Yaalon Resignation Fallout: Right-Wing Yehuda Glick to Become MK

With the resignation of Moshe Yaalon as Defense Minister – and from the Knesset – the way is clear for the next in line on the Likud list to enter the plenum as a Knesset member. And next on the list is Yehuda Glick, a right-wing activist who is strongly identified with the right of Jews to Har HaBayis.

Glick is well-known for his confrontation of the Muslim Wakf, which controls the day-to-day activities on Har HaBayis. About a year and a half ago, an Arab terrorist shot Glick, badly injuring him, over his advocacy of Jewish rights to Har HaBayis. The leading poskim have ruled that it is forbidden, al pi halachah, to go up to Har HaBayis.

Glick has a long history of activism both in and out of the Likud. He was a charter member of former MK Moshe Feiglin’s “Jewish Leadership” movement within the Likud, and has been a member of the Likud Central Committee since 1997. Although not an MK heretofore, Glick is also chairman of the Knesset committee to impose Israeli law on Yehudah and Shomron. Since 2008 he has chaired the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, an organization that seeks to ensure Israeli sovereignty over Har HaBayis.

As such, he is identified with the far right of the Likud – and in response, Zionist Camp MK Yael Cohen-Paran said that she would boycott Glick’s swearing in next week. “The Knesset is facing an earthquake with the resignation of a moral and reasonable man and his replacement with a radical, dangerous, and frankly crazy individual,” she wrote in a social media post Friday. “This is the mirror image of the Netanyahu administration, that is pushing Israelis to tragedy after tragedy. I will not see him become a Knesset member.”