(MENAFN- The Peninsula) An Israeli far-right lawmaker visited the flashpoint Al Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem yesterday, defying calls for restraint from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
MP Moshe Feiglin was met with protests from Muslims crying "Allahu Akbar!" (God is greater) when he visited the Old City site, witnesses said.
The hardline member of Netanyahu's rightwing Likud bloc is a leading advocate of the right of Jews to pray there. Long-standing practice at the compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, allows visits by other faiths but limits prayer to Muslims.
Netanyahu, who has repeatedly said he has no intention of changing the status quo, on Saturday urged the far right to act "responsibly" in the face of mounting tensions and near daily clashes in Jerusalem. "At this time we must show responsibility and restraint," he said at the cabinet meeting yesterday.
But he also told ministers that Islamist groups were using claims of plans to change the rules at the compound to foment anti-Israeli sentiment. "They are disseminating lies to the effect that we intend to destroy or harm the Al Aqsa mosque and that we intend to prevent Muslims from praying there," he said.
"They are using verbal and physical violence in an effort to exclude Jews from going up to the Temple Mount," Netanyahu said. "We will not allow this to happen; neither will we alter the worship arrangements and the access to the Temple Mount that has been customary for decades."
Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev later told reporters: "If there is a threat to the status quo it seems to be coming from the Palestinians, who said that non-Muslims' visits to the Temple Mount are suddenly unacceptable," while implicitly blaming Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for "incitement".
Last month, Abbas urged Palestinians to prevent "settlers" - a euphemism for nationalist Israeli Jews - from visiting the compound "by all means", following clashes there.
But yesterday, Abbas took a reconciliatory tone, and in a rare move "hailed" Netanyahu's call for restraint as a "step in the right direction".
Abbas stressed the "necessity to continue working to create a calm atmosphere", the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said. He also warned that provocations by Israeli "extremists" would lead to "dangerous consequences" that would "reflect on the whole region".
Jordan's King Abdullah II also warned against attempts to change the status of Jerusalem holy sites. "Jordan will continue to confront, through all available means, Israeli unilateral policies and measures in Jerusalem and preserve its Muslim and Christian holy sites, until peace is restored to the land of peace," he said.
Jordan, which administered east Jerusalem and the West Bank before Israel seized the Palestinian territories in the 1967 Middle East war, has responsibility for holy sites in the Israeli-annexed eastern sector.
Israel on Thursday ordered a rare closure of the compound as Palestinian youths clashed with police after officers shot dead a Palestinian suspected of trying to murder a hardline Israeli rabbi.
It reopened the following day under heavy security and Friday prayers passed without incident.
Yesterday, only male worshippers over 40 were admitted. Women were not subject to restrictions. The cabinet, meanwhile, approved harsh new measures aimed at curbing Palestinian protests in east Jerusalem, setting a maximum 20-year jail term for throwing stones at motorists or public transport. The amendment still needs parliamentary approval.
In east Jerusalem clashes late on Saturday and early yesterday, police arrested 17 Palestinian protesters, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said. Another police source said that around 900 Palestinians had been arrested in the city since July and nearly 300 charged.
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