Minister's Temple Mount visits provoke Palestinians

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.

Ariel has a particular obsession with everything to do with the Temple Mount. He went up there earlier this year, in February, and claims that he plans to continue with a custom that he began when he was first elected to the Knesset, at which time he went up to the Temple Mount once a month. After being appointed minister, he was forced to reduce the frequency of these visits, due to the meticulous security arrangements that they required. He does, however, insist on announcing any visits that do take place on his Facebook page. After the last visit he wrote, “The reality in which rioters set the agenda on the Temple Mount and prevent Jews from going up there is unacceptable. I went up to the Temple Mount this morning, and plan to continue going up there in the future.”

It seems as if Ariel, who lives in the West Bank village of Kfar Adumim, east of Jerusalem, has a full-time job appeasing the settlers and representing their narrow interests. It has been years since the settlers had such an authentic and militant representative in the government, and minister of housing no less, a position that they consider to be the most important of all, and a position he treats as if he was following some religious obligation.