there are ad hoc minyanim for Mincha and Maariv all the time. Women are present and in view of the men. They are not separated by any partition.

The question about whether the Kotel serves as a Shul has been answered by history. Archival photos show that in pre-state days going back to the 19th century – men and women were not separated when they came to pray at the Kotel. I do not therefore believe that the Kotel area can be classified as having Kedushat Beit HaKnesset.

The Jewish Press received the following email from Shira Pruce, Director of Public Relations at Women of the Wall:

I hope that you will join us and send representatives/photographers to our Rosh Hodesh Prayer tomorrow, Thursday April 11, 2013 at 7 AM at the Western Wall. We will be joined by two members of Knesset, MK Tamar Zandberg and MK Michal Rozin (Meretz). While we always hope for a peaceful prayer, the Jerusalem Police have asserted that they will enforce the law to the fullest extent.

Women of the Wall also offered a statement regarding Natan Sharansky’s proposed plans for the Western Wall, which would turn an archaeological site adjacent to the main Western Wall plaza into a permanent place for mixed worship:

“We have not yet received the recommendations from JAFI Director, Natan Sharansky, but we will be happy to respond in full when we see the final proposal. With that, we are hopeful at the possibility of a major advancement in pluralism at the Western Wall.”

The statement continues: “All plans and major changes will take time and resources to be completed. Until then, it is crucial to end the arrest and detainment of all women in acts of prayer at the Western Wall. There is no solution that will unify the Jewish people so long as women can be arrested for wearing prayer shawls and reading from the Torah at the Western Wall, a public holy site in Israel.”

Personally, I have no idea why we, the Jews, are arguing over the back yard of our ancient temple, when the actual Temple Mount is waiting for its rightful owners to come back and reclaim it. We have enough knowledgeable rabbinic scholars who can show us where we may set foot and where we shouldn’t. The rest is up to us. But I’m digressing.

Are Haredi Jews going to accept what is, in effect, a Reform synagogue, next to the Kotel? Is everybody realizing that with the Sharansky proposal we’ll be trading a relatively harmless monthly event for a year-round “egalitarian” prayer area, which is code for Reform?

Also, regarding Shira Pruce’s call for Israeli police to restrain themselves – I pray that they do, but I won’t hold my breath.

The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) revealed Sunday that it arrested a five-member Hamas terrorist cell in Jerusalem for firebomb attacks on security officers at the Temple Mount last month. Nine policemen suffered injuries.

The arrests were kept under wraps until Sunday, when security officials announced that indictments were filed against the cell a week ago.

One of the terrorists is a minor and the others were in their young 20s. The terrorists, one of whom has a previous record of terror at the holy site, confessed that they bought gasoline and several bottles of juice to make the Molotov cocktails and used the unidentified minor to smuggle the material into the Temple Mount.

They then attacked security forces after clashes began with rock-throwing Arabs. One of the firebombs set a policeman on fire, but he was not seriously hurt.