Jordan King Snubs Benjamin Netanyahu Over Temple Mount Crackdown
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Jordan’s King Abdullah II is refusing to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the rising violence on the Temple Mount.
Abdullah reportedly will not have any direct contact with Netanyahu, including phone conversations or a personal meeting, according to Israeli news reports. He reportedly is concerned that contact with the Israeli prime minister will be construed as “coordination” with Israel, according to Haaretz.
The king reportedly also has refused messages from the Prime Minister’s Office through private channels and is considering recalling its ambassador to Israel.
Abdullah said Monday that “any more provocation in Jerusalem will affect the relationship between Jordan and Israel,” according to the French news agency AFP.
Netanyahu responded with a strongly worded message to Jordan saying that the Jordanian Waqf, an Islamic authority that administers the Temple Mount site, allowed Muslims to stockpile weapons in the Al-Aqsa mosque.
“Don’t run away from your responsibility,” Netanyahu’s message read. “The Waqf broke the status quo by letting rioters armed with stones sleep in the Al-Aqsa mosque.”
The latest round of Temple Mount clashes broke out following Israel’s decision on Sept. 9 to bar an Islamist protest group from entering the site.
Non-Muslims are being prevented from visiting the site during the four-day Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, or the Feast of the Sacrifice, which started Wednesday.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
