Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Sunday that Israel will make its own decisions concerning Jerusalem and the Temple Mount without any foreign interference, in an apparent reference to statements by Ra’am party leader Mansour Abbas.
“All decisions regarding the Temple Mount and Jerusalem will be made by the Israeli government, which holds sovereignty over the city, without any foreign considerations,” Bennett said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.
“We certainly reject any foreign interference in the decisions of the Israeli government,” Bennett said.
“Of course, the State of Israel will continue to maintain a respectful attitude toward members of all religions in Jerusalem,” Bennett said. “A united Jerusalem is the capital of only one state – the State of Israel.”
Abbas, whose party has frozen its participation in the coalition for the past three weeks amid tensions at the holy site, wrote in a Facebook post Saturday that his party’s future role in the government will be determined by talks held by a joint committee of Israeli and Jordanian officials.
“Ra’am’s position in the coalition, as regards the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, will be based on the results of the joint Israeli-Jordanian-international meetings,” Abbas wrote.
“The coalition’s leadership — Prime Minister [Bennett] and Alternate Prime Minister [Yair Lapid] — have been informed of this clear and definitive position,” Abbas added.
An Islamic Movement official told The Times of Israel that Ra’am had pushed for the new joint Israel-Jordanian committee to resolve burning issues on the Temple Mount, such as reducing the Israeli police presence and expanding the Waqf’s authority.
According to the official, the committee was devised by Ra’am in consultation with the Jordanian monarch during Abbas’s visits to Amman in recent weeks.
Bennett’s comments Sunday on the Temple Mount were slammed by senior Palestinian Authority official Hussein al-Sheikh as “a violation of international law.”
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