Temple activists were euphoric Monday after a precedent-setting ruling by Magistrates' Court Judge Malka Aviv in the case of Yehuda Glick vs. the Israeli Police, a day earlier. The judge ruled that the police “must make sure that Jews are able to pray on the Temple Mount” – in a ruling replete with harsh criticism of the police's policies on the Temple Mount. Activists were quoted on a Temple activists blog as saying: “This day will be remembered for generations in the annals of the struggle for the return of Jews to the Temple Mount.”
The police are legally bound “to ensure that Jews are able to pray on the Temple Mount, and not to act sweepingly to prevent Jews from praying on the Temple Mount,” the judge determined.
Attorney Aviad Visoly, who represented Glick said Tuesday that the verdict “has made prayer on the Temple Mount 'kosher'. In essence, the court took the Supreme Court's rulings about the Jews' right to pray on the Temple Mount, and implemented them.”
"This is almost the first ruling – and certainly the most sweeping – in which the court implements the right of Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. From today, every Jew is allowed to pray on the Temple Mount. The prayer itself is not an offense.”
Judge Aviv said that the police ban on Glick's visiting the Mount was issued “without appropriate consideration” and was “arbitrary.”
“There is nothing in the deeds of the plaintiff [Glick] that justified in any way the punishment that he received, not in the ban itself and not in the extended period [of the ban],” she said.
Glick was awarded NIS 500,000 in damages and NIS 150,000 in legal costs.
