Jordan and the Palestinian Authority have reached a new understanding with regard to the Temple Mount status quo. At the White House on Saturday, King Abdullah presented the conditions of this new understanding. The king accused Israel of gradually encroaching on the status quo, outlined several demands, and asked President Joe Biden for support.
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Amman, which holds custodianship over Muslim and Christian sites around the Temple Mount, demands that Jerusalem cease Jewish prayer at the site, which began about five years ago. This is also the demand of the Ra'am Islamist party, or as its leader, Mansour Abbas put it: what is acceptable to Jordan is acceptable to us.
Abdullah had previously made the same demand from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who rejected it. The Prime Minister's Office adamantly denied this even happened, but sources involved in the matter confirm so.
Israel makes a point of not addressing these silent prayers formally, although the matter is a well-known secret that takes place on the eastern side of the Temple Mount, albeit without traditional Jewish prayer items such as tallit, tefillin, or siddur.
And yet, Israel is determined to safeguard this achievement – a sole one – in the face of a series of fundamental changes the Muslims have made to the status quo on the mountain over the years – having built several new mosques, limited the times and areas Jews are allowed to visit, at times denied Jews access to the site altogether, damaged archeological sites located there, and last but not least, held protests and fired rockets at Israel under the false pretext of "Al-Aqsa being under attack."
Bennett has a short, but tumultuous history when it comes to Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. The silent prayers began with the quiet consent of then-Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also approved it, although he would never admit it. He too was asked by Abdullah to stop Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount and rejected the Jordanian monarch.
When Bennet became prime minister, he had to face this reality, which he was unfamiliar with before, so he decided to go with the flow. He also studied the Temple Mount clause in Trump's "deal of the century," which was designed to ensure future freedom of prayer at the site, for both Jews and Muslims.
Unlike his predecessor, who kept quiet on the matter of Jewish prayer at the flashpoint site, Bennett announced shortly after taking office that freedom of worship would be maintained on the Temple Mount for all religions, including Jews. Jordan – unsurprisingly – was furious, and the US sided with the Hashemite Kingdom.
Already then, Ra'am made it clear to Bennett that they would be unable to remain in the coalition unless he recanted, which he quickly did. In a statement, his office hastily clarified that he had meant that freedom to visit would be maintained at the site for the Jews, not freedom of worship.
Although now it turns out it was not a mistake after all. One source familied with the matter revealed that the original intention was to give legitimacy to Jewish prayer at the site, and not only did Bennett not make a mistake but – as mentioned above – outright rejected the Jordanian demand to cease Jewish prayers at the site.
Moreover, in the first half of the month of Ramadan, when the Temple Mount was open to Jews, the prime minister rejected yet another request – this time to cease Jewish prayer at the beginning of the holy Muslim month – and went against the recommendation of his advisers.
Biden is expected to visit Israel next month, and most likely, raise the matter of Abdullah's demand, with whom he met last week. The US president will remind Bennett of the 2015 Israel visit of then-Secretary of State John Kerry, who determined together with Abdullah and Netanyahu that Israel would continue its long-standing Temple Mount policy, according to which Muslims can pray at the site, but non-Muslims can only visit.
For now, not only has Bennett refused to comply with the Jordanian demand, but he also rejected the demand to remove Border Police officers from the gates of the Old City and replace them with Jordanian Waqf security guards. That is another of Jordan's demands: put the Muslim Waqf in charge of quelling any unrest that might erupt, and only turn to Israeli security forces if needed. Jordan pays the salaries of 256 Waqf members and has requested a doubling of their number.
Several years ago, Waqf officials were stripped of the task of accompanying and supervising Jewish groups that visit the Temple Mount, a task Jordan views as prestigious and important. It must pain them to not have that feeling of being in charge of the site.
This change also took place when Erdan was public security minister, against the backdrop of growing concern for the safety of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount and an agreement to increase the number allowed to visit there.
Israel's insistence on having only Israeli security officers accompany the Jewish visitors is also linked to the fact that over the years, Hamas was revealed to have links with the Waqf, with dozens of members having been arrested.
Security officials are not eager to share this information, which has recently been revealed in The Jewish Voice. An Israel Hayom analysis revealed that facts mentioned in the report have not been denied by security officials.
The report said, among other things, that one of the Palestinian foundations based on the Temple Mount was run by Khaled Sabah, Hamas' treasurer in Jerusalem, and that terrorist Fadi Abu Shahidam, who killed an Israeli man and wounded four others in the Old City last year, was also affiliated with the Waqf.
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Accoding to Pinhas Inbari, a veteran Arab affairs correspondent and analyst for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, it is in Israel's interest to maintain Jordan's status on the Temple Mount.
He explained that the legitimacy of the Jordanian royal family depends on its status as the custodian of holy Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem.
"If they lose the Temple Mount to the Jews, they are finished," Inbari told Israel Hayom. "The Hashemite dynasty comes from the Hijaz [region in Saudi Arabia]. It is foreign and not parth of the Jordanian tribes, which makes up about one-fifth of the Jordanian population.
"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, thenotrther tribes are eyeing Syria, and only the central tribes, around Amman, continue to support the king and [its members] form his senior command and intelligence.
He continued, "Half a million Shiites live in Jordan, about half of the population are Palestinians, and about 30% are refugees from Iraq and Syria. Israel is well aware that if the Hashemite monarchy collapses – for which the Temple Mount could be a trigger – the loss and danger to Israel could be enormous. In that case, Jordan would become a major version of the Gaza Strip, with tangible threates of missiles, from the south and the north.
"Right now, Jordan maintains our longest border and does the work for us there. The peace with Jordan, the understandingsm, the common interests and the cooperation with the country ona number of security, economic and intelligence matters are all critical, and allow the IDF to focus on sectors and borders where there is no peace," Inbari said.
"Therefore, we, as a country, have an enormous interest in stabilityo n the Temple Mount and in strengthening Jordan's status there, for our own sakes."
