In 1948, the Arab armies of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq attacked Israel. At war’s end the following year, the city of Jerusalem became divided with the Jordanians occupying the Old City including the Temple Mount. After the Jordanians evicted all of the Jewish inhabitants, they banned any Jew from coming into the Old City and visiting the Western Wall and the Temple Mount.
During that war, in December 1948, the United Nations Resolution 194 again called for the “Holy Basin” to be under international jurisdiction and that all holy sites should be given free access, with a carve-out for historical practices of discrimination:
- “Resolves that the Holy Places – including Nazareth – religious buildings and sites in Palestine should be protected and free access to them assured, in accordance with existing rights and historical practice”
- Resolves that, in view of its association with three world religions, the Jerusalem area, including the present municipality of Jerusalem plus the surrounding villages and towns, the most eastern of which shall be Abu Dis; the most southern, Bethlehem; the most western, Ein Karim (including also the built-up area of Motsa); and the most northern, Shu’fat, should be accorded special and separate treatment from the rest of Palestine and should be placed under effective United Nations control”
In 1967, in response to a preemptive Israeli attack on Egypt and Syria, Jordanian (and Palestinian) forces attacked Israel. The Israelis took the Old City of Jerusalem including the Temple Mount, but handed administrative control of the Mount to the Jordanian Waqf. The plaza in front of the Western Wall was expanded to enable thousands of Jews to pray at the site. Israel enshrined the protections of Holy Places in its Basic Laws in June 1967:
- “The Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places.”
- “Whosoever does anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of five years.”
Israel opened up the Temple Mount for non-Muslim visitors during specified visiting hours. However, non-Muslims were still prohibited from praying on the Mount according to the wishes of the Jordanian Waqf.
Many Israelis were not happy with maintaining the discriminatory policy and lobbied the Israeli government to make changes. One such activist, Yehuda Glick, was shot repeatedly by two Palestinians for those efforts in October 2014.
In response to the shooting of Glick and the killing of the two Palestinian Arabs who shot him, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon discussed his displeasure with Israelis on the Temple Mount:
- “As you mentioned this holy site in Jerusalem and as I also said this morning, I am deeply concerned by repeated provocations at the holy sites in Jerusalem. These only inflame tensions and must stop.”
- On November 24, 2014: “Incitement and provocative acts related to the holy sites are fanning the flames of conflict far beyond the holy city.”
While the United Nations claims to care about keeping the universal access and rights to people of all faiths, it condemns the only party – Israel – which practices those values and even enshrines those values into the Basic Laws of the country. Further, the U.N. ignores the actions of the Arabs which deliberately have erased the Jewish character and rights of Jews to pray at their holiest sites.