For a selection of cases in which Honenu Attorneys represented Jews detained on or near the Temple Mount, please click here.
Wednesday, February 26, 2025, 8:54 Last Friday, a Jewish Israeli citizen filmed himself trying to enter the Temple Mount from the Old City of Jerusalem. When he reached the gates, police officers barred his passage. After the incident, he posted the video clip (see below) on social media. Several hours later, police officers arrived at his home and detained him on suspicion of insulting an officer. The detainee was held in remand over Shabbat. The police brought him to court Saturday night, after Shabbat, and requested a three-day remand extension. Honenu Attorney Moshe Poleski is representing the detainee. He argued that his client did not commit any crime, and that the detention was purely an act of revenge by the police for posting the video clip that portrayed them as discriminating against Jews. Attorney Poleski demanded his client’s release. The court accepted his argument, and released the detainee to his home.
Attorney Poleski leveled sharp criticism at the police: “This was a scandalous detention, completely for the purpose of revenge, an abuse of the authority granted to the Israel Police, only because an individual dared to post in a WhatsApp group documentation of the police policy prohibiting Jews from entering the Temple Mount. My client did indeed take notice of this discriminatory policy, which is reminiscent of policies from the British Mandate, ancient Roman rule, and the Ottoman Empire, each of which, in their own time, prohibited Jews from entering the Temple Mount. My client even mentioned that it seems that the discriminatory policy of the Israel Police serves the Jordanian Waqf.”
Attorney Poleski added, “To my great astonishment, and despite my letters insisting to the police officers that there was no justification to detain a Shabbat-observant Jew, the Israel Police detained him over Shabbat, through no fault of his own. This is simply incredible. I innocently thought that Israel was a democratic state in which a citizen is allowed to express criticism of the government. My client did not clash with the police. He did not refuse to obey their orders, and he was not detained at the scene. My client returned home to Ashqelon, when suddenly someone from the senior ranks of the Merchav David (Old City) Police realized that a video clip of the incident had been posted in a WhatsApp group. Motivated by anger and revenge, they sent a police car to my client’s home in Ashqelon on Friday. Officers raided his home and detained him only because he dared to criticize police policy. The abuse continued: My client, a Shabbat-observant Jew, found himself in a detention center over Shabbat. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court ruled that there was not even a reasonable suspicion of carrying out a crime. This is simply a disgrace.”
The interaction with the police at the entrance to the Temple Mount; Video courtesy of the videographer