Jeremy Gimpel, an Israeli candidate from the Abayit Hayehudi (Jewish house) party running in Israel’s general election on the 22nd January 2013, has sparked outrage by calling for the blowing up Al-Aqsa Masjid, Islam’s third holiest site, to rebuild the alleged Temple of Solomon.

Speaking at the Fellowship Church in Florida in the United States which was broadcast on Israeli Channel 2 this past Friday (18th January), Gimpel an ordained rabbi, asked the audience what would happen if Al-Aqsa Mosque was blown up. “Imagine if the Golden Dome, I’m being recorded so I can’t say ‘blown up’, but let’s say the Dome was blown up, right? And we laid the cornerstone of the Temple in Jerusalem. Can you imagine? None of you would be here. All of you would be like, ‘I’m going to Israel, right?’ No one would be here, it would be incredible,” said Gimpel.

The call has also sparked furore inside Israel, with former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, the leader of Hatnua, a rival party petitioning the central election committee to bar the US-born candidate and disqualify him from running in Tuesday’s election because of his remarks. “The mask has been ripped off. The delusional, lunatic list to be brought to the Knesset is threatening to ignite the entire Middle East and bring about a third world war,” said Yoel Hasson, a member of the Israeli Knesset.

Hafidah Rehaana Omar, Radio Islam’s Middle East correspondent said a Jewish newspaper Jerusalem also made mention of an incident where the Jewish Municipal Council issued demolition orders last week against two Palestinian masaajid, one in Tur town and the other in Bab Al-Amoud, a neighborhood east of Jerusalem. “So we find that this whole issue of the settlement, the E1 settlements, the demolition of Muslim homes, spiritual heritage sites, and masaajid, all of this is continuing as part of a strategy to obliterate religious and the spiritual history of Palestine, while the world and Muslim world literally sits by and watches all of this happening,” added Hafidah Omar.

Sheikh Yousuf Dowais, chairman of the Palestinian Higher Shari`ah Judicial Council and head of the Palestinian Shari`ah Higher Court said, “This is a serious challenge and a fundamental provocative call to the entire Muslim world. The Dome of the Rock and the entire Al-Aqsa Compound [Al Haram Al Sharif] are greater, bigger and purer than being used to make political and electoral gains.”

After making the comments, Gimple has rebutted and said he was “joking” when he made the comments. “This lecture was given to a Christian group as I was teaching about the book of Ezra, a story that happened over 2,000 years ago,” Gimpel’s spokesman told The Times of Israel.

“In order to make the lecture more lively I made a few jokes and you clearly hear the audience laughing. This is a cheap political attack and I would urge anyone to watch the video in its entirety and decide for yourselves,” added Gimple.

Dowais condemned the demolition call as part of Israel’s systematic aggression of holy places in the occupied Palestinian lands. He said the Israeli occupation is waging an unprecedented attack against the holiest Islamic and Christian sites in the holy land and saving [Occupied] Jerusalem is a basic religious duty of every Arab and Muslim in the world. “It is time for Arabs and Muslims to act in protection of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Compound [Al Haram Al Sharif], added Dowais.

Israeli voters are going to polling stations on Tuesday, January 22, to elect a new parliament.