The Israeli religious affairs ministry wants to pass new rules that would allow Jews to pray at the Temple Mount. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Israel’s religious affairs ministry is preparing new rules that would allows Jews to pray at the Temple Mount. The rules would reverse the current regulations, established when Israel gained control of the area in 1967, banning Jewish prayer from the site. Jews seen praying there have often been arrested or harassed by Muslims.

“I expect the prime minister and the government of Israel to adopt and validate these regulations and allow all Jews who desire so to go up to the Temple Mount and pray there,” Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Eli Ben-Dahan said in a video address to Liba, an organization supporting Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount.

“I call on the State of Israel and its leaders to act like a democratic state and protect the basic rights of every Jew who goes and prays on the Temple Mount,” said the director of Liba, Yehuda Glick, the Times of Israel reported.

In a separate expression of support for Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount, Christian pastor Keith Johnson urged “the children of Abraham” throughout the world to stand up to harassment at the holy site. When Johnson had visited the site himself and was about to greet Glick, he was surrounded by Waqf guards who forced him away, Israel National News.

“As an American pastor I am appalled by the actions of some Muslims who chastise Jewish visitors—including children—who desire to ascend the Temple Mount,” Johnson said in a recently posted YouTube video.