King Abdullah: Israel Harms Jerusalem

By JTA August 17, 2012

Israeli policy in Jerusalem is harming the city’s holy sites, Jordan’s King Abdullah said.

Jordan’s state-run Petra news agency on Thursday quoted the king as telling clergymen from Jerusalem in Amman that “Israel’s acts of radicalization harm the holy places” in Jerusalem. “The coerced emigration of Arab Christians and Arab Muslim from the Holy City is unacceptable.”

Jordan, he reportedly said, would “continue to defend the holy places and check the Israeli unilateral moves which aim to change the city’s identity.”

Jordan ruled East Jerusalem, in which two mosques important to Islam sit on the Temple Mount, from 1948 until 1967. After the Six Day War, Israel annexed East Jerusalem.

The king also said that he would act to “consolidate a firmer and more efective Islamic stance in light of these infringements,” the Petra report added.

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