Sovereignty on Temple Mount? A Letter to the Prime Minister from MK Moshe Feiglin

19 Sivan, 5773
May 28, ‘13

To Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Shalom uvracha.
I was pleased to hear in your answer to my question yesterday at the faction meeting that the agreements between Jordan and the Palestinian Authority on the Temple Mount and Jerusalem are insignificant because the State of Israel is the exclusive sovereign power on the Temple Mount and Jerusalem. 

Despite the above, I was surprised to learn that the Knesset Interior Committee headed by MK Miri Regev and I, a Knesset Member, were not allowed to visit the Temple Mount due to security considerations. Can’t the police enforce the law and allow members of Israel’s Knesset – who represent the sovereign power on the Mount – to visit there?  

And if the police are too lazy to do so, why don’t you, the Prime Minister of Israel, direct them to allow Knesset Members to ascend the Mount so that we may perform our duty there as representatives of the sovereign power? 

It is impossible not to think that the reason that I was personally barred from the Temple Mount, as was the Knesset Committee, is because in the eyes of the wakf we represent Jewish sovereignty on the Mount. I wonder how the wakf’s threats to riot if we visit the Temple Mount actually dictate your approach to the issue. How is it that you, the Prime Minister of Israel, break the laws of the State of Israel: the Immunity for MKs Law, the Jerusalem Law and the Personal Honor and Freedom Basic Law? How do you surrender, de facto, our sovereignty in the very heart of our eternal capital, Jerusalem - because of the wakf’s threats?

This timidity can raise many doubts as to the ability of your government to deal with much larger and greater powers than the wakf.

I know that you did not create the difficult situation on the Temple Mount, but today, continued burying our heads in the sands of security considerations creates a situation in which the government of Israel loses its sovereignty at the rock of our existence. If you do not clearly act to change the situation, you are liable to find yourself going down in history as the prime minister under whom Israel lost its sovereignty on the Temple Mount. 

I am sure that the Israeli police and security services will know how to prevent any disturbances or to nip them in the bud if and when you direct them to do so. 

Respectfully, 

Moshe Feiglin