A major critic of the decision of the Chief Rabbinate was Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the chief rabbi of the IDF. According to General Uzi Narkiss, who led the Israeli force that conquered the Temple Mount, Goren proposed to him that the Dome of the Rock be immediately blown up. After Narkiss refused, Goren unsuccessfully petitioned the government to close off the Mount to Jews and non-Jews alike. Later he established his office on the Mount and conducted a series of demonstrations on the Mount in support of the right of Jewish men to enter there. His behavior displeased the government, which restricted his public actions, censored his writings, and in August prevented him from attending the annual Oral Law Conference at which the question of access to the Mount was debated. Although there was considerable opposition, the conference consensus was to confirm the ban on entry to Jews. The ruling said We have been warned, since time immemorial [lit. for generations and generations], against entering the entire area of the Temple Mount and have indeed avoided doing so. According to Ron Hassner, the ruling brilliantly solved the government's problem of avoiding ethnic conflict, since those Jews who most respected rabbinical authority were those most likely to clash with Muslims on the Mount.