Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount - the holiest site in Judaism - were shocked on Tuesday to find Muslim youths yet again desecrating the holy site with a game of soccer in violation of the law; their opposition to the illegal act led one of them to be arrested by Israeli police. The Joint Headquarters of Temple Organizations (Joint HQ) reported that a Jew in his early 30s asked police present at the site to stop the soccer game, but that they refused. "The officers who gave a free hand to the criminals, apart from the fact that they acted in breach of the law and in breach of the stated decision of the High Court on the topic - their behavior also is in complete breach of the written declaration of Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich," said the Joint HQ. Video of the incident can be seen here (click to view): As noted, Aharonovich last September made promises to enforce the law passed by the High Court years ago banning the soccer games on the holy site. The Joint HQ noted that Aharonovich responded to questions from MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud) on the topic saying "the officers acted in contradiction to the law and their obligations," adding that the police are indeed required to stop the games. "P olice will from now on conscientiously enforce the law, and I have ordered police commanders to do so. Police are already working through several channels that the sanctity of the site is preserved," promised Aharonovich at the time. "It's not enough that the police breach the law on the Temple Mount, when they don't carry out their duty to prevent desecration of the site of the Temple and the harm to the sensitivities of Jews on the Temple Mount," wrote the Joint HQ. "The police have gone further by giving criminals cover, and arresting the harmed Jews." The organizations called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu "to stop the alienation of the Temple Mount, and to order the police to protect the law, and to defend the Jews on the Temple Mount." Chances of that are in doubt, as Netanyahu recently made numerous overt pledges to Jordan's King Abdullah II promising to continue the discriminatory status quo on the site, by which the Jordanian Waqf has forbidden Jewish prayer and the police have submitted to their directives despite Israeli law guaranteeing religious freedom of worship. Indeed the Temple Mount has been plagued by various forms of criminal activity, be it the destruction of Jewish archaeological finds by the Waqf, illegal Muslim construction , or violent rioting by Islamist gangs funded by Hamas.
