Should the Lion’s Gate Be Reopened for Jerusalem Day?

Outgoing Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) penned a letter Monday morning to Jerusalem District Police Commander Moshe Edri and Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino, demanding to reopen the Lion’s Gate and allow tens of thousands of celebrants to march through the Muslim Quarter on Jerusalem Day.

 

“Tens of thousands of marchers entering the Old City on all sides has become the symbol of Jerusalem Day,” Ariel wrote.

 

The minister stressed that “a ban on crossing the Lions Gate Jerusalem radiates weakness and reflects a lack of Israel’s sovereignty over Greater Jerusalem.”

 

Ariel himself plans to march through the Lion’s Gate, accompanied by 100 people, in the event the police officials reconsider their decision.

 

The Lion’s Gate is of great symbolic importance due to the fact that paratroopers broke through and liberated the Old City along that route during the 1967 Six-Day War.

 

Read more: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/195280#.VVHgbpPP-M8