“The whole land of Israel was promised to the children of God… and this is where we are going to build a new Temple for the entire humanity to come and pray together.” Those were the words of Moshe Feiglin, a right-wing nationalist Israeli politician, as he came down from the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, having just prayed and sung religious songs with a group of around 20 other religious Jews. He spoke openly, as if his argument was neither controversial nor contested. But what he was saying and doing was in complete contravention of a sensitive agreement that has maintained peace at one of the most holy and emotionally charged places on Earth.
For Feiglin and others like him, the objective is simple: to build a huge new Jewish temple on the very site that, for the last 1,400 years, has been one of the most sacred places in Islam. The compound – known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), and to Jews as the Temple Mount – is dominated by the gold-covered Dome of the Rock, visible for miles around. It is mentioned in the Quran as the place from which the Prophet Muhammad ascended to Heaven. Below the compound, alongside the Western Wall, Jews pray and mourn the destruction of the Jewish Temple by the Romans almost 2,000 years ago.
“Israeli nationalists openly flout the Status Quo at al-Aqsa, urging a new Jewish temple on the site.”
Under the Status Quo, a decades-old understanding, custody of the compound is the responsibility of a Jordanian-administered Islamic body – the Waqf. Non-Muslims are allowed to visit but not to pray or carry out religious rites. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel and most ultra-Orthodox rabbis also prohibit Jewish prayer there on halachic grounds. These are the conventions that Feiglin and others now openly flout and disregard.
Recent reports have caused widespread alarm. Middle East Eye, citing multiple sources, said a new body created by the Israeli government would declare the compound a “multi-faith centre”, effectively abandoning the Status Quo. When questioned about those reports at a Congressional hearing, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had “no knowledge of them”. However, the high-profile US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has often spoken about Jewish connections to the holy places in Jerusalem.
As Feiglin’s actions and words demonstrate, the Status Quo is no longer a given. The question now is whether the decades-old arrangement can survive the growing determination of Israeli nationalists to redraw the rules.