Temple Mount Faithful – Amutah Et Al v. Attorney-General, Inspector-General of the Police, Mayor of Jerusalem, Minister of Education and Culture, Director of the Antiquities Division, Muslim WAQF - In the Supreme Court Sitting as the High Court of Justice [September 23, 1993]

The First Temple 6. We learn of the construction, plan

A. Introduction 1. We are called upon to consider a petition dealing with certain activities on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. This subject, by its very nature, arouses intense feelings among the parties to the suit; and beyond them, it is part of a history of religious, spiritual, and political experience going back thousands of years. All this, by its very nature, leaves its mark on the arguments of the litigants, which combine both sensitivity and emotion, on the one hand, with "cold" [i.e., impassive] factual and legal arguments, on the other. As a court, our mandate is to chart a path between these, as our eyes see, our ears hear, and our hearts feel. We cannot do justice to a subject such as this on the basis of purely "legal" considerations. Rather, we are obligated to consider history as well, and that we will do.

The order of the court's deliberations will be as follows: after discussing the subject of the petition (sections 2-3), we shall first examine the history and descriptions of the Temple Mount chronologically, by historical periods: when the Jewish people Ived in its land (sections 4-16); when the Second Temple was destroyed and the Temple Mount was under the rule of different nations (sections 17-23); and when the Temple Mount was liberated in the Six-Day War (section 24). This review is necessary for an understanding of the factual and legal arguments in this proceeding. Then after setting forth the relevant statutes, we shall detail the actions claimed by Petitioners to have been taken on the Temple Mount by Respondent 6, the Waqf, and the responses of the Respondents (sections 25-27). Then we shall describe the view the court conducted on the Temple Mount in order to resolve these factual contentions. In that connection, we shall review the halakhic strictures regarding access to the Temple Mount (sections 28-32). Thereafter, we shall discuss the legal arguments of the litigants (sections 33-38), and finally set forth our decision (sections 39-48).