ISRAEL WATCH: 12.25.20 - Will the King of Morocco Get a Seat on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount?

Will the King of Morocco Get a Seat on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount?- by Aviel Schneider - https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/will-the-king-of-morocco-get-a-seat-on-jerusalems-temple-mount/ The latest peace agreement between Israel and Morocco might introduce yet another player into Islam’s push to control the Temple Mount. Moroccan kings have always consideredthemselves defenders of Jerusalem’s Islamic holy sites. For this reason, in 1969, two years following the reunification of Jerusalem, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) was founded in the Moroccan capital of Rabat. On that occasion, the numberone agenda of the OIC was to “liberate” the al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem. Today, the OIC includes 56 Muslim member states and claims to represent all Islam. With the Palestinian Authority, there are 57. One of the most important committees inthe original OIC was the Jerusalem Committee, which only dealt with the liberation of Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa Mosque. The Moroccan kings Hassan II and his successor King Mohammed VI chaired this committee. Now, with the normalization agreement with Israel,Morocco is moving to stabilize its political position regarding the al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Morocco has been signaling its interest in the Temple Mount, Islam’s third holiest site, for some time. In connection with this, Morocco has donated numerous expensive carpetsfor use in the Temple Mount mosques. Through the Jerusalem Committee, funds were also transferred for use in the renovation of buildings and structures surrounding the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Jewish Western Wall. In March of 2018, Moroccan Foreign Minister,Nasser Bourita, visited the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. Bourita, by the way, was one of the key players in bringing about official normalization between the two states. Why official, because thousands of Israelis have been vacationing in Morocco foryears, even though both states have not officially had diplomatic relations. I am not exaggerating when I say that many of my friends have been to Morocco and rave about this country. But now the cards are being shuffled in the Islamic power game over the al-Aqsa Mosque, now that Israel and Morocco are officially friends and Israel is quietly and carefullymoving closer to Saudi Arabia. Up until now, the country of Jordan on the eastern bank of the Jordan has been the sole guardian of the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem. This was enshrined in the 1994 Oslo Accords between Israel and Jordan, as well as in otheragreements. It is often believed that the Palestinians are the guardians of the mosques on the Temple Mount, but that is not true. Who will control the temple mount? As a result of Donald Trump’s American “Deal of the Century,” the competition with regard to who will lead as the Islamic protector of the Jerusalem mosques has also heatedup. For years, behind the scenes, the larger member states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Iran (the only Shiites) have claimed leadership in the OIC. For the Hashemite kingdom in Jordan, the task of guarding the Al-Aqsa Mosque is not only a long-standing religious and historical legacy, but above all a major factor inits Middle East policy, which has acted to strengthen its monarchy, especially against the extreme Islamists in the country. Now, if Jordan’s position regarding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is weakened because of the new players from Rabat and Riyadh, thestability of the Jordanian kingdom could be further diminished. Israeli Middle East experts are even of the opinion that this could threaten the country’s very existence since Palestinians make up 70 percent of Jordan’s population. The Jerusalem Committee, under the leadership of the current king’s father, Hassan II, decided many years ago that Jordan’s status with regard to the Temple Mount was onlytemporary. In response to this decision by the Jerusalem Committee, the Jordanian representative angrily abandoned the deliberations and returned to Amman. At the time, Saudi Arabia and Egypt gave Morocco their political backing. The OIC with its Jerusalem Committee has been somewhat irrelevant in recent years but can now become relevant again with these new political developments between Israeland the Arab governments. Morocco and Saudi Arabia are maneuvering behind the scenes and want to get more involved in matters relating to Jerusalem’s mosques. They may try to weaken Jordan’s status as the sole guardian of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, butat the same time this could also be seen as a dangerous challenge to Israel and the United States with regard to the super-sensitive issue of Jerusalem. In addition, one must not ignore the new voices in the Arab world, which in recent months have increasinglydiscussing the Islamic tradition regarding the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem considered the third most important holy place mentioned in the Koran. Israel has to be very careful here and not take the wrong position when it comes to Islamic religious issues regardingJerusalem. VISIT: PROPHECY WATCHER WEEKLY NEWS: HTTP://PROPHECY-WATCHER-WEEKLY-NEWS.BLOGSPOT.COM