For a moment on Sunday it appeared as though Prime Minister Naftali Bennett had just erased a 54-year policy banning Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.
Had Bennett actually made such a policy change, it likely would have started a religious war between Jews and Muslims, given the latter’s vehement opposition to Jewish prayer at the site.
It’s a move that could have severed Israel’s ties with its neighbor Jordan and complicated relations between Amman and Washington on the eve of US President Joe Biden’s first meeting there with King Abdullah on Monday, particularly given that the Hashemite Kingdom has a special custodial relationship to the Temple Mount.
Domestically it would have collapsed his coalition and set Israel hurtling back into another election cycle.
At issue was a line in a tweet sent out by the Prime Minister’s Office in the aftermath of clashes at the Temple Mount, also known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif.
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Initially it looked like a simple message, letting the public know that Bennett had spoken “with Public Security Minister Bar Lev and Israel Police Insp.-Gen. Shabtai and thanked them for managing the events on the Temple Mount with responsibility and consideration.”
Then, as if it was the most innocuous statement in the world, the Prime Minister’s Office added that this was done “while maintaining freedom of worship for Jews on the Mount.”
The Prime Minister’s Office continued the Twitter thread, stating that Bennett had emphasized that “freedom of worship on the Temple Mount will be fully preserved for Muslims as well, who will soon be marking the fast of the Day of Arafah and the Eid al-Adha.”
Not exactly the type of notice one issues when setting a policy change.
Except that a policy – known as the status quo – worked out in the aftermath of the Six Day War in 1967 between Israel and the Wakf Islamic religious trust allows members of all faiths to visit the site, while banning anyone but Muslims from praying there. Jews in particular are expected to pray at the nearby Western Wall.
Bennett backtracked, with his spokesman Matan Sidi clarifying that there was no change to the status quo. Sidi’s words appeared to extinguish potential sparks, but the timing could not have been worse.
Here are five reasons the Temple Mount is an increasingly sensitive flash point issue, particularly this week, in a terrain that is often unforgiving when it comes to mishaps that can so easily spiral out of control.
1. It was a holy week for Jews and Muslims
The Prime Minister’s Office’s tweet was sent out on the fast day of Tisha Be’av, when Jews annually mourn the destruction of the Temple which once stood on that very historic mountaintop until it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.
The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism, where thousands of years ago Abraham, Jews and Christians believe, almost sacrificed his son Isaac. It is the third-holiest site in Islam and marks the place where Muhammad ascended to heaven on winged horse.
Tisha Be’av fell this year just one day before the start of the three-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which celebrates Abraham’s faith in God as exhibited, Muslims believe, by his willingness to sacrifice Ishmael.
As a result of both holidays, a large number of Jewish and Muslim worshipers flocked to Jerusalem’s Old City, and religious fervor was high.
Tisha Be’av is a day when Jews are most likely to feel their inability to pray at the Temple Mount as was done thousands of years ago. Muslims, in contrast, were most likely to be angered by Jewish prayer so close to their holy moment.
Talk of changing the status quo at that moment could have been like striking a match in a dry field.
2. Jews are already praying discreetly on the Temple Mount
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid might have called for Jews to pray solely at the Western Wall, which abuts the Temple Mount. But on a grassroots level a small number of Jews already pray discreetly on the Temple Mount when they go up to visit, both privately and in a minyan, the minimum quorum of 10 for group prayer.
It was a practice that came to light during the latter part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year tenure when the number of Jewish visitors also surged. On Tisha Be’av over 1,600 Jews ascended to the Temple Mount.
Although Netanyahu often spoke of the importance of maintaining the status quo, he largely turned a blind eye to the issue of grassroots Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.
Many of the politicians who served in his government believe that Jews should have a right to pray there.
Those who support Jewish prayer there believe that Jews should never have been denied the ability to pray on their holiest site, and that the taboo around it has already been broken.
In his short time in office, Bennett has also not prevented such prayer, which on Sunday sparked clashes between Muslims and police on the morning of Tisha Be’av, even before Bennett had sent out his tweet.
Bennett’s coalition, however, is divided on the issue, with a number of its members holding that the status quo on the Temple Mount must be upheld.
3. Trump sanctioned an eventual change to the status quo
Former president Donald Trump sanctioned an eventual change to the Temple Mount status quo when, in January of 2020, he published his “Peace to Prosperity” plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The plan called for freedom of worship for Jews, Christians and Muslims at the Temple Mount.
“People of every faith should be permitted to pray on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, in a manner that is fully respectful to their religion, taking into account the times of each religion’s prayers and holidays, as well as other religious factors,” the plan stated.
Although the plan was shelved, it was a reminder that the status quo was not etched in stone, and that changes to it could be sanctioned at the highest diplomatic levels.
4. Gaza war sparked in part by Temple Mount violence
Muslim fear of losing access to al-Aqsa Mosque compound has long been a flash point for Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s famous visit there when he was the Likud opposition leader led to calls on Muslims to defend the holy site, and is often credited with sparking the Second Intifada.
The two-year “knife intifada” that began in 2015 was linked to fears over Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.
Similarly, the 11-day Gaza war this May was sparked in part by Jerusalem unrest. This included violence around the Temple Mount, as Muslim worshipers feared they could not access al-Aqsa Mosque compound after one of the gates was temporarily closed and police blocked some of the buses filled with worshipers from accessing the site.
5. Jordan fears losing special ties to Temple Mount
The Hashemite Kingdom’s special role as custodian of al-Aqsa is all that remains of the family’s former custodial role over the three holiest Muslim mosques in Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, which it lost over a century ago in the aftermath of World War I.
The British enshrined that connection when it controlled portions of the region between the wars. From 1948 to 1967, the Temple Mount was under Jordanian control. It has been part of sovereign Israel since the end of the Six Day War in 1967.
In the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty Israel recognized Jordan’s special role “in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem,” but Jordan has never felt that its status in relation to those holy shrines is secure. Reports that Trump had sought to give Saudi Arabia, which is now the custodian of the Mecca and Medina mosques, a foothold on the Temple Mount only fed that insecurity.
Jordan’s Muslim citizenry, which is largely Palestinian, also feels events in Jerusalem acutely, and problems relating to the Temple Mount always have the ability to destabilize the Hashemite rule, which has already taken a hit over the COVID-19 pandemic and the absence of adequate water.
Bennett had made almost immediate inroads with Jordan with a purchase agreement that would allow it to almost double its support from Israel.
Then he almost undid those efforts with his tweet, but was able fix the mishap. King Abdullah accepted Bennett’s assurance that he is committed to maintaining the status quo.
That was followed by similar words of support from Biden, who assured Abdullah when the two met in Washington on Monday that the United States recognizes Jordan’s “special role as custodian of Muslim holy places in Jerusalem.”
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