JERUSALEM (AP) — A senior ultra-Orthodox lawmaker says protestations of liberal Jews over alternative access to Jerusalem's Western Wall are merely provocation since they don't even believe in the sanctity of the site.

Deputy Finance Minister Yitzhak Cohen of Shas says worship practices at the site — the last retaining wall of the biblical Jewish temple — have been in place for centuries and not everyone can "come and change the rules."

Leaders of the Reform and Conservative movements have canceled meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to protest his government's decision to scrap plans for a mixed-gender prayer area. They're warning of an unprecedented crisis between Israel and the Jewish diaspora.

Cohen told Israel's Army Radio Tuesday that "the Western Wall doesn't interest Reform Jews. They don't believe in the Holy Temple."