Warning from Jordan

Jordan said it opposes any effort to change the status quo at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Saudi Arabia this week.

In a statement Wednesday, the Jordanian foreign ministry said it rejects “attempts to alter the historical and legal status quo” at the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif or Al-Aqsa Mosque. “The kingdom will continue its efforts to protect and care for the mosque, and preserve the rights of all Muslims to it in compliance with the Hashemite custodianship of Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian holy sites,” spokesman Daifallah al-Fayez said, according to the Guardian. 

The comments came after Netanyahu held talks Sunday with Saudi Arabia’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Saudi Red Sea city of Neom, along with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, reportedly including discussions on Iran and normalization.

The warming ties between Jerusalem and Riyadh are raising concerns in Amman that Israel could seek to shift custodianship over the Temple Mount from the Jordanians to the Saudis. Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy has been custodian of the site since 1924.

The Waqf, a Jordanian-appointed council, oversees Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem. It claims exclusive authority over the Temple Mount compound and says it is not subject to Israeli jurisdiction. Tensions often escalate at the site.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

George Soros at the Davos Forum

Dear Friends and Colleagues,   I thought you would be interested in reading George's remarks he delivered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this evening.   Best regards, Michael Vachon   George Soros Remarks delivered at the World Economic Forum Davos, Switzerland January 25, 2018 The current moment in history Good evening. It has become something of an annual Davos tradition for me to give an overview of the current state of the world. I was planning half an hour for my remarks and half an hour for questions, but my speech has turned out to be closer to an hour. I attribute this to the severity of the problems confronting us. After I’ve finished, I’ll open it up for your comments and questions. So prepare yourselves. *** I find the current moment in history rather painful. Open societies are in crisis, and various forms of dictatorships and mafia states, exemplified by Putin’s Russia, are on the rise. In the United States, President Trump would
Read more

Defining the Biden Doctrine

  In his first major foreign-policy speech as U.S. president, Joe Biden declared to the world that America was back. The international sigh of relief was almost audible amid hopes that former President Donald Trump’s disruptive style was a relic. Biden has pursued an ambitious agenda to repair alliances and forge new ones, curb corruption, arrest democratic backsliding, and tackle climate change, all while managing the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, Russian threats to Ukraine, and escalating tensions with China.  It hasn’t all been plain sailing. The decision to withdraw remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan precipitated the collapse of the country’s government and chaos in Kabul as hundreds of thousands of people fled the Taliban. Plans to share nuclear submarine technology with Australia, at the expense of Canberra’s submarine deal with Paris, soured trans-Atlantic relations.  Ahead of the anniversary of Biden’s inauguration,  Foreign Policy ’s Amy Mackinnon spoke with one of t
Read more