A right-wing group announced a campaign Sunday ahead of the
Passover festival calling for the construction of the Jewish Temple on the
location of the existing temple mount mosques.
The extreme right-wing Our Land of Israel party (Eretz
Israel Shelanu) said it intended to mount an extensive bus campaign, with the
slogan "May the Temple be built in our lifetime," along with an
artist's rendition of the completed temple.
One of the party's leaders, Baruch Marzel, said that it was
"a legitimate campaign meant to convey a message to the Arabs."
"The mosque on the temple mount is temporary,"
Marzel continued, referring to the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosques,
"and it's only a matter of time before the Temple which the entire people
of Israel are waiting for will be built."
The Our Land of Israel party was formed in late 2008 by
Marzel and Rabbi Shalom Wolpe as a reaction to what they saw as a weakening of
more traditional right-wing parties such as Habayit Hayehudi.
"Habayit Hayehudi, which fancies itself as representing
the right, has turned into a left-wing party that placed at its head an
anonymous professor who is not ready to commit himself to the minimum - maintaining
the settlements and Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria," Wolpe said
at the time.
Wolpe and Marzel claimed at the party's formation that the
Likud party had turned into a party that is persecuting all Jews loyal to the
Land of Israel. They cited the efforts by the Likud party leadership to
marginalize Moshe Feiglin as an example.
Wolpe added that the Israeli government has turned into
"an enemy of the people.
"This government collaborates with the enemy and helps
it during a time of war," he said. "Everyone should check the Even
Shushan dictionary, in an effort to understand the definition of such
behavior," Wolpe said.