Israeli MK: Israel must reaffirm sovereignty over Jerusalem
In an interview with Al-Monitor, Knesset member Orit Strock blames the government for not clarifying long ago its stance concerning control of the Temple Mount, saying that this indecisiveness permitted the attack on rightist activist Rabbi Yehuda Glick.
Knesset member Orit Strock of the HaBayit HaYehudi Party was at home in the Avraham Avinu (Abraham the patriarch) neighborhood of Hebron the night of Oct. 29 when she first heard the news about the assassination attempt against Yehuda Glick, a leading advocate of the right of Jews to ascend to the Temple Mount. The person to break the story to her was from her party, Knesset member Shuli Mualem. Mualem had been participating in a right-wing conference at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. Glick was shot at close range at the end of the conference titled “Israel Returns to the Temple Mount.” Mualem then called Strock to tell her the news.
Like all Knesset members on the right, the two women know Glick personally and were intimately familiar with his struggle to allow Jews to visit the Temple Mount. They spent the first few moments of their conversation sharing their shock and personal pain, instead of just focusing on the potentially volatile incident’s immediate political and security implications. Glick was the person most closely identified with the Jewish struggle over the controversial compound. It was his life’s work, and the activist from the settlement of Othniel in southern Mount Hebron was a familiar figure in the corridors of the Knesset.
