Jordan and the Palestinians have reached an understanding on a new status quo paper for the Temple Mount.
Last Saturday, at the White House, the King of Jordan, Abdullah, presented the outlines of these understandings.
The king and his men have asked President Joe Biden for an American back to restore the status quo on the Temple Mount to the pre-2000 reality. The president has listened, and Jordanian officials say he has shown sympathy.
Jordan has a list of demands, but first of all it asks the United States to force Israel to stop the prayers of the Jews on the Temple Mount, which have been going on there for about five years. What is acceptable to Jordan is acceptable to us.
Whether the "dismissal" of MK Yom Tov Kalfon from the Knesset is the result of an ultimatum on the part of Ra'am, against the background of his activities for the benefit of the Jews and their prayers on the Temple Mount, or not - the prayer clause in the new status quo paper creates great drama in relations between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom.
The same demand for the cessation of Jewish prayers was heard by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett directly from King Abdullah and rejected. The Prime Minister's Office claims that "it was not and was not created" and that Jordan does not demand it, but professionals confirm the information.
Official Israel is careful not to formally address these silent prayers, which are an open secret, documented, photographed and held in order on the eastern side of the mountain, without external signs such as a tallit, tefillin or sidur.
Despite this, Israel is determined to preserve this, its only achievement, in the face of a series of fundamental changes that Muslims have made in the status quo on the mountain over the years - four new mosques, reduced Jewish visiting times on the mountain and their territories, closing cotton gates and chaining to Jews, severe damage to mountain archeology And, of course, a mask of terrorist attacks and riots around the false plot of "Al-Aqsa in Danger."
President Biden,
Levant has a short and tumultuous history on the issue of Jewish prayers on the mountain, although he was not the first to confirm them.
The prayers began with the tacit consent of Gilad Ardan, Minister of Internal Security.
Benjamin Netanyahu, although he never admitted it, also approved them, he also sat in front of King Abdullah who asked him to stop them and he also refused to commit to it.
Control games
When Bennett entered the Prime Minister's Office, he encountered this reality, which he had not known closely before, and decided to flow with it.
A month after he entered the bureau - unlike his predecessor, who kept quiet and fell over the Jews' prayers on the mountain - Bennett announced that freedom of worship would be maintained for members of all religions on the Temple Mount, meaning Jews as well.
The Jordanians were furious.
The United States sided with the Jordanian position. The Prime Minister made it clear to Bennett even then that she could not remain in his coalition, and the Prime Minister quickly withdrew.
But now it turns out it was not a mistake.
Whoever was then in the secret of things says that in the background of the original message were the prayers of the Jews on the mountain, and the desire to give them legitimacy.
Bennett not only did not make a mistake then - he even rejected a demand by the Jordanian king to prevent the prayers of the Jews in the east of the mountain.
Moreover: In the first half of the last Ramadan, when the Temple Mount was open to Jews, the Prime Minister rejected a repeated Jordanian demand in this regard, and even rejected a recommendation by professionals to accede to the Jordanian demand coordinated with Abu Mazen, to prevent Jewish prayers on the mountain. , Only in the first half of the month of Ramadan.
Next month, President Biden will probably visit Israel, and he is expected to raise with Bennett the demand of King Abdullah, with whom he met last week, and back it up.
Biden will remind Bennett of the 2015 Kerry girls (former US Secretary of State), of whom former Prime Minister Netanyahu was a partner.
These understandings, reached at the height of a wave of terror and earlier knives across Israel, were formulated in a joint meeting of Netanyahu, Abdullah and Kerry.
They stated that Israel would continue to enforce its long-standing religious worship policy on the Temple Mount, according to which Muslims can pray there, and non-Muslims can only visit it.
Currently, Bennett rejects not only the demand to stop the prayers of the Jews on the mountain, but also the Jordanian-Palestinian demand to remove the border guards from the nine mountain gates, and replace them with guards from the Jordanian Waqf. Asks Israel to agree to double their number.
An equally important but controversial section with Jordan, which came up a week ago in the White House and will probably come up at Bennett and Biden's upcoming meeting, deals with the fact that Waqf members were removed a few years ago from one of Jordan's most prestigious positions on the mountain.
This change hurts Jordan in a special way, because it deprives her of the real, or imagined, feeling that the Waqf people working on her behalf on the mountain are the owners of the house in it and according to which anything will be settled there.
This change also took place during Arden's tenure as Minister of Internal Security, both against the background of the growing concern for the safety of Jewish visitors and against the background of his agreement to increase their numbers.
Israel has been adhering to this change for six years, and few know that the state even notified it to the High Court. The state's position on "the limits of the authority of the Waqf members on the Temple Mount," as a "binding position."
"All visitors to the Temple Mount, as described above," Rubinstein quoted from the state's response to the petition, "are accompanied by Israeli government police officers, and the Waqf has no authority to act directly with the visitors. "To the Israeli police officers on the spot and to ask for their intervention in what is happening ... The exercise of discretion and decisions in the handling of these cases are solely in the hands of the Israeli police officers."
Abu Mazen and Abdullah,
Israel's insistence on Jordan that only Israeli policemen (without Waqf members) accompany the Jewish visitors to the mountain is also related to the fact that over the years, Hamas members who turned out to be terrorists were integrated into the Waqf apparatus.
Dozens of them have been arrested in the past.
The security forces do not donate information about this, but this involvement was recently documented in a report prepared by the "Jewish Voice". Our investigation shows that the facts in this report are not denied by security officials, .
Hamas fingerprint
Here is a summary of some of the report's findings: "Jerusalem's Central Charity Committee," an organization whose offices are located on the Temple Mount, was run by senior Hamas official Khaled Sabah, against whom indictments have recently been filed. Al-Qiswani, director of the Al-Aqsa Mosque;
Two British organizations, which Israel defines as terrorist organizations, will budget for the association that operated on the mountain under the auspices of the Waqf.
The terrorist Fadi Abu Shahidam, who murdered Eliyahu Kay, is also a Hamas man who taught a course sponsored by the Waqf.
To all of this must be added Waqf officials such as Najah Bakirat or Fadi Aliyan (who was recently accused of involvement in shooting attacks against police in Issawiya) as well as Nitzani back to the mountain of the Morabitat women (affiliated with Hamas and the northern faction) who were removed from the mountain and outlawed. The lives of Jewish visitors.
And above all this practice has an overall strategic vision, which greatly affects the high Israeli sensitivity to the Jordanian demands on the Temple Mount, many of which are generously met.
The scorching historical memory that accompanies the conduct of the royal house on the Temple Mount extends until the loss of the Hashemite dynasty the role of "guardian of the holy places to Islam" in Mecca and the state to the Saudis, after the First World War.
Jordan was then comforted by the secondary guardianship of the holy places of Islam in Jerusalem, a status that was also maintained in the framework of the understandings with Israel after 1967, and was even upgraded in the framework of the 1994 peace agreement.
Orientalist Pinchas Inbari, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public and State Affairs and an expert on the Palestinian and Arab world, mentions that the legitimacy of the Hashemite family in Jordan to continue to hold the monarchy rests on its status as the guardian of holy places for Islam in Jerusalem.
"If they lose the Temple Mount to Judaism, they are finished," says Inbari.
"Its status among the tribes has greatly deteriorated in recent years. The southern tribes of the kingdom are in a state of unrest and rebellion, the northern tribes - with their eyes on Syria, and only the tribes from the center, around Amman, still support the king and constitute his high command and intelligence boulevard. About half of the population are Palestinians and another 30 percent are refugees from Iraq and Syria.
The main requirements
Return to the status quo before 2000, including the cessation of Jewish prayers on Mt.
Doubling the number of Waqf guards
Placing the Waqf guards at the nine mountain gates in place of the Israeli police
Accompanying Waqf members to the groups of Jewish visitors, significantly reducing their number and significantly shortening their walking route
Collection of payment from Jewish visitors and tourists entering the mountain, as was the case many years ago
The status of Israeli visitors to the mountain will be a failure for tourists, and the Waqf will be able to disqualify "problematic" visitors
"Israel understands very well that if the Hashemite monarchy falls - and the Temple Mount can be a trigger for that - the loss and danger for Israel will be enormous. In that case, Jordan will become a huge Gaza, with a tangible missile threat, as from the south and north. Our longing and doing the work for us there.The peace with Jordan, the understandings, the common interests and the cooperation with it on a range of security, economic and intelligence issues - are all critical and allow the IDF to concentrate on sectors and borders that are not peaceful borders.
Therefore, we, as a country, have a huge interest in stability on the Temple Mount and in strengthening the status of Jordan there, also at our expense. "
"'Pay attention to the economy"
Dr. David Koren, Director General of the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Studies, has amassed a long mileage on the Jordanian issue as head of the Middle East Department at the National Security Council, and is closely familiar with the security relationship with Jordan. "It could be a satisfactory foundation for the relationship, when in the political, religious and economic aspects - things are much looser."
What are those common security interests?
"Mainly the fight against radical Islam. On the Jordanian side are the Muslim Brotherhood, the most significant opposition to the royal family there, and on the Israeli side - Hamas. ".
Alongside the security cooperation, which we learn about mostly from foreign publications, you describe loose relations at the political, economic and religious level.
"The relationship between Israel and Jordan is a bit like a tango between hedgehogs. The closeness is in the security field. The thorns are in the political, economic and religious sphere - regarding Jerusalem. Their mountain is religious and political and has a historical background.A year ago, Prince Hussein, Abdullah's son, wanted to visit the mountain, but the visit did not materialize because the Israeli side was not willing to be accompanied by armed Jordanian police, and the Jordanian side was not willing to be accompanied by the prince. "By Israeli armed police. This is a specific case that best illustrates the dilemma; a point that is very difficult to find a win-win."
And what about normalization with Israel?
"The Jordanian king is having a hard time promoting it. More than half of Jordan's population is Palestinian, and the Bedouin tribes are also opposed to normalization with Israel. Two more events must be added: The second - publications about the large capital that Abdullah holds in tax havens in Europe and the United States.
"Given the very difficult economic situation in Jordan, these publications painted the royal house in a very unflattering light. Therefore, it is quite possible that part of the escalation in Jordanian rhetoric regarding the Temple Mount, hoisting a Palestinian flag on the Dome for ten days "They are a Jordanian attempt to divert the public's attention from the internal troubles."
Koren notes that in recent years the status quo on the Temple Mount has been reshaped "from the bottom up, from the field. The leaderships are largely aligned with the field. This is a conduct that has not been in the past and is a change in itself."
To Jerusalem's decision-makers, he recommends improving performance vis-à-vis Jordan in the economic sphere: "My assessment is that if the Jordanians were more satisfied in the economic sphere, where they feel peace with Israel has been completely missed, and have very specific and focused expectations - then they might have initiated fewer political crises." .
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