The Temple Mount, also known as Haram al-Sharif, is a holy site for both Judaism and Islam, drawing the devotion of believers around the world, including nearly two billion Muslims. Because of its extraordinary sensitivity, Israel’s Supreme Court has described the site in its rulings as a “barrel of explosives” at risk of detonating. In recent years, the voices and political standing of those in Israel seeking to ignite it have grown stronger. Yet this is not merely a “barrel of explosives,” but a “nuclear reactor” that must be handled with the utmost care. Until recent years, under decades-old decisions by Israel’s political leadership – put in place since Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967 – to preserve the “status quo,” police were responsible for preventing open – that is, spoken or outwardly visible – prayer by non-Muslims on the Temple Mount, as opposed to private, silent devotion. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld these restrictions on Jewish prayer. In cases of prosecution for open Jewish prayer, authorities have relied on the offense of improper conduct in a public place under Section 216(a)(4) of the Penal Law, 1977, and occasionally on additional charges.Leading the effort to ignite this “barrel of explosives” and dismantle the “status quo” is National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who in previous years was convicted of terrorism-related offenses linked to his activities in Rabbi Meir Kahane’s movement, and is now the head of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, the successor to Kahane’s Kach party. Over the past two years, he has repeatedly led public prayers on the Temple Mount under police escort – officers who neither intervened nor detained him – and has openly publicised and boasted of these actions on social media and in the press. In other words, Minister Ben-Gvir has not only personally broken the law, but has also encouraged and led others in mass lawbreaking.Also read: Indian Foreign Policy’s Tilt Towards Short-Term Gains Has Undone Its Influence, Especially in the Global SouthFor example, on October 8, 2025, Israeli minister Ben-Gvir led another public prayer on the Temple Mount and posted a video on X declaring, “Here on the Temple Mount, there is victory.” Israeli media outlets also published full footage of the public prayer he led.Minister Ben-Gvir, a lawyer by profession, knows exactly what he is doing in setting a precedent. In light of Israel’s legal prohibition on “selective enforcement,” the failure to enforce the law against him – the minister in charge of the police – effectively makes it impossible to enforce it against any other Jewish worshipper. Any Jewish citizen who is arrested or indicted could secure release and automatic acquittal, paving the way for the expansion of mass public prayers – as indeed happened, including among the crowds who participated in the prayers led by Ben-Gvir.Ben-Gvir enjoys full backing from the three authorities that could have restrained him. Prime Minister Netanyahu, for example, stated at a cabinet meeting on January 4, 2026: “The changes Ben-Gvir is making do not alter the status quo and are coordinated with me. I determine the policy.” The police – over whom Ben-Gvir presides and has effectively taken full control – have not enforced the law, either in real time, as officers escorted him during public prayers, or afterward, when they merely passed requests for a criminal investigation to the Attorney General’s Office for review. Recently, with the approval of the new Jerusalem District commander, who is considered close to Ben-Gvir, Jews were permitted for the first time to bring prayer books onto the Temple Mount, and their prayer hours were extended during Ramadan.The Attorney General has also refused to authorise a criminal investigation against Ben-Gvir and other elected officials leading prayers at the site. In particular, she has declined to open an investigation in response to three separate complaints we submitted against the minister.The public prayers led by Minister Ben-Gvir on the Temple Mount have drawn widespread international condemnation. For example, after he led prayers on October 8, 2025, the Ministry of Foreign and Expatriates Affairs of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan issued a statement condemning “the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif by the extremist Israeli minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, along with repeated incursions and provocative actions by extremist groups under the protection of Israeli occupation forces. The ministry described the act as a flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law, an unacceptable provocation, and a condemned escalation. It stressed that Israel holds no sovereignty over occupied Jerusalem and its Islamic and Christian holy sites.”Despite the paralysis of the authorities, some politicians and other figures in Israel, fearing the potential consequences, have condemned Minister Ben-Gvir and his actions at the Temple Mount. For example, opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on X on August 13, 2024, that “Ben-Gvir’s election campaign on the Temple Mount, in complete contradiction to the position of the security establishment, during wartime, endangers the lives of Israeli citizens and of our soldiers and police officers. The group of irresponsible extremists in the government is trying to drag Israel into a full-scale regional war.”The following day, five senior rabbis, including Israel’s former Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, published a video condemning pilgrimages to the Temple Mount, with Arabic subtitles included. The former Chief Rabbi said: “I call on the nations of the world, do not see those government ministers as representing the people of Israel. They do not represent the people of Israel. The majority of Jews in the Land of Israel and in the world do not make a pilgrimage to the Temple Mount. Please act to calm tensions. We all believe in one God and want peace between the nations, and we must not let extreme fringes lead us.”Yet the realisation of this nightmare of an all-out religious war appears to be precisely Minister Ben-Gvir’s goal. In pursuing it, he would not only secure the support of his political base but also advance the vision of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who viewed the struggle over the Temple Mount as a central pillar in promoting Jewish supremacy and the expulsion of Arabs.Rabbi Kahane called for the removal of the mosques and the expulsion of all Muslims, and until that time, for allowing unrestricted Jewish prayer on the site without limitation or interference. He explained: “In the Six-Day War (1967), the Messiah knocked on the door. We could have opened it with the key of sanctifying God’s name and faith, expressed through the expulsion of Arabs and the purification of the Temple Mount. But fear prevented this, and that was a desecration of God’s name.” In 1986, as a member of the Knesset, he introduced a bill to revoke the status of the Muslim Waqf, transfer administration and the keys of the Temple Mount to Israel’s Chief Rabbinate, and establish the right of Jewish prayer at the site.Rabbi Kahane understood that altering the “status quo” on the Temple Mount would lead to war, but viewed such a development as positive – a catalyst for expelling Arabs. He stated: “Without war, there is no Land of Israel for the Jewish people, and there cannot be a Jewish state secure from enemies. The commandment to settle the land is inherently bound up with mortal danger.”This is the value system underpinning Rabbi Kahane’s doctrine and that of his followers today in the Israeli government, the Knesset, and among the public: a contempt for the sanctity of life –Jewish, Arab, indeed any human life – and a readiness to sacrifice lives in pursuit of their racist and religious dystopia.Attorney Mack has filed criminal complaints, together with the Tag Meir Forum, against Minister Ben-Gvir following the mass prayers he led on the Temple Mount. Eitay Mack is an Israeli human rights lawyer who has filed petitions to the Supreme Court that helped reveal details of Israel’s involvement in Lebanon.