Netanyahu prohibits Israeli parliament from visiting Temple Mount

c. 2015 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM (RNS) In a bid to defuse the wave of Palestinian violence that has struck Israel and the West Bank during the past few weeks, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu today (October 8) prohibited all of the country’s parliamentarians from visiting the Temple Mount, a contentious site holy to both Jews and Arabs.

Netanyahu made the controversial decision in order to quell Muslims’ fears that Israel was preparing to assert sovereignty over part or all of the Mount, the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, as well as the long-destroyed Jewish biblical Temples. Netanyahu has long denied such intentions.