Japan, a new Security Council member, will decide whether to move ahead with the request.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is ‘’committed to strictly maintaining the status quo, without changes, on the Temple Mount,” according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office.
A visit by Netanyahu to the United Arab Emirates slated for next week has been postponed until February, according to Israeli media reports.
By Miker Wagenheim, JNS
The United Arab Emirates has requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir’s visit to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
The UAE submitted its request on behalf of the Arab League and at the behest of Jordan and the Palestinians. It comes after Ben-Gvir, the firebrand Otzma Yehudit party leader, ascended Judaism’s holiest site on Tuesday morning.
Ben-Gvir visit was widely and unsurprisingly criticized in the Arab world, including in the UAE and Jordan, which claim Ben-Gvir violated the status quo at the flashpoint holy site. The Temple Mount is also home to the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
This was the first Temple Mount visit by an Israeli minister since Uri Ariel, then the agriculture minister, ascended in July 2018 following the end of a three-year visitation ban on Knesset members applied by the Israeli government.
Gilad Erdan, then the public security minister, also went up to the Temple Mount in 2017, though that was for a security briefing following a deadly Palestinian terror attack at the site.
Japan, which joined the Security Council on Sunday and simultaneously took over the presidency of the council for the month of January, will decide how to act on the UAE’s request.
Notably, Japan abstained on a recent resolution calling for the International Court of Justice to issue an advisory opinion on Israel’s “occupation” of Palestinian territories. Japan abstained both in the U.N.’s Fourth Committee and in the full General Assembly. While separate from the Ben-Gvir issue, the abstentions may provide a window into Japan’s thinking on the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A source within the Security Council told JNS that as a new member, Japan “is getting its feet wet” and while it wants to be responsive to member concerns, the country “doesn’t want to manufacture a crisis” where there isn’t one. If there is no retaliation from Gaza-based terror organizations to Ben-Gvir’s visit, the source believes that Japan will put off the issue until the Security Council’s quarterly debate on the Israeli-Palestinian file on Jan. 18.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is ‘’committed to strictly maintaining the status quo, without changes, on the Temple Mount,” according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office on Tuesday.
The prime minister denied assertions that National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir‘s Tuesday morning visit to the holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City constituted a change in the understandings governing activities there.
“Under the status quo, ministers have gone up to the Temple Mount in recent years, including [then-]Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan; therefore, the claim that a change has been made in the status quo is without foundation,” noted Netanyahu.
“We will not be dictated to by Hamas,” the prime minister added, referring to threats of violence by the Gaza-based terror group, which had vowed to “ignite the region” if the minister visited Judaism’s holiest site.
European Jewish Press adds:
A visit by Netanyahu to the United Arab Emirates slated for next week has been postponed until February, according to Israeli media reports.
Reports of the postponement came shortly after the Gulf state condemned Israel over a Tuesday morning visit by new National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to the Temple Mount holy site in Jerusalem.
Associates of Netanyahu denied any connection between the incidents, however, saying the visit had been postponed due to logistical considerations, according to the Ynet news site.
Netanyahu’s planned visit to Abu Dhabi, which his office confirmed on Monday, would be his first official visit to the Gulf state. In the years leading to the 2020 Abraham Accords, Netanyahu held several covert visits to the UAE as premier, but never a public one.