Jordan and the Palestinian Authority are expected to demand from the US that control over Jewish visits to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem be restored to the Muslim authority that administers the site, Palestinian sources say.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah II were to raise the issue with Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in the region this weekend, the sources said.

Amman and the PA are seeking to return the running of the Temple Mount — the holiest site in Judaism and third-holiest in Islam — to how it was before the start of the intifada in September 2000, and before the visit of then-opposition Likud leader Ariel Sharon, when the Waqf was responsible for Jewish visitors’ access to the site.

The Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, controlled by Jordan, administers the Islamic sites at the compound, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Sharon’s visit is often said to have been the pretext for the Second Intifada, which broke out just a few weeks later and which saw hundreds of Palestinian suicide bombings that claimed the lives of over a thousand Israelis during a span of five years.

Until 2000, the entry of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount was coordinated with the Waqf. The site was closed to Jews from 2000 until 2003, as the Second Intifada raged. Since then Israel Police have overseen visits by Jewish visitors. Under Israel’s regulations, imposed after the Old City was captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, Jews are allowed to visit, but not pray on, the Temple Mount.

The demand for Muslim oversight on Jewish access to the Temple Mount was first made by the Palestinian Authority on Thursday. “Israel must restore control of the Temple Mount to the Waqf,” said one official close to Abbas. “This is one of the only measures that can help calm the current situation.”

Palestinian sources also told The Times of Israel that Abbas will tell Kerry during their meeting in Amman on Saturday that he is interested in renewing peace talks with Israel and abiding by previous agreements, but that Jerusalem must first freeze all settlement activity and release the final 26 prisoners it had agreed to free last year as part of a US-brokered concession to Abbas.

Israel had agreed to release a total of 104 security prisoners jailed before the 1993 Oslo Accords in four phases. It went through with three of the four releases, setting free some of the worst orchestrators of terrorism, before talks collapsed in April 2014.

Senior Palestinian officials also told The Times of Israel that Israel had tried to create friction between Jordan and the Palestinian Authority by conveying messages to King Abdullah II warning him that Abbas’s inciting statements endangered Jordanian interests on the Temple Mount.

Abbas is expected to demand deeper American involvement in any renewed political process with Israel, and warn that if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues with his current policies, he is dooming the region to more violence and bloodshed.

When asked if they understood that meeting their demands would spell the end of the Netanyahu-led government, the sources said the Israeli prime minister must choose between his government and a willingness to make peace.

The PA’s demands for Waqf control of the Temple Mount come amid a wave of Palestinian terror and violence which has seen 10 Israelis killed in the past month and a half. More than 40 Palestinians have also been killed — about half of them while carrying out attacks, and most of the rest in clashes with Israeli security officials in the West Bank and on the Gaza border.

Israel has accused Abbas and the PA of partial responsibility for the terror surge, with Netanyahu repeatedly castigating Abbas for telling “lies” about purported Israeli plans to change the status quo at the Temple Mount and for inciting violence over the issue. Netanyahu, who has denied any such plans and offered to meet Abbas without preconditions, has also vowed to make no concessions to the Palestinians in response to the current surge in terrorism.

The PA officials said that their security forces have prevented a series of recent attacks on Israeli targets, including stabbings, shootings and the planting of explosives. PA security forces have also been active during Palestinian demonstrations to prevent the use of live fire against IDF soldiers, and intervened when a gunman opened fire on soldiers during a recent protest near the Beit El settlement, they said.

Israeli security officials have acknowledged the value of the ongoing PA security coordination.

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister’s Office denied that Israel has offered to reduce the number of Jewish and non-Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount in an effort to calm tensions at the site and help end the wave of terror attacks. Arab diplomatic officials had told The Times of Israel that this offer was rejected by Palestinian and Jordanian leaders as not going far enough to meet their demands.

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/pa-jordan-want-muslim-control-over-jewish-visits-to-temple-mount/

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Why it matters: This is the harshest statement by the King regarding the possible annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel. It comes days after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Israel for talks with Israeli leaders and ahead of the swearing-in of the new Israeli government on Sunday.

What he’s saying: When asked if Jordan would suspend its peace treaty with Israel if the annexation takes place, King Abdullah said: “I don’t want to make threats and create an atmosphere of loggerheads, but we are considering all options.”

• The King stressed that all parties in the region should focus now on fighting the coronavirus together rather than dealing with unilateral annexation of the West Bank.
• “Leaders who advocate a one-state solution do not understand what that would mean. What would happen if the Palestinian National Authority collapsed? There would be more chaos and extremism in the region,” he said.

The backstory: The coalition deal that allowed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form a new government says he can bring “the understandings with the Trump administration” on annexation up for a vote in the cabinet or parliament as early as July 1 — but only with the full agreement of the White House.

• The Trump administration does not view the new Israeli government’s July 1 deadline to begin the process of annexing parts of the West Bank as a “do or die” date, a senior U.S. official told me.

What’s next: Jordan has been lobbying the U.S. and EU member states for the last several weeks to discourage the new Israeli government from moving forward on the annexation of the West Bank. The foreign ministers of the 27 member states of the EU met today via video conference to discuss the issue.

• Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi made several phone calls in the last few days to his counterparts from France, Spain, and other countries in the EU and asked them to take steps to deter the new Israeli government from annexing parts of the West Bank.
  

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  Source: https://www.axios.com/jordanian-king-massive-conflict-israel-west-bank-bf82f6f2-f554-4afc-a467-435d4b1205ca.html

  [Disclaimer]

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King Abdullah Ibn Al Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. (Photo: World Economic Forum)

Relations between Jordan and Israel are at an “all-time low” King Abdullah told the Washington Institute for Middle East Policy reports Mako. Regarding the Israeli-Arab conflict, Abdullah added that  “If we do not solve the Israeli-Palestinian issue, Israel cannot really be part of the Middle East” calling it a “sensitive and emotional issue.”

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Jordanian demonstrators burn an Israeli flag during a protest against the shooting of a Palestinian judge from Jordan by Israeli soldiers. Amman, March 11, 2014. Credit: REUTERS

Jordan banked more heavily than any other Arab state on hefty returns from peace with Israel and the vision of a future Middle East Common Market.

But after years of disillusionment regarding Israel’s behavior towards the Palestinians, capped by the Trump administration’s partisanship towards Israel and hostility towards the Palestinians, Jordanians across the political spectrum – including members of parliament – are now convinced more than ever before that Israel is an irreconcilable enemy.

King Abdullah II of Jordan has consistently maintained the need for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the region. However, Israel’s hardline position against a two-state solution, together with dangerously unbalanced American rhetoric on the Palestinian issue (soon to be ratified in the Mideast “Deal of the Century,” whenever it finally emerges) have rendered his stance increasingly difficult to sustain.

Jordan finds itself now trapped between the demands of an aggressively unilateralist, pro-Israel Trump camp unwilling to channel more aid, and an increasingly radicalized local public opinion that wants to cut all diplomatic and trade relations with Jerusalem.

There is growing grassroots pressure to abandon the $15 billion gas deal with Israel. There is outrage at the delay in Israel returning the land plots of Naharayim in the north and Tzofar in the south leased from Jordan under the terms of the 1994 Jordan-Israel peace treaty. What’s more, Jordanians haven’t forgotten the incident in 2017 involving an Israeli guard who reportedly shot dead a Jordanian attacker near the embassy in Amman.

Jordanian protesters carry the Jordanian national flag, and chant slogans during a protest against a government agreement to import natural gas from Israel, in Amman, Jordan, September 30, 2016 MUHAMMAD HAMED/ REUTERS/

Jordanians from all walks of life have come to view Israeli operations in the West Bank and Gaza as unjustifiable and disproportionate attacks on innocent civilians. Then there is what the kingdom claims are Trump and Israel’s alleged attempts to change the historic and legal status quo of the Al-Aqsa Mosque site.

In concluding a peace accord with Israel on 26 October 1994, a top U.S. strategic interest, the late King Hussein became the first Arab head of state to come to terms with the Jewish state since President Anwar Sadat led Egypt to a similar pact in 1979.

The two countries, though formerly self-proclaimed enemies of one another, shared parallel fears, including that of an assertive Palestinian nationalism seen by many across the two borders as diluting the raison d’etre of both a modern Jordanian or Israeli state.

From a Jordanian perspective, a Jordan-Israel Benelux-style union of cross border economic integration, which would later include Palestine, could have the potential to overcome any signs of Palestinian discontent in the two countries, not least from Jordanians of Palestinian origin who resist the normalization of relations with the Jewish state. For the time being, however, such a framework remains elusive, pending an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Despite the many benefits to the Jordanian economy of ending the state of war with Israel, the peace-building vision never materialized. For Jordan, critical external debts were written off, foreign aid came through in abundance, preferential trade agreements were inked one after the other.

Jordan joined the WTO and Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZs) – a special form of U.S.-Jordan-Israel trilateral “diagonal cumulation” accord seeking to “reward” Jordan for participation in the Middle East peace process, and to bring the country closer to Israel – were established across the country. In the first 10 years after their launch, the QIZs helped spike Jordanian exports to the U.S. massively, from a mere $15 million to more than $1.5 billion.

But little of this wealth and growth has trickled down to ordinary Jordanian citizens.

Per capita income actually decreased in the years since the conclusion of peace with Israel, and unemployment has grown. None of the proclaimed development projects (such as the Red Sea-Dead Canal) have yet been implemented and, contrary to initial expectations, the Palestinian market did not open up to Jordanian trade.

Disillusionment with peace has grown. Jordanians are asking: “Where are the fruits of peace?”

U.S. President Bill Clinton, Jordan’s King Hussein and P.M. Yitzhak Rabin, during the signing ceremony of the Israeli-Jordanian peace accord at the Wadi Araba border crossing, on October 26, 1994. Credit: AFP

What are the reasons for this dreadful failure? On the Israeli side, Israel’s political system failed to mobilize to push regional cooperation plans and peace, preferring to defer to the demands of domestic pressure groups. At the same time, excessive security measures inhibited Jordanians from coming to Israel in significant numbers.

On the other side, Jordan’s overly apprehensive, suspicious and unhelpful bureaucracy stymied progress. Paradoxically, the same people who boycotted contact with Israelis because of their opposition to normalization were often the loudest to complain when it came to the absence of a peace dividend.

Meanwhile, Jordanian business activity within Israel is still clandestine and extremely modest. The movement of goods between the two economies remains limited and is significantly down from about the halcyon days of 14 years ago when the QIZs were booming. Jordan exported goods to Israel worth $84 million in 2018 (inorganic chemicals making almost half of this total), while trade in the other direction amounted to a measly $71 million.

The primary requirement for a product to qualify for QIZ benefits is that Jordanians and Israelis must share in appraised value, with possible input by the U.S. or the Palestinians. Mandatory Israeli value-added in QIZ products was, therefore, behind the expansion of Jordan’s imports from Israel.

The silver lining for this economic disappointment wasn’t about Israel: thanks to the QIZ, themselves a part of the peace dividend, Jordan emerged as a processing base for garments heading for the American market, and the industry became Jordan’s largest export sector in the mid- to late-2000s.

One key message from the aftermath of this “economic peace” is that Israel’s share of the peace dividend pie is all too obviously far more significant than that enjoyed by Jordan. Despite 25 years of peace with Israel, Jordanians have not yet benefitted from Israeli expertise in industrial sectors that seem to be obvious candidates for cooperation, such as light manufacturing or technology.

Nor has Jordan benefited even indirectly from greater and more certain flows of foreign direct investment. On the contrary, these have actually declined over the period, rebounding only in the mid- to late-2000s.

Israelis visit the Naharayim park, opened 25 years ago as a symbol of the peace accords between Israel and Jordan. Now, the park and its “Isle of Peace” are being shuttered. Oct. 21, 2019, Credit: AP

For Israel, the outcome of the peace accord with Jordan has been totally different. It not only liberated Israel from being a pariah state in the region, but it also brought with it enormous flows of inward foreign direct investment and opened up new trade vistas with Asia and other countries where the Star of David flag was banned for decades.

The difficulties are not confined to the economic field alone. Jordan made its peace with Israel soon after the conclusion of the Oslo agreement, in the expectation that a rapid resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was in train. That resolution was the basis of the legitimacy of Jordan’s reconciliation with the Jewish state. Subsequent developments, however, especially after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, have taken a quite different direction.

The Jordanian public has been shaken by the lack of progress, even regression, in terms of Palestinian rights. Particularly harmful have been the construction projects launched in East Jerusalem, which Jordan regarded as violating not only the letter and spirit of Oslo, but also Israel’s commitment to Jordan under Article Nine of the peace treaty. This has caused friction between the kingdom’s leadership and the Israeli government, eroding mutual confidence.

The only area that exhibits stability and confidence is that of security cooperation, where the two countries’ intelligence services appear to be in bed with each other.

Jordan cannot and should not base its economic future, or even a major stake of it, on economic relations with Israel. Even if the Jewish state opens up its market to Jordan on an equal footing to other countries, the fact remains that the kingdom has a very limited productive base; its economy suffers from low rates of GDP growth and high unemployment.

Change is only possible if Israel’s leadership wises up and goes for a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the region. Otherwise, we may be in for yet more meager business activity, a lot more political frustration, and deteriorating bilateral relations across the Jordan River.

Marwan A. Kardoosh is a development economist with 20 years of experience working in the Middle East and North Africa

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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday at a security conference in Warsaw that Iran is the top threat in the Middle East and confronting the country is key to reaching peace in the entire region.

Pompeo met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the opening session at the conference and said “pushing back” against Iran was central to dealing with all the region’s other problems.

“You can’t achieve peace and stability in the Middle East without confronting Iran. It’s just not possible,” Pompeo said alongside Netanyahu.

The Israeli leader lauded the participation of high-profile Arab dignitaries at the conference, saying it signaled a shift in regional priorities.

“In a room of some 60 foreign ministers, an Israeli prime minister and the foreign ministers of leading Arab countries stood together, and spoke with unusual force, clarity and unity against a common threat of the Iranian regime,” Netanyahu said before his meeting with Pompeo. “I think this marks a change, an important understanding of what threatens our future.”

The U.S. and Poland are sponsoring the conference, which they say is aimed at promoting peace and security in the Mideast but appears to be mainly focused on isolating Iran. Iran has denounced the gathering as an American anti-Iran “circus” aimed at “demonizing” it.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is attending along with representatives from numerous Arab countries. But France and Germany are not sending Cabinet-ranked officials, and European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is staying away.

Russia and China aren’t participating, either, and the Palestinians, who have called for the meeting to be boycotted, also will be absent.

For Netanyahu, a longtime opponent of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the gathering marks a culmination of his call to unite the world against Israel’s arch-enemy of Iran. He’s long boasted that Israel has clandestinely developed good relations with several Arab states, despite a lack of official ties. On Wednesday, he met with Oman’s foreign minister, Yusuf bin Alawi, and at Thursday’s opening session he was seated next to the foreign minister of Yemen, as representatives of Kuwait, Qatar and others looked on.

Israel has signed peace accords with Egypt and Jordan, but other Arab nations have refused to publicly improve relations without significant progress being made toward ending Israel’s half-century occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state. But that shunning has begun to ease in recent years as shared concerns about Iran have overshadowed the Palestinian issue.

Netanyahu considers Iran to be Israel’s greatest threat, citing its frequent calls for Israel’s destruction, its nuclear program and support for militant groups across the region. Israel has been active in recent months attacking Iranian targets in neighboring Syria.

The Americans have tried to broaden the scope of what was initially billed as an Iran-centric meeting to include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the fight against the Islamic State group, and the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

“No one country will dominate the discussion today nor will any one issue dominate our talks. Everyone should speak thoughtfully and honestly. Each country should respect the voice of all others. Our hope is that every engagement will entail true back-and-forth dialogue, not just be a chance to recite prepared statements,” Pompeo said in opening the meeting. “We want to bring together countries with an interest in stability to share their different views and break out of traditional thinking.”

Pompeo acknowledged that eclectic nature of the gathering could produce views that “may even conflict with those of the United States.” But he said he welcomed the dialogue since none of the region’s challenges will “solve themselves.”

“We must work together for security. No country can afford to remain on the sidelines,” he said.

Source: https://apnews.com/edb531aaea264f5682b4ebe82bdb3414

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