Jordanian King Abdullah II warned Israel’s new government to cross Jordan’s “red lines” when it comes to Jerusalem’s holy sites, while expressing fears about the possibility of a major outbreak of Palestinian unrest.
In an interview with CNN broadcast Wednesday, Abdullah asked if he believed the prestige quo in Jerusalem and Jordan’s role were threatened.
Jordan sees itself as the father of the Temple Mount, creating a potential showdown with extremist lawmakers in incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, such as Otzmah Yehudit leader Itamar Ben Gvir, who has pushed Israel to assert sovereignty over the holy site of Jerusalem and allow Jewish worship. there.
“You have those other people looking to push this forward and that’s a concern,” Abdullah said without naming names.
“If other people need to bump into us, we are fully prepared. I like to believe that ‘Let’s look at the glass half full,’ but we’ve set red lines and if other people need to push back those red lines, we’ll take care of it. “
Abdullah noted that “there are many other people in Israel involved as much as we are. “
The Temple Mount is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. Jews are also the historic location of the two Jewish temples, making it the holiest site in Judaism.
Israel captured the Temple Mount and the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. However, this allowed the Jordanian Waqf to continue to exercise devout authority in the most sensible part of the Mount. As part of its 1994 peace treaty, Israel identified the “special role of Amman. . . at the Muslim holy sites of Jerusalem. “
– Shahar Alharal (@ShaharAl2) December 28, 2022
Ben Gvir and other far-right politicians have long called for adjusting the prestige quo, according to which only Muslims can pray in the compound, while Jews can go to Judaism’s holiest site but not pray there.
Otzma Yehudit’s head will head a new Ministry of National Security that will oversee police in the next government. Israeli police are building daily policies on the Temple Mount, which could give Ben Gvir significant influence over arrangements at the hotspot site.
However, the coalition agreement signed by Netanyahu’s entire bloc stipulates that the quo “regarding holy sites” will be maintained.
In the CNN interview, Abdullah also asked if he was involved in the prospect of a third Palestinian intifada, or uprising, after months of West Bank violence.
The first two intifadas, in the late 1980s and early 2000s, were marked by fatal terror attacks against Israelis and clashes with troops almost always.
“We have to talk about the next intifada,” Abdullah said. “And if that happens, it is a total breakdown of law and order and from which neither Israelis nor Palestinians will benefit.
“It’s a tinderbox that, if it blinks, is something I don’t think we can walk away from in the near future,” he added.
The interview with the Jordanian monarch aired a day before the inauguration of the new government of Israel, which is expected to be the greatest right-wing and devoted in the country’s history.
During Netanyahu’s last term as prime minister between 2009 and 2021, ties between Jerusalem and Amman deteriorated markedly, with Abdullah saying in 2019 that they were “at an all-time low” after a series of incidents that led Jordan to recall its ambassador to Israel.
Notable fights come with Netanyahu’s embrace of a security guard he sent back to Israel after shooting dead two Jordanian citizens, one of whom attacked him with a screwdriver, in the Israeli embassy apartment in Amman in 2017, prompting an angry reaction from Jordan; and the Jordanian resolution in March 2021 to prevent the then-Israeli prime minister from flying over Jordan in the direction of Abu Dhabi following a cancelled stopover on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem via Crown Prince Hussein.
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