News Digest

Jerusalem on edge in Jewish-Muslim tiff over contested shrine

After months of escalating violence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday made his clearest attempt yet to cool Israeli and Palestinian tempers, saying he won’t allow changes to a long-standing ban on Jewish worship at Jerusalem’s Muslim-run Old City shrine, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount, despite demands from ultranationalists in his coalition. Netanyahu’s reassurances to Muslims came just days after the religious feud over the site threatened to spin out of control. Israel closed the compound for a day last week, a rare move, after a Palestinian shot and wounded a prominent activist who has campaigned for more Jewish access to the site.

It is very easy to ignite a religious fire, but much harder to extinguish it.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

In Israel, Jewish access to the Temple Mount has turned from a fringe issue into a mainstream idea. After 1967, most rabbis considered Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount a sacrilege. But since the 1990s, nationalist clerics have been pressing for an increased Jewish presence, triggering angry reactions by Muslims who argue the site is exclusively theirs. Over the past 15 years, the number of Jewish visitors has increased significantly, Muslim officials say. Israeli police put the number of Jewish visitors at 20 to 30 a day, along with some 2,000 tourists. Jews touring the mount are often greeted by defiant chants of “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is Great,” and occasionally by rocks. Police have clashed with Arab stone-throwers at the site, firing tear gas and stun grenades. At times of tension, younger male Muslims are barred from the shrine.