Police assigned to the Temple Mount in the Jerusalem District have been kept quite busy since the 19th Knesset was sworn in. In March, it was only at the very last minute that they successfully prevented Knesset Member Moshe Feiglin (Likud) from visiting the most sensitive spot in the entire Middle East.

Feiglin, one of the most powerful people in the ruling party, is a “regular visitor” to the Temple Mount. He continues to visit there in his new position, not only as a Knesset member but as its deputy speaker. Knesset Member Miri Regev, from the same party, has also earned herself a reputation as a provocative firebrand. Immediately after being elected this week to serve as head of the Knesset’s Internal Affairs Committee, she announced that she plans to organize a visit to the Temple Mount by the committee. According to Regev, the pretext for this visit is “to protect the rights of Jews to pray at the site.” In September 2000, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ignited the second intifada when he made a very public visit to the Temple Mount. Now it seems like Regev is determined to ignite a third intifada.

Minister of Housing and Construction Uri Ariel also visited the Temple Mount as recently as last Passover, on March 29. He went up there, walked a few meters from the Al-Aqsa Mosque, muttered a silent prayer and left, but only after the policemen accompanying him prodded him to end his visit before a riot erupted. On a more general note, the Minister of Housing and Construction, who happens to be another key player in the current coalition, has recently taken the opportunity to visit several especially sensitive areas. On the eve of Independence Day on April 16, he was guest of honor at a ceremony conducted by the mayor of Maale Adumim in the E1 zone, connecting his city with Jerusalem. While Washington and Europe alike continue to keep a close watch on that contentious area to ensure that Israeli declarations of intent to build a new neighborhood there are not realized, the minister announced that he intends to move forward with development there. “In just a year and a half, we’ll see houses here,” he promised.

Three months have gone by since Israel held its elections. The surprising results proved that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not quite as strong as everybody thought he was, and that the right-wing bloc and the center-left bloc have more or less reached a state of equilibrium. While it is safe to assume that these results were received with some degree of satisfaction in many capitals around the world, a more cautious examination of what has been happening in the short time since Netanyahu formed his third government gives the impression that it is business as usual in Jerusalem. From the Temple Mount to E1, the song remains the same, and so does the policy. It looks like Minister of Justice Tzipi Livni, who is also the minister responsible for “promoting the peace process” (just like former Defense Minister Ehud Barak was in the last government), will have little left to do but to mumble a terse condemnation while her coalition colleagues continue to build new settlements in the Territories and make prayerful pilgrimages to the Temple Mount.