Israeli Religious Affairs Ministry: "Israel is reviewing a law allowing the division of prayer times between Muslims and Jews in Al-Aqsa Mosque"

The Director-general of the Israeli “Religious Affairs Ministry” announced during a session in the Knesset that the ministry is seeking to review a law that will allow Jews to perform religious rituals in the Al-Aqsa Mosque. He explained that a parliamentary committee was charged with examining the matter in closer detail.

The Israeli “Religious Affairs Ministry” considered these official measures necessary to enable religious Jews to freely perform their rituals, and that prohibiting them from doing so is considered a violation of “the freedom of worship”. Moreover, the ministry is seeking to divide the Al-Aqsa Mosque between Muslims and Jews.

Moshe Feiglin, an MP from the radical right-wing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, expressed his surprise that the mosque hadn’t been divided by saying, “How can we accept the fact that Jews don’t have the right to pray at the place which is most sacred to them?”

Moreover, committee chairwoman Miri Regev said, “Prohibiting Jews from praying in the Al-Aqsa Mosque or the “Temple Mount” is unacceptable discrimination and an attack on the right to freedom of worship.”

A Hebrew radio station broadcast a discussion held on Wednesday concerning the law and its aims of allowing an increased number of Jewish settlers to enter Al-Aqsa Mosque at a time when Palestinian and international parties concerned with Jerusalem affairs have warned against the division of the Mosque, both in terms of time and structure, as is the case in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.