By Yedidya Ben Or, Gil Ronen: The Israel Police were well aware of the threats on Yehuda Glicks life quite a while before he was shot, recordings prove. Col. Avi Biton, Commander of the Jerusalem Polices David Precinct, said in a meeting with Glick two months ago that police are familiar with the threats against Glicks life. The recordings were played by Galei Yisrael radios Kalman Libeskind on Monday morning. After a long period in which Glick was barred from the Temple Mount, he met Biton together with a friend, Yaakov Haneman. When Glicks ban expired, he was allowed back on the Mount, where he began suffering regular attacks by a group of Muslim men who call themselves the Murabitoun, and who have a habit of confronting Jewish visitors to the Mount in an attempt to scare them off. Col. Biton called the situation “unbearable” and turned to talk about Glick himself. Mr. Glick turns into a red rag (to a bull),” he explained. “I mean, the number of times you ascend, and again – I, personally, really do not care, you can ascend to the Temple Mount 80 times, but I want to create a balance, I see what the other side thinks, I see what the other side writes. OK, by the way, you have been warned here,” said Biton. “Youve been warned to avoid getting hurt.We did, after all, have some intelligence information that someone wants to hurt you. Glick replied: “I get this (threats) on Facebook every day.” Biton: Fine, OK. Glick: “Its as if they threaten my life daily.” Bitons response was surprisingly blase: Like everywhere in Israel, he said, referring to ongoing Arab violence elsewhere in the country. Col. Biton then told Glick and Haneman that he met the Murabitoun several days earlier and that when asked what bothers them they told him: “It bothers us that Yehuda Glick goes up into the Mount 4-5 times a day. We see it as a provocation.” Haneman warned Biton: “You want to maintain quiet on the Temple Mount, we understand this, but if you do not prevent the Arabs from continuing to ratchet up their violence against us, they could pull a knife at at some stage, do more serious things, reach a situation that you dont even want to arrive at.” Tragically, that prediction proved all too accurate when Glick was shot and critically injured by an Islamist gunmen last week, as he emerged from a conference on Jewish rights on the Temple Mount. The recording directly refutes claims by Israeli police chief Yohanan Danino that the force did not know of any specific threats against Glicks life prior to the shooting. Following the shooting, Glicks father claimed his son had complained at least five times to police about death threats he had received - and that none of them were taken seriously. Glicks wife accused police of abandoning the Temple Mount activist, noting that instead of protecting him police had opted to punish him for his continued peaceful campaign for Jewish prayer rights on Judaisms holiest site. Meanwhile, Islamist groups continue to incite against Jewish activists who visit the Temple Mount. On Sunday, a graphic published online by Muslim extremists features 15 Temple Mount activists - including Glick, whose picture is the only one in black-and-white - along with an implicit threat against them.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 11:52:19 +0000
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