Israel’s Economic and Religious Affairs Minister, Naftali Bennett, has made a strong verbal attack against the Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yousef. Rabbi Yousef called on Friday for Jews to stop storming Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The chief rabbi said that it was religiously forbidden for Jews to ascend to the “Temple Mount” (Al-Aqsa compound) at any time. This, he reminded them, is due to a long-held consensual rabbinical ruling that today’s “impure Jews should not risk defiling the holiest site in Judaism.”
According to the head of the Sephardic Jews in Israel, the “incitement provoked by people going to the Temple Mount” has to stop. “Jews must not go to the Temple Mount and provoke the Arab terrorists [sic]. This must be stopped… Only in this manner shall the blood of the people of Israel stop being spilt.”
These remarks angered many extremists in Israel, including Knesset members (MKs) and senior partisan leaders. Some of them said that Yousef does not represent anyone, but he only used the podium given to him during the funeral of one of the Jews killed in the recent unrest.
Bennett and other extremist MKs and ministers are calling for strict punishment for the families of the “terrorists” who have carried out attacks in defence of their rights in Jerusalem. Calling for the destruction of family homes they also insist that families should be expelled from the city in order to deter others from doing the same thing.