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Ben-Gvir's Temple Mount Jaunt

(Jerusalem Post) Herb Keinon - Reasonable people can debate whether National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir should have gone to the Temple Mount on Tuesday. But even his detractors must admit that the way he did it - in the early morning, without fanfare, after sending signals that he actually would not go through with the visit - was smart. It shows that he is aware of the signals such a visit sends and the dangers it could create. Once threats and warnings were issued from Hamas and Islamic Jihad that such a visit would open the gates of hell and lead to a violent Mideast explosion, it became clear that neither Ben-Gvir nor the government could back down. To prohibit Ben-Gvir, a senior cabinet minister, from going to the site - a site he has visited on numerous occasions in the past - because of Hamas threats would send precisely the wrong message: that the new government could be intimidated. Ben-Gvir briefly toured the Temple Mount, walked around for 13 minutes, and left before anybody took notice. He made his point. He asserted Jewish rights to the Temple Mount and demonstrated Israeli sovereignty there. But he did so in a way that was uncharacteristically low-key.
2023-01-05 00:00:00
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