There have been 4,500 visits by Israeli Jews to the Temple Mount since the beginning of the year, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch told the cabinet on Monday, and those Jews were not allowed to bring accouterments of religious ritual.
Aharonovitch's remarks came during a briefing he gave the ministers on the recent tensions on the Temple Mount... Most halachic authorities, the ministers were reminded, forbid Jewish entrance to the site [wow. non-kosher meat is laso prohibited - do ministers get routinely reminded of that as well?].
By contrast to the 4,500 visits by Israeli Jews (not all of them "unique visitors," but some rather repeat ones), some 140,000 Muslims prayed on the Temple Mount during one recent Friday afternoon in Ramadan.
...so far in 2009 there have been more than 200,000 visits by tourists to the site.
And other numbers:
from mid-September until Friday there were in Jerusalem some 48 rock-throwing incidents, 12 gasoline bombings, and the stabbing of a soldier in Shuafat, in the city's northeast. Some 36 border policemen were lightly wounded, and 112 people were arrested, 23 of whom are still in custody.
Another type of "visit":
An Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood legislator has told the parliament that Arabs around the world should break into Israeli embassies around the world if Israelis visit the Temple Mount.
Member of Parliament Subhi Saleh’s colleagues in the party backed his encouragement to violate the diplomatic immunity of embassies.
And an Israeli request:
"I appeal to all of you, from all sides of the political spectrum: Be careful when discussing the Temple Mount, and do not begin a fire there. Be a calming influence, not one that causes incitement. We need to lower the volume, and the profile of the issue," Aharaonovich said.
Ah, in other words, the law of the land cannot be upheld so that Jews can bebefit from the right of freedom of religion.
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