​PM Netanyahu's Remarks at the Start of the Weekly Cabinet Meeting
(Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Advisor)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this morning (Sunday, 18 October 2015), made the following remarks at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting:
Israel cannot accept the French draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council. It doesn’t mention Palestinian incitement; it doesn’t mention Palestinian terrorism; and it calls for the internationalization of the Temple Mount.
Well, we've seen across the Middle East – in Palmyra, in Iraq, throughout Iraq and elsewhere how the militant Muslims blast each other's mosques to the sky. We've just seen it in a Jewish holy site, Joseph's Tomb. Only Israel, Israel alone, is the guarantor of the holy sites on the Temple Mount.
The reason the status quo has been violated is not because we changed it. We didn’t change anything. The orders of prayer, the visiting rights have not changed for the last 15 years. The only thing that's changed are Islamist hoodlums paid by the Islamist Movement in Israel and by Hamas, who are entering the mosque and try to put explosive [unclear]and from there emerge and attack Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount, and Christian visitors. That's the only change in the status quo.
Israel will protect the holy sites, will guard the status quo. Israel is not the problem on the Temple Mount. Israel is the solution.