In an interview published three days before the election, Interior Minister Gilad Erdan said that criticism of the government's policy on Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is justified.
Erdan blamed Yisrael Beytenu – whose minister, Yitzhak Aharonovich, was public security minister in the outgoing government – for the discrimination against Jews, and voiced hope that the next government will take a different tack.
The interviewer for the weekly Shevii told Edran that under the Likud government, “it has become much more difficult for Jews to pray at the Temple Mount.”
Erdan replied that “the criticism is justified, and I, too, have criticism on the matter.”
"However,” he continued, “the Public Security Ministry was held by Yisrael Beytenu, as you remember.”
Erdan claimed that he raised the issue of Temple Mount prayer several times. “I asked the Minister for Public Secutiy several times about the discriminatory practices that the Israel Police instituted there, when there were those pictures of Jews who were attacked.”
"That is one of the issues that need to be improved on the Mount, and I hope that we improve them in the next government,” he said.
Erdan's statements notwithstanding, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Makor Rishon in a Friday interview that he will continue the present policy, for fear that a religious war between Muslims and Jews could break out otherwise.