Perceived Israeli threats to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site built on the ruins of the ancient Jewish temple in Jerusalem’s Old City, have long been a rallying cry for Palestinian terrorism. For example, the 1929 Hebron massacre, in which Arabs murdered 67 Jewish inhabitants of the city, was sparked by rumors that Jews were planning to seize control of the mosque.

More recently, after Palestinian gunman Raad Hazem killed three Israelis and injured more than a dozen others in Tel Aviv on April 7, 2022, terror groups in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were quick to link the attack to the claim that the sanctity of Al-Aqsa was being threatened.

International media outlets in recent weeks have perpetuated the Palestinian narrative, describing Jewish visitors strolling the Temple Mount as “ultra-far-right Israeli nationalists” (Vice), “right-wing Jewish nationalists” (NPR), and “religious extremists” (Associated Press).

But while religious freedom for Jews on the Temple Mount is a hot topic within Israeli society, the suggestion that only “extremists” (Agence France-Presse) hold the site sacred is completely ahistorical.

In fact, Jews have visited and prayed on the Mount for centuries.

According to mainstream Jewish oral tradition, as well as mystical sources, the Temple Mount (Hebrew: “Har Habayit“) contains the Foundation Stone (“Even Hashetiya“) from where God created the world.

The Midrash and Jerusalem Talmud furthermore state that Adam, the first man, was formed from the dust of the Jerusalem plateau. Then, Cain, Abel, and Noah brought offerings on the same Mount. In Genesis 22, the Jewish patriarch Abraham is commanded to offer his son Yitzchak as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah — identified as another name for the site.

Later, King David purchased the threshing floor from Araunah the Jebusite (II Samuel 24:24, I Chronicles 21:22-30) in order to construct an altar. His son Solomon eventually established the First Temple, the focal point of Jewish worship, around 950 BCE, with the Holy of Holies and its Ark of the Covenant placed on the Even Hashetiya.

Archaeological treasures found in excavations seem to confirm the Hebrew Bible’s account of this period in ancient Israel.

Although the Temple is now in ruins — Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE — the religious status of Judaism’s holiest place never changed. The Jewish sage Maimonides (1138-1204), in his magnum opus Mishneh Torah, concludes that “a person must hold [the site] in awe, as one would regard it when it [the Temple] was standing.”

The centrality of the Temple Mount to Judaism is beyond dispute. During prayer three times a day, Jews since time immemorial have faced the sacred Jerusalem hilltop. Contrary to what some news outlets like to suggest (see, for instance, here, here, and here), the Western Wall is not Judaism’s “holiest site.” Case in point: the wall — the last remaining part of the Second Temple compound — only became a place of importance in the 16th century.

While some religious Jews maintain that ascending the Temple Mount itself is currently forbidden due to ritual impurity issues and the absence of the red heifer, Maimonides presumably prayed on Har Habayit in the fall of 1165.

Another famous Jewish sage, the Chatam Sofer (1762-1839), even issued a ruling on Jewish law stating that it is still possible to bring the Passover offering on the Temple Mount — if the ruling authority permits it.

Leading rabbis have noted that, by praying on Mount Moriah, Jews fulfill five commandments simultaneously.

Since Israel gained control over eastern Jerusalem in a defensive war in 1967, an informal set of rules known as the “status quo” has governed the state of affairs at the holy site. Fearing a wider religious conflict following the Six-Day War, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan agreed to let the Jordanian-run Islamic Waqf continue administering the Temple Mount.

Under this status quo agreement, which Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government has pledged to uphold, Jews and other non-Muslims can visit the Temple Mount but not pray there. However, courts have at times questioned the ban’s legality (see here and here). The 1967 Preservation of the Holy Places Law ensures freedom of access and protection to all holy sites under Israeli jurisdiction, including those in the eastern part of its capital.

It is worth noting that the same status quo prohibits the display of flags of any kind at the holy site. Yet journalists, focused on Jews uttering words of prayer at their most sacred place, are seemingly uninterested in the incessant display of the flags of US-designated terror organizations at Islam’s supposed third-holiest site.

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