The number of coronavirus diagnoses in Israel continues to climb, but despite the restrictions placed on the majority of the population, designed to minimize contagion, there’s one place in the country where anything goes. Guess where? The Temple Mount.
According to a report in Kan News on Sunday, the government’s coronavirus project manager, Prof. Nachman Ash, admitted in closed discussions that the National Security Agency has decided not to enforce the government’s coronavirus guidelines in the mosques on the Temple Mount.
In leaked recordings from the end of last week, Ash can be heard speaking with Gen. Ben-Tzvi Eliasi, commander of the control center in eastern Jerusalem within the Home Front Command, who has been appointed to deal with coronavirus-related issues in the area under his direction. The two were discussing Friday prayers on the Temple Mount that took place last week, with around eighteen thousand people participating.
Ash and Eliasi can be heard admitting that there is basically nothing they can do to enforce the government’s regulations in such a situation with so many people gathered. Ash also notes that Arabs are spreading the virus within Israel when they enter from PA-controlled territories to work within the Green Line or to attend weddings and other social events held in eastern Jerusalem – themselves in contravention of the government’s guidelines.
“There’s no solution to this,” Ash says in the recordings.
The “Return to the Mount” movement issued a statement in response:
“The cat is out of the bag. The Israeli government and the Jerusalem District Police are selling out the health of Israeli citizens in return for a prostration before the Waqf terrorist organization – they prefer to ‘preserve the peace’ even if it exacts a price in the health of Israeli citizens. What we have now found out is that from the point of view of the Israeli government, the Temple Mount is not actually under their jurisdiction – it’s a place where anything goes, and where the Arabs do whatever they please, even if this endangers the lives of millions of Israeli citizens. This is a national scandal.”