After discovering graffiti sprayed on the holy stones of the Temple Mount, Beyadenu, an NGO that advocates for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount, petitioned the municipality of Jerusalem to have it removed. At the same time, the organization, led by Tom Nissani, filed a complaint with the Israeli police. The graffiti was sprayed in several places in the northern section of the Temple Mount Compound. The graffiti, written in Arabic, was names of people along with nationalist and anti-Israel/anti-Semitic slogans.

Nissani received a shocking response from the mayor’s office:

“The office of Mayor Moshe Lion has received your petition concerning the situation. The municipal branch in charge of caring for the condition of the city investigated the possibility of entering to care for the problem and erase the graffiti but encountered refusal due to the security situation.”

The police responded that they “are dealing with the situation.”

Nissani was not satisfied with the response.

“The Arabs relate to the Temple Mount like it is their national playground,” he told Israel365 news. “The municipality tried to enter to deal with the problem, but the police stopped them.”

“The city of Jerusalem is responsible for the upkeep of the Temple Mount, but Israel does not enforce the laws on the Temple Mount. If this happened anywhere else in the country, if this happened in any city globally, the municipality would take care of it. Spraying graffiti on a site of this importance is unheard of.”

Nissani compared it to other locations of historical and cultural significance worldwide. 

“Of course, it is even worse at the Temple Mount, which has religious significance to the Jews. The Muslims claim that it is religiously significant to them, but it seems very strange that they would vandalize the Temple Mount if it were important to them.”

“This is our holiest site, and it is our responsibility to preserve it as a house of prayer for all nations,” Nissani said.” We are doing a disservice to the world by allowing this to happen.”

There is a long history of Arabs defacing the site. In August, graffiti proclaiming, “Today and tomorrow is our Jerusalem,” the name “Al-Aqsa,” and several names in Arabic appeared in the northern section of the Temple Mount.

After Nissani filed a complaint, he received a reply from the Jerusalem District Attorney, stating: “We have been informed that the graffiti has been removed. The police on the Temple Mount are dealing with the issue regularly.”

The nationalist slogans were removed, but the names remained. 

Even more disturbing was an incident in October 2014 when a swastika was, along with graffiti equating Jews and Nazis, was discovered on the Temple Mount.

In July 2019, the Arabic phrase “Slaughter the Jews” was spray-painted on the “Little Western Wall,” a section of the Western Wall located in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The site is considered the second closest place outside of the Temple Mount to the location of the Holy of Holies in the Second Jewish Temple, which stood on the site. As a result, the Little Western Wall is considered by Jews to be particularly sacred.