Jordan Stages “Diplomatic Incident” Over Temple Mount, Claims Envoy Stopped From Visiting The Holy Site
The Arab kingdom of Jordan is trying to incite Arab and Muslim religious sentiments against Israel by staging a “diplomatic incident” over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Jordan, Israel’s Arab neighbor to the east, summoned the Israeli ambassador after Jerusalem police briefly stopped its envoy from visiting the holy site to coordinate his tour.
“Jordan’s Foreign Ministry said its ambassador to Israel, Ghassan Majali, was blocked from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, the third-holiest site in Islam,” The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
In “strongly-worded letter of protest” addressed to the Israeli government, Jordan declared that it has custodial rights over the biblical site — a privilege granted by Israel despite liberating Jerusalem in the 1967 war. “The letter included a reminder that the Jordan-run Jerusalem Waqf Department is the exclusive authority supervising holy sites in Jerusalem, including Al-Aqsa Mosque, the statement said,” the Qatari state-owned Al Jazeera TV reported.
According to the so-called “Status-Quo Agreement,” Jews cannot pray at the holy site where the first and second Jewish Temples were situated.
The Jerusalem Post reported what happened on Tuesday:
The Israel Police, which has security control over the Temple Mount, said that its officers had not been notified in advance of the visit and asked Jordan’s Ambassador Ghassan Majali to wait while they checked the situation with their superiors.
Jordan orchestrated the diplomatic incident just weeks after the country’s ruler King Abdullah threatened Israel against crossing red lines with regard to the status of the sacred biblical site.
“Jordan’s Abdullah warns Israel not to cross ‘red lines’ on Jerusalem holy sites,” The Times of Israel reported on December 28, “Monarch says ‘quite prepared’ for conflict if Temple Mount status quo altered,” the newspaper added.
Neither Israel’s newly-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his predecessors expressed any desire to alter Temple Mount’s status.
Biden Admin, Mainstream Media Enrage at Israeli Minister’s Recent Temple Mount Visit
Palestinians, the Arab states, and the mainstream media were furious when Israel’s newly-appointed National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited the Temple Mount on January 3. The minister, who heads the conservative Otzma Yehudit party, merely toured the site and did not offer any prayers in keeping with the “status quo.”
But this was enough to anger the Biden White House. “The Biden administration slammed as “unacceptable” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Temple Mount visit …, which sparked global condemnation and created immediate friction between Israel’s new government and the US,” The Jerusalem Post reported.
The mainstream media framed the visit as a ‘provocation’ to Arabs and Muslims. “Israeli far-right leader’s Al-Aqsa visit sparks outrage,” the public broadcaster NPR reported.
The Israeli minister’s visit to the holiest site of Judaism “drew international condemnation,” CNN claimed. Labeling his as a minister in the “most right-wing government in Israel’s history,” the broadcaster told its readers that Ben-Gvir “believes that Jews should have the right to pray there, too.” What a shocking notion!
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