Let's stop pretending: the "status quo" that then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan established on the Temple Mount in 1967 is dead. No one has officially laid it to rest, and the political and public discourse continues to discuss it as if it were still alive and kicking, but it's a corpse that breathed its last breath long ago.
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Fifty-five years after the agreements were made – which centered around religious and administrative autonomy for the Muslim side while security fell to the Israelis, and distinguishing Jewish visits to the Mount (which were allowed) from Jewish prayers there (which were prohibited) – reality there has changed dramatically. But in contrast to the false story being sold to the world, the reality that replaced the status quo has strengthened the Muslim status and hold on the Mount while weakening that of the Jews and the state of Israel.
It starts with a "minor" but highly visible matter, such as flags. Officially, flags may not be flow on the Mount, but in practice, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and other radical Islamist movements fly their flags there, while Israeli flags are the only ones that can't be raised on the Temple Mount. It includes the arrangements for Jewish visits to the Mount. Who now remembers that Jews used to enter the compound through the Chain Gate and Cotton Gate? Who remembers the days when Jews visited all parts of the Mount, even on Saturdays, and entered the mosques, without any significant time limits, or short "Jews only"?
None of this is possible any more. They used to be part of the status quo, but we stopped talking about them. The only gate open to Jews now is the Mughrabi Gate. The hours for Jewish visits, which used to be much more flexible, have been reduced to three and a half hours in the morning and an hour in the afternoon, and only on Sunday through Thursday. The Jewish visitor routes, which in recent weeks have been covered with glass shards and piles of rocks and smashed antiquities, have been shortened and restricted.
Meanwhile, the Muslim prayer areas on the Mount are constantly being expanded. This is due in part to their relatively new definition of the entire Temple Mount compound as part of Al-Aqsa Mosque, including its walls – even the Western Wall. It's all Al-Aqsa. The Muslims who complain about the quiet Jewish prayers on the east of the Mount – non-demonstrative, without tefillin or prayer shawls or prayer books – have forgotten to mention that in 1967, when the status quo was determined, they prayed only in Al-Aqsa Mosque itself, and that over the years they inaugurated four more mosques: the Dome of the Rock, which was not initially a mosque but has become one; the Al-Marwani Mosque underneath Solomon's Stables; the old Al-Aqsa Mosque; and the area around the Gate of Mercy, which the Waqf has also turned into a prayer area, although it never used to be. And of course we need to add the paving of large parts of the Temple Mount that are also used for mass prayers.
Israel, which still holds a virtual status quo holy, decided years ago that the laws of the state apply to the Mount. Even the High Court of Justice approved it, but the reality is different. De jure, Israel has stuck to that decision, but de facto it does not enforce planning, building, or antiquities laws on the Mount or when it does enforce them, does so partially and informally, under the supervision of the attorney general. As a result, remnants of our past are being removed, smashed, or obscured. The long list of archaeological damage done to the Temple Mount is sad. In addition to damaging antiquities from all eras, the Muslims have been consistently and methodically removing any Jewish links to the mount on which the Temple stood (and by the way, this goes against writings of their own early sages). They destroy and deny.
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We should also discuss Jordan, which is playing both sides – using Israel's extreme generosity toward it, which serves shared security interests – and taking everything Israel gives it on the Mount, while also constantly complaining and making up stories and spreading lies about us when it comes to Al-Aqsa and demanding more and more. These are the facts about the Jordanian story:
In the early days of the original status quo, Jordan was nothing more than the employer of the Waqf personnel, who operated on the Mount as a branch of the Jordanian government's Ministry of Awaqf Islamic Affairs and Holy Sites. Only after Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty, and even more so in the past few years, did Jordan become Israel's quiet partner in managing the Mount. It even has influence over Israel's security activity in the compound.
Currently, for example, Jordan is demanding that Israel reinstate groups of Waqf security guards to groups of Jewish visitors, after years in which they were accompanied by Israeli police.
Jordan now has enormous influence on the Temple Mount. For years, Israel has had an entire system in place to coordinate with the Jordanians about Temple Mount issues. In the early 2000s, Israel put Jordan in charge of rebuilding the eastern and southern walls after cracks started to form. Israel gave into a Jordanian dictate against building a permanent bridge to replace the wooden Mughrabi bridge, which was set up after a dirt path leading to the gate collapsed. Israel has also refrained from removing building debris and trash next to the "little Western Wall" that is enclosed by tin sheets, all because the Jordanians object.
Jordan sees its special status on the Temple Mount not only as the result of interests and a guarantee that the Hashemite kingdom will remain in power, but also of historical rights. The Hashemite dynasty lost its role as guardian of Islamic holy places to Saudi Arabia after World War I and made due with a secondary guardianship of Islamic holy places in Jerusalem. But what about our historical and religious rights to the Mount, the center of Jewish life for generations?
And after all this, over 50 years in which the Muslim crushed the status quo to a pulp, the Jewish side responded with a change of its own – significantly expanding Jewish visits to the Mount, which – with approval from the police – prompted the quiet prayers on the east of the Temple Mount.
Because this change is upsetting so many people, we should put it in proportion. Despite the fact that the number of Jewish visitors to the Mount has grown by 1,000% in the last decade to some 40,000 per year, there is still an enormous discrepancy between this number and the 10 million Muslims who visit the Mount each year.
The change to the number of Jewish visitors took place due to three changes. One is the erosion of the 1967 rabbinical ban on Jews entering the Temple Mount compound. This led to the second change, a major uptick in the number of religious Jews visiting the Mount. The authorities that had once forbidden it now allowed it, and Jews who had once looked at the Temple Mount from afar could now go there. The third change was the altered stance of the Israel Police when Gilad Erdan was public security minister and Yoram Halevi was chief of the Jerusalem District Police. They decided to respond to the growing demand in the Jewish public to visit the Temple Mount, and even encouraged Jews to visit.
These visits gave birth to the quiet prayers, which are still being held, despite the Muslim protests and understandings from 2015 with then-US Secretary of State John Kerry that prohibited them. Incidentally, until Hamas came into the picture last year, Muslims had more or less accepted this new reality.
In 1967 the national state of the Jewish people made a colossal, almost inconceivable concession. It entrusted the holiest place to the Jewish people, home to the Holiest of Holies, to a competing religion, Islam, for which it is only the third-holiest place. For years, it gave up on the right of Jews to pray there. The Muslims never expressed gratitude for the concession. They thanked us for it in libels, terrorism, violence, and lies. No normal people shelves its dreams forever, and the quiet prayers on the Mount are the bare minimum of Jewish normalcy on the Temple Mount, and we should hold on to them, however difficult it might be.
