Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a rare exception Wednesday to the ban on lawmakers’ visits to the Temple Mount, allowing MK Yehuda Glick to ascend to the holy site with his son for a tour prior to his upcoming wedding.
Glick called the prime minister’s approval of the visit “the best gift I could have received on the occasion of my son’s wedding.”
The prime minister imposed a ban on MKs visiting the site in October 2015 as a means of reducing Arab incitement and violence.
Wednesday’s visit was the second by Glick since the ban was imposed.
Glick, who ran the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation prior to serving as a lawmaker, was allowed to visit the site together with MK Shuli Mualem-Refaeli (Bayit Yehudi) last July in a one-day pilot program designed to test the effect of visits by Knesset members at the site.
Arab lawmakers have violated the ban numerous times.