The little tour lasted a little less than a quarter of an hour. Escorted by the police, white yarmulke on his head, Itamar Ben Gvir entered the esplanade of the Mosques around 7 a.m. on Tuesday January 3, thus marking the first symbolic act of the Netanyahu government, invested on December 29, 2022.
Israel’s newest national security minister is a Jewish supremacist who plays politics with provocations on the ground. As an activist and then an MP, he had already come regularly to test the fragile status quo which governs, without a written agreement, this complex in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem, which Muslims revere as the third holiest site of Islam and which Jews, as the Temple Mount, consider it the holiest site in Judaism. Mr. Ben Gvir would like his co-religionists to be able to pray there – only Muslims are allowed to do so today – and intends to assert Israeli sovereignty over this place where, according to tradition, the two Jewish temples, now destroyed, were built.
As minister, this visit, carried out with the tacit agreement of the head of government, Benyamin Netanyahu, acts as a declaration of general policy for the mandate which opens. It was carefully orchestrated. Itamar Ben Gvir first announced his intentions; Hamas then warned against what it considered a “prelude to an escalation”. Monday evening, the minister seemed to be backing down: after an interview with the prime minister, he had indicated that he would postpone his visit. In fact, behind the scenes, the police had just given him his agreement, under certain conditions; she was already preparing to deploy reinforcements to the Old City. No media was invited to the visit.
“Our government will not give in to Hamas’ threats. The Temple Mount is the most important site in the world for the Jewish people”, said Mr. Ben Gvir, who planned to return every month. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority strongly condemned the visit. On Tuesday evening, the Israeli army announced that a rocket launched from Gaza had crashed before reaching the territory of the Jewish State. This is not the first time that an Israeli minister has set foot on the esplanade of the Mosques. The precedent Ariel Sharon made fear the worst: in 2000, the leader of Likud, which led the opposition in Israel at the time, had made an incursion on the site. The provocation had led to clashes and then the outbreak of the second Intifada.
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