On Sunday morning, March 16, while the country was in the midst of celebrating the Jewish holiday of Purim, and the “Adloyada” — festive carnival processions — were underway in all the country’s major towns, Minister of Housing Uri Ariel went up to the Temple Mount. Despite the tense atmosphere at the site and the riots that occurred there that very morning, Ariel turned down a recommendation by the police that he forgo this visit and decided just to shorten it. The combined religious and nationalist significance of the Purim holiday and the provocative visit by a right-wing minister at the contentious site, accompanied by a security detail as he wandered among the Muslim worshippers, could easily have caused an incident that could have gotten out of control and set the whole region aflame.
But Ariel, who is the No. 2 person in HaBayit HaYehudi, wasn’t at all disturbed by the potential damage. Quite the contrary. The more scrutiny afforded to the behavior of a man considered to be one of the foremost representatives of the fundamentalist right in the Knesset, the more it becomes apparent there is a pattern to his provocative behavior and that it repeats itself. Ariel constantly tries to be an instigator, to set the public mood on a high burner and to sabotage Israel’s foreign policy while diplomatic negotiations are underway.