Palestinian tried to strangle a Jew on the Temple Mount, but police monitor Jews

Even after a Palestinian tried to strangle a Jew during a visit to the Temple Mount this week, the police on the Mount focus on strict monitoring of the Jews' actions.

Elisaf Ofen, a guide on the Temple Mount on behalf of the "Bidinu" organization, sat down one morning about two weeks ago on the eastern side of the Mount, at the point where Jewish groups usually stop and pray softly. A policeman named 'Anan Shinan demanded that he get up, saying that he should not sit at this point "for a long time." A manner of obedience, but wondered at the compromise of the teaching – the likes of which he had not yet heard even in the special and unusual experience of the Temple Mount. Shanan refused to give a reason.

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A lawyer for the association, Menashe Yado, contacted the police and asked for clarifications on the matter. In recent days, Adv. Yado received a response in which the police backed up the policeman's statement and confirmed that it was another prohibition, one of many that applies on the Mount only to observant Jews. "The point at which your client chose to settle," the police representative wrote to him, "on the eastern axis, at the fixed point, is a place of great sensitivity on the Temple Mount. Therefore, he was asked to continue to avoid being dragged into violating the rules of visiting the place."

The police representatives added in the letter: "As is well known, the rules of visiting the site are transmitted and published, including the obligation to obey the instructions of the police officers in this sensitive and volatile place, and to act according to their instructions in any matter. The video footage of the incident gives the impression that the policeman spoke with your client in a respectful manner, noting that he could rest intermittently and not settle down (specifically there – SM) in view of the sensitivity that exists in this place. The policeman was filmed explaining to Marschach that the discourse and the photograph impairs the performance of his mission of securing the group of visitors and maintaining public order. The Israel Police officers work night and day to maintain public order and public safety and security."

This letter was written against the backdrop of a serious incident that took place on Tuesday on the mountain – an event that miraculously ended without significant damage and did not receive sufficient media attention. When the mountain opened at noon, an observant Jew who was standing a little away from the rest of the group on the western side of the mountain suddenly felt that a man was pouncing on him from behind and trying to strangle him. Police officers monitoring the group quickly came to their senses, stormed the assailant, handcuffed him and led him to the nearby police station. There it turned out that he was a "resident of Judea and Samaria," as the police put it, but the police did not provide further details about the identity of the assailant.

As a result of the attempted strangulation, the victim's glasses were broken, his shirt was torn, and he was slightly injured in the face. The relatively mild result somewhat obscures the fact that this is a serious and unusual incident committed against a civilian. It seems that the likes of this have not happened on the mountain in decades – not even during the most turbulent days of the harassment bands of the Morbiton and the Morbitat in the previous decade.

This incident should be linked to hate slogans directed by Muslim youths the day before the attack on a Jewish group in the Dome of the Rock plaza ("Khyber ya Yahud" – a threat to treat the Jews as in the Jewish community of Khibar, which Muhammad slaughtered), and in general to the increase in incitement against the recent ascension of Jews to the Mount in view of the establishment of the new government.

If the police continue to focus on supervising trivial "violations of rules" by Jews visiting the Mount, instead of gazing blankly at the real threats there, one can fear that this is just a preview of more serious attempted attacks that, God forbid, may excite those who immigrate to the site.

In a reality where there is no real barrier preventing Muslim terrorists from reaching the sacred site – not even a single metal detector of the kind that exists at the Jews' entrance gate to the Mount – the attention of the Israeli police is still focused on the wrong direction.

Google Translation of A Palestinian tried to strangle a Jew on the Temple Mount, but the police actually supervise Jews - First Source (makorrishon.co.il)