Israeli fire­brand Ben Gvir chal­lenges Netanyahu on Tem­ple Mount

Israel’s con­tro­ver­sial Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ita­mar Ben Gvir vis­it­ed the al Aqsa Mosque com­pound on the Tem­ple Mount on Tues­day, a reli­gious and polit­i­cal provo­ca­tion that threat­ens to frac­ture Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu’s gov­ern­ment.
“The bunch of irre­spon­si­ble extrem­ists in the gov­ern­ment is try­ing to drag Israel to an all-out region­al war,” Israeli oppo­si­tion leader Yair Lapid said after Ben Gvir led a group of politi­cians and wor­ship­pers to the holy site. “These peo­ple can’t run a coun­try.”
Netanyahu empha­sized that Ben Gvir does not run the coun­try and so lacks the author­i­ty to flout the “sta­tus quo” — an arrange­ment in which the site is admin­is …