Between the Dome of the Rock and a hard place - Nadav Shragai

by Nadav Shragai

King Abdullah of Jordan's statements about "Israeli aggression" on the Temple Mount underscore the fine line Israel has to walk to protect the rights of Jews at Judaism's holiest site while preserving and improving strategic relations with Jordan.

The complicated situation on the Temple Mount: The father of murdered teen Hallel Yaffa Ariel visits the Temple Mount in July | Photo credit: AP

What do Italian experts in the preservation of mosaics, 19th-century German painter Gustav Bauernfeind, and the tears of pain of Jews on the Temple Mount have to do with one another? They are all linked through Jordan, whose King Abdullah II this week criticized again "Israeli aggression at Al-Aqsa mosque, and the incursion of extremist Jews into the mosque compound," as he put it. 

Bauernfeind's 130-year-old painting decorates one of the rooms in the Jordanian royal palace in Amman. Emissaries of Abdullah's father, King Hussein, acquired it many years ago. The painting depicts a group of Jews outside one of the gates to the Temple Mount, gazing at the Temple Mount in yearning.

Unlike the envoys who bought the painting for Hussein, the Italian mosaic experts are our contemporaries. They were recently dispatched by Abdullah to restore the mosaics at the Dome of the Rock. A few weeks ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority stopped the experts' work there -- temporarily -- because it entailed erecting scaffolding inside the Dome of the Rock and was being carried out without a permit. 

The third part of the puzzle, the tears of the Jews about the discrimination against them on the Temple Mount and the conditions placed on their visits there that continues today, is also related to Jordan. Those tears, we have learned in recent months, outraged the members of the Jordanian Waqf (the Muslim entity that oversees the Temple Mount), whose power has increased these past few years. The result was that for the first time since the 1967 Six-Day War, the police kept Jews who were guilty of nothing other than lamenting their situation on the Mount, away from the holy site. 

The Israeli leadership is not remaining indifferent in the face of the bizarre, difficult reality. Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee ChairmanAvi Dichter, a former public security minister, says that recently the concept of "protecting Al-Aqsa [mosque]" has expanded considerably, and the Muslims apply that idea not only to the place where the mosque stands, but to the entire Temple Mount complex. Dichter says that "Israel will not allow this." 

Jerusalem Affairs Minister Zeev Elkin says that Abdullah's statements are "lip service for [the sake of] the Jordanian street." 

Elkin notes that Israel is making unprecedented concessions on the Mount, including forgoing the right of Jews to pray there, and ascribes the renewed tension between Israel and Jordan on the issue of the Temple Mount to radical Islam. 

Officials in Jerusalem do not disagree with Dichter and Elkin, but are quick to point out the complexity of Israeli-Jordanian relations and Israel's interest in doing everything possible to maintain them. 

The relations between Israel and Jordan are indeed complex and tenuous, and Israel's conduct in the face of Jordanian interests on the Temple Mount is the result of a much wider range of concerns than the Temple Mount alone. Israel has a peace treaty with Jordan, and it sees this and relations with the Hashemite kingdom as a strategic, regional and defense asset. Peace with Jordan has relieved Israel of the need to maintain a presence on a long, complicated border. Jordan also separates Israel from Iraq, as well as Syria from Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest, richest oil producer and a U.S. ally. 

Meanwhile, the Islamic State, from the direction of both Iraq and Syria, has reached Jordan's borders, and is trying and sometimes even managing to gain footholds in the kingdom. According to foreign news reports, there is close cooperation between Jordan and Israel on security and intelligence. Jordan even allows Israel to export goods to the Gulf states through its territory. It cooperates with Israel and the Palestinian Authority on an infrastructure project that is slated to carry water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea to counteract the Dead Sea's rapid drop. Israel is also supplying Jordan with immense quantities of natural gas and is expected to make a billion shekels ($265 million) from the deal. 

The situation is no less complicated when it comes to holy sites and the Temple Mount. Historically, Jordan lost two important battles for Muslim holy sites. After World War I, the Hashemite dynasty lost the role of guardian of Islam's holy sites in Mecca and Medina to the Saudis, and consoled itself with the stewardship of the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem. In the Six-Day War, when Israel united east and west Jerusalem, Jordan lost those sites, too. In the peace deal it signed with Israel in 1994, Jordan took back some of its influence on the Temple Mount. Since then, that influence has only grown. 

Under the terms of the deal, Israel granted a "high priority to the historic Jordanian role on the Temple Mount," in effect agreeing to give the Jordanians seniority on the Mount in the framework of the general permanent agreement. 

Israel's complex handling of itself when it comes to Jordan is also related to the very fate of that country's regime. Both Israel and the U.S. are worried about the stability of the kingdom, mainly given its demographic makeup. The Bedouin and tribal residents that are loyal to the royal family comprise only 30% of the Jordanian population, but are the backbone of its security and military apparatus. 

Palestinians, on the other hand, who are the majority in Jordan, are a constant source of concern. The current assessment is that cementing Jordan's status in the role of guardian of the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem stabilizes Abdullah's rule. Diplomatic officials in Jerusalem feel that Abdullah's renewed attack on Israel over the Temple Mount should be analyzed in terms of the Jordanian parliamentary elections, due to be held a month from now, as well. Officials in Jerusalem believe that Abdullah is calibrating his moves and statements for that election and wants to reduce the influence of radical Islam in his parliament as much as possible. 

Israel's strategic decision to upgrade Jordan's power on the Temple Mount can be seen in many, far-reaching ways. Israel put the refurbishment of the southern and eastern walls of the Temple Mount compound, which were cracking, in Jordan's hands. Israel has in effect accepted a double Jordanian veto, both about building a new Mughrabi Bridge over the Western Wall, and about clearing away the building debris that lies behind sheets of tin at the "Little Western Wall." Informally, Israel coordinates with Jordan on the number of religious Jews who will be permitted to enter the Temple Mount, and has taken a tougher stance on Jewish visitors to the site. 

Israel has also accepted, and at certain times encouraged, a notable increase in the number of waqf employees on the Temple Mount, which now stands at several hundred. Under the "Kerry understanding" of October 2015, Israel for the first time granted formal status to the status quo forbidding Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, turning it from a principle designed to "preserve public order and prevent altercations and enmity between religions" to a public international commitment as part of the framework of understandings between Israel, Jordan, and the U.S.

Nadav Shragai

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=35787

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