One of the top diplomatic priorities of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid in over 10 months in office has been to improve Israel’s relations in the Middle East.
The aim has been to build on their predecessor’s crowning achievement, the Abraham Accords, by deepening relations with the countries involved – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco – but also to improve relations with the other Arab countries with which Israel has peace – Egypt and Jordan.
Most of those countries were on an overall positive trajectory with Israel before this government entered office, with the first three basking in the glory of the Abraham Accords, and Egypt and Israel increasing cooperation on natural gas.
Both of those ostensibly improving relationships were put to the test as Palestinians began rioting on the Temple Mount in the past week and a half, leading Israeli police to enter the compound to try to restore quiet so that worshipers in Jerusalem’s Old City could continue to celebrate Ramadan and Passover peacefully.
THE RELATIONSHIP between Israel and Jordan hit a post-peace nadir just a few months before the new government entered office, when Prince Hussein bin Abdullah of Jordan had to cancel his plans to visit the Temple Mount because Israel would not allow him to bring his entire cohort of armed guards with him. In response, Jordan blocked then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from entering its airspace for a planned visit to the UAE, effectively stopping the trip.
That tit-for-tat came after a series of deteriorations in the relationship in recent years, with Abdullah often expressing grievances at Israeli policing on the Temple Mount.
In the 1994 peace agreement between Israel and Jordan, Israel stated that it “respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem.” The Wakf Islamic religious trust, instituted by Jordan after Israel’s War of Independence, is responsible for the day-to-day administration of the al-Aqsa Mosque. And for a Hashemite king who needs to keep a majority-Palestinian population happy, the custodianship of al-Aqsa is very important.
Jordan used that agreement to demand things like the removal of metal detectors from the site, installed after a terrorist attack in which Muslim Israelis murdered two Druze Israeli police officers. Though the peace agreement also says “there will be freedom of access to the places of religious and historical significance,” Jordan has demanded that high-profile Israelis not visit the site.
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