After the First Intifada broke out, Muslims protested at the holy site over a rumor that Jews were about lay the cornerstone of the Third Temple. Israeli police killed 22 Arabs in an effort to quell it Ever since, the Palestinian Authority has increasingly taken control of the Temple Mount, and the Muslim Waqf has tried to destroy any historical evidence that the Holy Temples ever existed.
Before Jordan signed the peace treaty, it insisted on a clause gave Amman a preferred status in future Israel-Arab talks over the Temple Mount.
The Palestinian Authority last week put a crowning touch on its effort to seal the fate of the Temple Mount and keep Jews out forever.
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas cashed in the chips several weeks ago.
He and Jordan’s King Abdullah signed an agreement with the “common goal to defend” Jerusalem and prevent Israeli from trying to make United Jerusalem Jewish.
The PA considers the agreement a stepping stone to taking over the Temple Mount and establishing Jerusalem as the capital of its desired independent country.
Palestinian Authority Religious Affairs Minister Mahmoud al-Habash said the agreement confirmed Jordan’s role as protector of the city’s holy sites and “Palestinian sovereignty over all of Palestine, including its capital East Jerusalem,” according to Ma’an.
Abbas agreed that the Jordanian king is custodian of holy site in Jerusalem because he knows Jordan can exercise more diplomatic muscle than he can when it comes to “the historical principles agreed by Jordan and Palestine to exert joint efforts to protect the city and holy sites from Israeli judaization attempts.”
The entire hullabaloo over the arrest and release of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Jordanian parliament’s echoing the Egyptian threat to tear up the peace treaty with Israel brought shivers to President Shimon Peres.
Nothing is more important to President Peres than the word “peace,” and he staged in his Jerusalem Unification Day speech Wednesday, “Jerusalem is dear to us. The peace with Jordan is dear to us…. The peace that was achieved between us is peace for all Jewish, Muslim and Christian worshipers, as one.
“The whole world knows that when we heard the voice of peace coming from Egypt and Jordan, we did not reject them. We did not hesitate and we held out our hand for peace.”
He added that Israel defends the rights of all faiths to pray at their sites. Peres was proud that in Jerusalem, one can hear the sounds of church bells, the prayer calls of the Arab muezzin and the prayers of Jews at the Western Wall.
One can also hear the sound of chairs thrown by the Jerusalem Mufti at Jews on the Temple Mount.