Jordan is convening an emergency meeting of foreign ministers from the Arab and Islamic world over what it says is an \u201cimminent\u201d threat of an Israeli takeover of the most important Muslim site in Jerusalem, with the potential to \u201ctrigger a religious conflict\u201d.<\/p>\n
The meeting on Wednesday \u2013 and the Jordanian warning \u2013 follow an escalating pattern of government-backed incursions by Jewish religious extremists on the compound around al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock, in violation of a status quo treaty overseen by Jordan\u2019s Hashemite monarchy, by which only Muslims can pray at the site.<\/p>\n
On 23 July, more than 2,000 Israelis from the religious right \u2013 mostly settlers led by the national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir \u2013 stormed the area<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a constant threat, a dangerous threat that we\u2019re trying to counter in every tool that we have possible,\u201d Jordan\u2019s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, told the Guardian. \u201cWe warn that tampering with the status quo \u2026 could trigger a religious conflict that will reverberate beyond Palestine<\/a> and Jordan into the whole Muslim world.\u201d<\/p>\n Safadi, who will host Wednesday\u2019s emergency meeting, bringing together his counterparts from Arab League countries, as well as Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan, said it was \u201csomething that the whole international community should be aware of. Jerusalem is a tinderbox.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to explain the danger. We\u2019re protesting legally. We are trying to create awareness of the imminent danger in the continuation of those Israeli measures.\u201d<\/p>\n map of Jerusalem Old City showing location of al-Aqsa mosque and Temple Mount<\/a><\/p>\n The Hashemite custodianship of al-Aqsa compound dates back just over a century. It was reaffirmed after the 1967 war, then in the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty.<\/p>\n Infringement by Jewish extremists triggered riots in the British Mandate period between the world wars, and a 2000 visit to the compound<\/a> by the rightwing leader Ariel Sharon, soon to become the Israeli prime minister, ignited more than four years of violence in the second intifada.<\/p>\n \u2018Jerusalem is a tinderbox,\u2019 said Ayman Safadi, Jordan\u2019s foreign minister. Photograph: Salah Malkawi\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Jordan<\/a> is uniquely vulnerable to the impact of Israel\u2019s broader ethnic cleansing campaign in the West Bank, which Amman fears may also escalate dramatically as the October elections loom. There is anxiety over what the Israeli government might do in the three months before the vote, as radical elements seek to change the geography of the region in ways which could be difficult to reverse.<\/p>\n For Amman, the worst-case scenario is an attempt at the mass deportation of Palestinians from the West Bank<\/a>, which would destabilise Jordan in several ways, including economic costs, the political impact of an influx of an angry, dispossessed population, and threats to the country\u2019s delicate demographic balance.<\/p>\n \u201cOur position that this is a red line that we will not allow to be crossed. We have made that known to everybody that we will do whatever it takes to prevent any attempt at Israeli displacement of Palestinians into Jordan,\u201d Safadi said. \u201cNot only will that be a violation of international law and of the right of the Palestinians to stay on their land, but that will also be a tremendous escalation.\u201d<\/p>\n Jordanians descended from previous waves of Palestinian refugees already represent more than half of Jordan\u2019s 11.5-million population, and the country\u2019s original residents, the \u201cEast Bankers\u201d, are wary of what they see as a further dilution of national identity.<\/p>\n Israel has already refused to renew a 2021 water agreement under which it shared 100m cubic metres a year to its parched neighbour, one of the most water-scarce countries in the world. It reverted to the 50m cubic metres originally agreed in the 1994 treaty, which falls far short of the needs of a much bigger population than the Jordan of 32 years ago.<\/p>\n