Dangerous Liaison - The Dynamics of the Rise of the Temple Movements And Their Implications

The Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif is one of the most complicated and sensitive issues on Israel’s agenda, activating friction points between Israel and the Palestinian population, the Arab nations surrounding Israel, the Muslim world and domestically, within the Israeli

Jewish community itself.

Over the past several hundred years, a status quo has been maintained according to which the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif area (henceforth: the Mount) is an area reserved for Muslim prayer and the Western Wall is a prayer area reserved for Jews. Over the last

decade, the status of these areas has gradually shifted, driven by a revival of activity by Jews determined to strengthen the status of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif complex as a Jewish religious center and to marginalize the claims of Muslims to the Mount. In the past year alone, hundreds of national religious Jewish pilgrims have ascended the Mount, including groups of rabbis, women, members of Knesset and recently, soldiers in uniform. It is necessary to take a sober look at the activities of the organizations advancing this agenda and to examine the official institutional support Israel allocates to underwrite their activities. As will become clear, the Jerusalem Municipality and other government ministries directly fund and support various activist organizations driven by the mission to rebuild the Temple.

This report aims to present information about the growing activity of organizations working to change the status quo on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif and, in some cases, to actually erect the Third Jewish Temple upon it. The report describes the

historic, legal and halachic background of the state of affairs on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif complex today, introduces the main players within the pro-Temple movements and demonstrates the deepening association between these movements and official Israeli authorities.