Battle for Temple Mount isn’t just between Israelis and Palestinians

Jerusalem is boiling. On July 14, three Arab Israelis emerged from the holy area and murdered two Israeli Druze policemen guarding the entrance to the holy site. Israel reacted by installing metal detectors and security cameras at the entrances to the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, the noble sanctuary. The Palestinian Authority is reacting with opprobrium to Israel’s security measures. Mahmoud Abbas, its leader, announced on July 23 that he was cutting off security cooperation with Israel. US Envoy Jason Greenblatt is in the Middle East to try to defuse a crisis which some fear could spark a third intifada, or Palestinian uprising. Also, yesterday, a Jordanian attacked an Israeli guard at the embassy in Amman, Jordan. Other terrorist attacks and clashes in recent days have killed a number of Israelis and Palestinians.

As tragic as these deaths are, without doubt, the crisis is as contrived as the 1996 tunnel riots. What the Israeli government has installed is standard practice globally. After all, worshipers entering St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican must pass through metal detectors, and Saudi authorities require all participants in the Hajj to undergo security scanning as they enter the broad area in which the Hajj is conducted.

But, if Greenblatt, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson or, for that matter, President Donald Trump believe the current crisis is about Israel and the Palestinian Authority, they are mistaken. What is playing out in Jerusalem today seems much more like a proxy conflict between Jordan and Turkey.

At issue is control over a site which many Muslims consider the third most holy in Islam. Under the Ottoman Empire, an Islamic Waqf (religious endowment) maintained the Temple Mount. When Jordan emerged from the ashes of the Ottoman collapse, its Ministry of Awqaf took control over Jerusalem’s Islamic Waqf. When Israel won control of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967, nineteen years after the Jordanian Army sought to make the city Judenrein, Israeli authorities agreed to allow the Jordanian-controlled to continue to manage affairs on the Temple Mount, even as Israel assumed responsibility for security around the holy site. It’s an arrangement that has worked fairly well.

During past crises, Jordanian authorities would quietly intercede and mediate to reduce tensions and restore the status quo. In this latest crisis, however, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his administration, rather than Jordan, are seeking the lead on efforts to force Israel to abandon its security measures. Consider these recent stories out of Turkey. “As Organization of Islamic Cooperation term president, I condemn Israeli forces’ use of excess force on our brothers gathered for Friday prayer, the Friday prayer not being allowed in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, and Israel’s persistence in its attitude despite all warnings,” he said. Erdogan has also telephoned European leaders to urge them to pressure Israel to remove the security measures.

There are multiple struggles ongoing in the region. There is the sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shi’ites playing out in numerous states, but there are also battles within sects between moderates and more extreme elements. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and its successive kings have for decades been bulwarks of the moderate camp. In recent years, Turkey and Qatar have become respectively the political and financial leaders of the more radical Sunni camp.

Today, Erdogan calls for an Islamic solution. He likely seeks a collective Islamic administration (under Turkey’s tutelage, of course) and implies that Jordan’s control has run its course. This has as much to do with Erdogan seeking to restore Turkey’s neo-Ottoman claims over Jerusalem a century after the Ottoman Empire lost the city than it does with sincere concern about the Temple Mount itself. If the White House and European Union truly wish to see calm restored in Jerusalem, it is essential they treat the cause and not simply the symptoms. The problem at the Temple Mount has nothing to do with metal detectors and little to do with Israel. Rather, it’s about a struggle for custodianship in the Islamic world, one which it is essential Jordan wins.

 
Michael Rubin is a former Pentagon official whose major research areas are the Middle East, Turkey, Iran and diplomacy. Rubin instructs senior military officers deploying to the Middle East and Afghanistan on regional politics, and teaches classes regarding Iran, terrorism, and Arab politics on board deploying U.S. aircraft carriers. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, both pre- and post-war Iraq, and spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. His newest book, Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes examines a half century of U.S. diplomacy with rogue regimes and terrorist groups.

 
Πηγή:  American Enterprise Institute