Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Legal Aspects Regarding the Temple Mount

Here is a very good summary by Shmuel Berkowitz, pages 4-14.

And this:-

However, before he restricts the freedom of worship, the military commander must examine whether he is able to take reasonable steps which will allow the exercise of freedom of worship while ensuring the safety of the worshippers. As this Court stated:

“. . . Freedom of conscience, belief, religion, and worship is limited, to the extent necessary in order to preserve public security and order. Of course, before any act which could infringe upon and limit this freedom is taken due to a threat to public security, the police should take all reasonable steps at their disposal to prevent the threat to public security without compromising the right to conscience, belief, religion and worship. Therefore, if the concern regards violence by a hostile crowd against the worshippers, the police must act against this violence, not against the worshippers. If however reasonable action by the police cannot, due to its limitations, remove the threat to public security, there is no choice but to limit the freedom of conscience and religion, as necessary in order to preserve public security.”

H.C.J. 292/83 Temple Mount Faithful, at p. 455 (Barak, J.); see also Hess, at paragraph 19.

1 comment:

David Ben-Ariel said...

The common knowledge of our time is that the vast majority of Rabbis of this generation have prohibited the Jewish people from entering the Temple Mount (Har HaBayit), the holiest site in Judaism. The Temple Mount is the site of where the Beit HaMikdash (the Jewish Temple) once stood and the place where the Moslems have erected one mosque, the al-Aqsa and a site of pilgrimage, the Dome of the Rock.

The Issue of the Temple Mount