KABUL: (MEP) “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rebuked a minister who had said that Israel’s dream is to hoist its flag over the Temple Mount, ” Israeli Almasdar reported.
The site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, “ is the most sacred place of the Jewish people, ” Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told the Knesset television channel. In a statement released to the press, the Prime Minister’s Office said, “The Israeli government’s position vis-a-vis the contested Jerusalem site is well known and nothing has changed.”
“The prime minister made it clear that he expects all members of the government to act accordingly,” Netanyahu’s office said in rebuttal statement.
Hours later, she issued a statement clarifying that her “private opinions were not government policy” and that she was “committed to the policy by which the prime minister said that there would be no change to the status quo.”
Hotovely’s remarks were met with criticism from opposition lawmaker Yoel Hasson of the Zionist Union, who called on Netanyahu to dismiss her immediately.
Also an Israeli journalist on the Israel’s radio said, “Israel’s Minister of Culture Miri Regev when he was the head of one of the Knesset committees has said that he would like to write a letter to the King of Jordan and the Arab world tell them that they (Jews) wish to take over the Temple Mount and pray there. The site is administered by the Jordanian and he wished that Israel could take control of it. ”
