Jewish settlers vent anger at Israel

David Ha'ivri, a prominent US-born Israeli settler and a friend of Rabbi Glick who survived an assassination attempt last night in Jerusalem, told Middle East Eye that the Israeli government were partly to blame for the attack.

There are known individuals and organisations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad who have been inciting against the rights to Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. It’s the negligence on the side of the authorities in Israel that is allowing this incitement to go on. Surely this incitement against Jews has paved the way for terrorists like this one to target Jews whose simple wish is to pray in a holy place.

Ha’ivri, a controversial figure in Israel and a fierce opponent of attempts to put a freeze on settlement building, was arrested for celebrating the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in a television interview and served six month jail time in connection with the desecration of a mosque.

Ha’ivri said that foreign pressure had prevented the Israeli government from meeting the "religious rights and needs" of its people.

There hasn’t been access for Jews to Holy Mount because the Israeli government was overly concerned with foreign pressures on Israel’s internal issues. I hope that the current government is learning to understand that it needs to set its own internal affairs according to the needs of the people of Israel.  

Israel has a democracy, and as the Jewish State it needs to provide freedom of prayer to the Jewish people to our most holy site. I’m sorry and distressed that this event was needed to highlight this very unfortunate circumstance. The government of Israel needs to revaluate its policy toward the Temple Mount.