The Coordinator of the LIBA Project for Jewish ascent to the Temple Mount, Yehuda Glick, published an open letter to police serving on the Temple Mount Wednesday in which he asked them to stand up for Jewish individual and national rights on the Mount. "You serve in the holiest location in the world,” Glick reminded them. “This place is what all Jews throughout history aspired to.” However, he explained, the privilege of serving on the Mount comes with added responsibility as well. “There are many people who are not happy (to say the least) about the fact that the Jewish nation has returned to its home, and that the Israelites are fulfilling Biblical prophecy.” "Since the state of Israel was founded, and even before that, they did all that they could in order to prevent the establishment of the state. Thank G-d, by standing firm, the nation of Israel blocked all of their attempts to destroy the Jews' state in the Land of Israel. As a result – to their disappointment – they have no choice but to learn how to accept the fact that the state of Israel is alive and breathing.” Glick went on to explain that the struggle against Israel continues on the Temple Mount, where many Muslim Arabs make every effort to get rid of all Jewish presence. "They realize that the Mount is the heartbeat of the Jewish nation, and they do all that they can to hurt this heart. The degree to which they succeed or fail is largely up to you. If you stand firmly and block any violent outburst – physical or verbal –then you are defending the beating heart of our nation. If police show laxness, he warns, the other side will step up its activity. “When we ascend the Temple Mount, we do it first and foremost as a mitzvah [commandment]. The Temple Mount is the only place in the world that a Jew is comanded to ascend to. We make every effort to ensure that our visit to the Mount be carried out in a serious fashion, out of an attempt to commune with the Creator, at the place where He chose to house His Name. "Therefore, when we are on the Mount, we make every effort to ignore disruptive elements. That is why my friends and I have developed 'the skin of an elephant,' but you, dear policeman, are there precisely for the purpose of protecting us.” Glick warned that “violent elements” have been trying to step up their activity on the Temple Mount lately, and that “regretfully, it seems that you are completely ignoring the violent activity and acting as though we were the nuisance , and therefore you feel free to shout at us – 'go here, go there, faster, slower, don't stop, stop...' "I must say that personally, I feel that you have declared a personal war against me, out of the false perception that if you succeed in pushing me out of the Temple Mount, then you will block the violence on the Mount. There is no greater mistake than this.” Whereas he follows the police's orders out of respect for them and for the state of Israel, he explained, “you should know that the other side sees this [police behavior] and identifies it as weakness and utter laxness – and steps up its activity. You must stand solid as a wall in the face of the terrorists. "I know that the mission is not easy at all but it is made necessary by the current situation and we must not, in any case, allow terror to win. Not anywhere, and certainly not in this place,” Glick summed up. The Temple Mount is Judaism's holiest site and the location of the two Holy Temples of Jerusalem, the latter of which was destroyed by the Romans in 70CE. Despite that fact, Jewish visitors face severe restrictions upon ascending the Mount , while the Waqf works to remove any Jewish presence on the Mount and consistently destroys Jewish antiquities on the compound in a direct violation of a ruling by the Supreme Court.
