Jordan convenes emergency meeting over Israel’s potential to ‘trigger religious conflict’

Summary

Country convenes emergency meeting of ministers from Arab and Islamic world, fearing such a move could ‘trigger a religious conflict’ Jordan is convening an emergency meeting of foreign ministers from the Arab and Islamic world over what it says is an “imminent” threat of an Israeli takeover of the most important religious site in Jerusalem, with the potential to “trigger a religious conflict”. The meeting on Wednesday – and the Jordanian warning – follow an escalating pattern of government-backed incursions by Jewish religious extremists on the compound around the al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock, in violation of a status quo treaty overseen by Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy, by which only Muslims can pray at the site. On 23 July, more than 2,000 Israelis from the religious right – mostly settlers led by the national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir – stormed the area , known to Jews as the Temple Mount. They prayed and performed rituals all around the compound in what Jordanian officials said was the worst violation in modern history. Amman has also been alarmed at a recent recruitment drive for religious Jews for a special Temple Mount police unit, and is braced for more direct challenges to traditional Jordanian custodianship by extremist Israeli leaders in the major Jewish holidays in September. This year, those holidays will come amid an intense election campaign, in which the far-right coalition of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will be fighting for survival. “This is a constant threat, a dangerous threat that we’re trying to counter in every tool that we have possible,” Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, told the Guardian. “We warn that tampering with the status quo … could trigger a religious conflict that will reverberate beyond Palestine and Jordan into the whole Muslim world.” Safadi, who will host Wednesday’s emergency meeting, bringing together his counterparts from Arab League countries, as well as Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan, said it was “something that the whole international community should be aware of. Jerusalem is a tinderbox. “We’re trying to explain the danger. We’re protesting legally. For Jordan, the worst-case scenario is an attempt at the mass deportation of Palestinians from the West Bank , which would destabilise the country in several ways, including economic costs, the political impact of an influx of an angry, dispossessed population, and threats to the country’s delicate demographic balance. “Our position that this is a red line that we will not allow to be crossed. The Israeli government’s provocative actions in Jerusalem and the West Bank and over water raise the political cost to the monarchy of maintaining normal relations with its western neighbour. “Anti-normalisation sentiment here has grown even larger than before due to the Zionist state’s plans of annexation of the West Bank, the denial of Jordan’s share in the water agreement and also the daily challenges to the custodianship at the al-Aqsa mosque,” said Dima Tahboub, a member of parliament and spokesperson for Jordan’s Islamist Umma party. “Every day there is penetration by settlers into the al-Aqsa mosque and at the same time, [Palestinian] Jerusalemites are prevented from entering the mosque.” Tahboub’s party is Jordan’s biggest political bloc, known as the Islamic Action Front (IAF) until earlier this year when it was ordered to adopt a less ideological name.