Posted on 04/09/23
| News Source: Arutz-7
Former Israeli Ambassador to the US and current Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer (Likud) was interviewed today (Sunday) on CNN on the recent tensions surrounding the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.
Dermer said that Israel "cannot allow innocent civilians to be killed by violent terrorists who would barricade themselves into the Al Aqsa Mosque. That is not a policy that we would be able to adopt.
"We do not want to go in there," he said of the clashes between police and Muslim extremists on the Temple Mount last week. "Fortunately, today we did not have to go in. Because the people who went in there did not go there - according to our intelligence, to perpetrate violence."
He added that the Israeli government has no interest in changing the status quo on the Temple Mount under which Jews may visit their holy site but are forbidden from praying there.
Dermer stated that he is not afraid that the "Abraham Accords" are in danger of collapsing due to the tensions in the region and called on Jordan and the Waqf not to allow militants to entrench themselves in the Al Aqsa Mosque. "I have no doubt that our relations [with Israel's partners in the Abraham Accords] are strong, and will continue to be strong in the future."
The former ambassador further touched on the controversy in Israel surrounding the government's planned judicial reforms, stating that Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to see a broad compromise on the reforms, and that the large protest against the reforms demonstrate that Israel is a true democracy.