Israel's Temple Mount movement funded by government ministries

+972 has a story today on the history of the movement to allow Jews to pray at the al-Aqsa compound, known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount.

Aviv Tatarsky, who has been closely following the activity of the Temple Mount societies for Ir Amim, told MEE that while the movement has been gaining support among a certain segment of Israeli society, to a large extent they still remain on the fringes.

“For many decades they were considered very fringe … in the last five years they have begun getting funding from government ministries like the Education Ministry and have managed to change the way they are presenting what they are doing," he said.

Tatarksy says that in the past year, the societies have stopped speaking about building a third temple and instead focused on Jewish rights to pray there, a strategy he says has been successful in garnering mainstream support within the national religious sector.

But the researcher, who spoke at the event where the attempt was made on Glick’s life on Wednesday night, noted that there were only “maximum 70 participants at a major conference” for the movement.

“There’s a gap between how important it is to the people supporting them, such as MK Moshe Feiglin and [Minister of Housing Uri Ariel]… including the fact that they have backing in the coalition and have managed to impose on the police to change their policies regarding the Temple Mount [and mainstream opinion]. This is quite dangerous and doesn’t fit in with what the vast majority of the Israeli public wants.”