The actual question of Goren's radicalism remains controversial. One widely repeated story about Goren claims that shortly after the Israeli capture of the Temple Mount, the rabbi either argued that Israel should destroy the al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, or simply said that it would have been a good thing if they had been accidentally destroyed. The charge, made by General Narkiss, an eyewitness, in an interview with Haaretz that Rabbi Goren calling for the destruction of the mosques has been used to claim there is a Jewish extremism comparable to Islamic extremism. Goren's close assistant Rabbi Menachem Ha-Cohen, who was with Rabbi Goren throughout that historic day, denied ever hearing Goren make such a remark. Goren himself personally denied this charge several times. However, Goren did make a speech later that year to a military convention, recorded and later broadcast on Israel's army radio, in which he said of the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque that Certainly we should have blown it up. It is a tragedy that we did not do so.