The language hyperbole continues as regards how Jordanian outlets report quiet and peaceful tourist-like visits of Jews at the Temple Mount, restricted in their utterances and gestures, that is, no praying, swaying of prostrating.
AMMAN — The government on Friday condemned storming of Al Aqsa Mosque/Al Haram Al Sharif by Israeli occupation forces and Jewish extremists, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.
State Minister for Media Affairs Mohammad Momani said that the occupation forces and the extremists assaulted a number of worshippers, used pepper spray and closed the southern mosque inside the sanctuary, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.
Momani said that the Jewish religious holidays have unfortunately become occasions to increase tension at the mosque, voicing rejection of the practices of extremists groups, who barge into the Muslim holy shrine under the protection of the Israeli police, which breach the sanctity of the holy place and provokes the prayers.
And this is cheeky:
He also stressed the importance of respecting Jordan’s role as the custodian of East Jerusalem’s holy places as stipulated by the peace treaty binding the two countries.
And why?
Well, read Article 9 of the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty:
ARTICLE 9 PLACES OF HISTORICAL AND RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE
Each party will provide freedom of access to places of religious and historical significance....The Parties will act together to promote interfaith relations among the three monotheistic religions, with the aim of working towards religious understanding, moral commitment, freedom of religious worship, and tolerance and peace.
and explain Jordan's rhetoric and why it deviates from its treaty obligations.
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UPDATE
From an article by Efraim Halevy I have now just seen in Haaretz that explains Jordanian sensitivity:
I will conclude with a report on an event that took place on the White House lawn on July 25, 1994, as President Clinton was reading out the complete text of the Washington Declaration. When he reached the section stating that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was to be recognized as having status as pertains to the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, the audience reacted with a roar of astonishment and elation. Altogether coincidentally, I was sitting in the third row of those invited to the ceremony, behind a senior member of the entourage of Minister Peres, who turned around toward me and angrily asked, “How dare you write such a thing in today’s declaration! That is completely contradictory to what we agreed to with the Palestinians.” I asked him, “And what did you agree to with the Palestinians?” His response was to sit down in his seat, turning his back on me.
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