Will zealots ignite another firestorm on the Temple Mount?

Israel’s Supreme Court should register an international patent in its name. It is the only institution in the world that serves simultaneously as a national punching bag and flak jacket.

For several years now, Israeli right-wing politicians have been attacking the court, trying to delegitimize it. More so, several weeks ago, center-left politicians dumped the controversial Regularization Law, which legalizes Israeli settlements built on private Palestinian land, at the door of the nation’s much-maligned top court, leaving it to the justices to deal with this hot potato. They hope the court will succeed where the Knesset failed and block it, declaring it unconstitutional. Now the country’s top court is being asked to douse a smoldering fire that right-wing politicos trying to hasten the Messiah’s appearance are threatening to reignite.

On March 28, Likud Knesset member Yehuda Glick petitioned the court to compel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rescind a police order banning elected officials from the Temple Mount compound, or Haram al-Sharif, to Muslims. The site is home to the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque and is believed to have been the location of the first and second Jewish temples in ancient times.

Glick pulled the petition out of his sleeve the day after Netanyahu decided to keep in place for the time being his October 2015 order preventing government ministers and Knesset members from entering the tinderbox. Having consulted with the heads of the country’s security forces, Netanyahu also said he would revisit the issue at the end of June, and, security considerations permitting, allow visits by politicians in accordance with police instructions. The delay is designed to get through the upcoming holy month of Ramadan, the Passover holiday and Jerusalem Day, all occasions of which Jewish and Muslim zealots are particularly fond.