Jordan faces an existential choice over the defence of Al-Aqsa
Muslims have been praying at Al-Aqsa Mosque for around 1,400 years.
Israel has had its eyes on the holy site since the state’s creation in 1948, and its leaders have made increasingly aggressive attempts to seize control over the last quarter-century.
In September 2000, Ariel Sharon, then Israel’s opposition leader, stormed Al-Aqsa complex with more than 1,000 police officers. The move provoked the Second Intifada.
It was also the start of Israel’s creeping takeover of Al-Aqsa complex, which alongside Mecca and Medina, is among Islam’s three holiest sites.
In theory and by law, the custodian of Al-Aqsa Mosque is King Abdullah II of Jordan. He is responsible for its maintenance, security, and - if need be - defence. But ever since the Sharon outrage, Israel has whittled away at Jordanian control.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
When I visited last month, Israeli security forces were everywhere, with a police station set up at the centre of the compound. Mosque workers told me they cannot repaint their offices or mend a water pipe without Israeli permission.
The walls of the ancient prayer hall at the southern end of the site are pitted with bullet holes, where Israeli forces have opened fire on worshippers.
According to the longstanding status-quo arrangement, which is supported by international law, this interference is not just outrageous. It is completely illegal.
But worse is planned. Much worse.
Dark precedent
Middle East Eye reported this week that the US and Israel are conspiring to strip the Jordanian royal family of its historic custodianship.
A US official has denied the report, but under the plan described to MEE by American, Jordanian and Palestinian officials, Israel would gain control over the appointment of imams and senior mosque officials.
The plan, reportedly being pushed by US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Ambassador Mike Huckabee, would also give Israel a role in approving the content of Friday sermons.
The idea is based on a dark precedent: the division of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron after Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinians in 1994.
That is no coincidence. Goldstein is one of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s heroes. He hung a photograph of Goldstein on his living-room wall before he entered politics.
Today, Ben Gvir regularly violates the status quo, forcing his way into Al-Aqsa in imitation of Sharon a quarter-century ago. Last month, he declared: “I feel like the owner here.”
Successive Israeli chief rabbis have condemned Jewish activists who follow Ben Gvir’s example and pray or wave flags at the holy site. These radical groups are set on the destruction of the Dome of the Rock, the ancient Islamic shrine at the heart of Al-Aqsa complex, and its replacement by a Third Temple, which many religious Jews believe will open the way for the Messiah.
Traditionally, the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, has viewed their provocative incursions with alarm.
Forty-two years ago, the Shin Bet narrowly thwarted a planned Jewish terror attack at Al-Aqsa complex. Ehud Yatom, one of the Shin Bet commanders who stopped the atrocity, told Israeli media in 2004 that had it gone ahead, “it would have meant the entire Muslim world against the state of Israel and against the western world, a war of religions”.
He added: “With all of their pain and suffering, today’s terrorist attacks would be nothing compared to what could happen - even World War Three.”
Dangerous encroachments
But the Shin Bet’s approach towards this issue, under pressure from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extreme-right coalition government, is changing.
The agency’s new chief, David Zini, is aligning the Shin Bet with Israel’s religious right. Days after he took up the post, the backgrounds on all of the agency’s computers were changed to feature a photograph of the Temple Mount, the name Jews use for Al-Aqsa complex. The move reportedly generated internal pushback, and the screens were changed back, with the agency blaming it on an “accident”.
Thus far, Jordan’s King Abdullah has swallowed his pride at the ever more dangerous Israeli encroachments at Al-Aqsa. But will he yield again if Netanyahu gives the go-ahead to the reported Kushner/Huckabee plan?
'Below the soil of Palestine and Jerusalem are the bodies of thousands of Jordanian soldiers who paid with their blood in defence of the Holy Land'
- White paper on Al-Aqsa
Some of his advisers in Amman - where the CIA is well represented - will probably advise him that he has no choice, because standing up to the Israelis will only end in defeat and obliteration.
They will remind him that Jordan depends on Israel for its security, as well as basic essentials such as water, in a country whose 12 million people live largely in a strip of land along the Israeli border. If Abdullah wants to stay on the throne, they might well add, Israel is a merciless and ruthless enemy.
Yet, there are powerful arguments pointing Abdullah towards resistance. These are set out with great clarity in a white paper on Al-Aqsa authorised by Abdullah himself six years ago.
“From the first day of the Great Arab Revolt in 1916, the Hashemite Kings have led the Arab Army in defence of the identity of Palestine, its people, and the Holy Sites of Jerusalem,” the paper notes. “Below the soil of Palestine and Jerusalem are the bodies of thousands of Jordanian soldiers who paid with their blood in defence of the Holy Land.”
The white paper further highlights the role played by Abdullah’s ancestors in attempting to foil the 1917 Balfour Declaration and in defending al-Buraq Wall, also known as the Western Wall. The present king’s great-grandfather, Abdullah I, “was at the frontline of the 1936-1939 Arab uprising in opposition to the sale of Palestinian land to Jewish settlers of that period”.
The white paper notes that under Hashemite custodianship, “not a single inch” of the holy complex’s 144 dunams (14 hectares) has been lost to Israel.
Sacred duty
Crucially, the white paper also contains a warning to any potential intruder into Al-Aqsa. It asserts on behalf of the Hashemites the sacred duty “to defend it and protect it if necessary”.
This is an obligation that extends far beyond Jordan itself. The white paper states that responsibility for Al-Aqsa is “fard ayn” - an individual obligation - on “every single Muslim in the world”.
Crucially, it asserts that “it is only the Custodian H.M. King Abdullah II who can call for its defence physically, and for him to determine the exact way to do that”. The white paper goes on to note that “the very permission and justification for a just war (casus belli) is given in the Holy Qur’an as the defence of religious sites (including churches and synagogues)”.
In other words, Abdullah has the right to launch a religious war in defence of Al-Aqsa in the event that it is seized by Israel. Many Muslims - including many of his own subjects - would go further. They would say he has a duty to.
Most experts with whom I have spoken say that Abdullah will probably content himself with a statement of protest if Israel comes for Al-Aqsa, while reluctantly acquiescing. But remember this: the king has stood up to Trump and Netanyahu before.
As MEE revealed in February 2025, Abdullah sent a message to Washington and Tel Aviv that Jordan was ready to declare war on Israel if Netanyahu carried out his threat to forcibly expel Palestinians into its territory.
Jordan currently secures the border, thus guaranteeing stability for Israel. That stability, it can be assumed, would vanish overnight if war broke out
Abdullah was under no illusion that Jordan could defeat Israel’s vastly superior armed forces in battle. But he calculated that Israel would face an unacceptable cost if it overthrew the Hashemites.
The Israeli border with Jordan stretches for 400km, almost the entire length of the country. Much of that border is mountainous terrain, and in parts all but impossible to police.
A senior source with close knowledge of the security situation along the border told MEE: “The fact is that we can walk to Jerusalem tonight and get there by tomorrow.”
The source added that Jordan currently secures the border, thus guaranteeing stability for Israel. That stability, it can be assumed, would vanish overnight if war broke out.
Jordan, remember, has an open frontier to Israel’s east. Israel could thus face the prospect of the kind of protracted guerilla campaign that ultimately drove the US from Iraq and Afghanistan - a campaign that would certainly draw in fighters from Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and beyond.
Religious war
Abdullah, who stands 41st in a well-documented direct line of descent from the Prophet Muhammad, will know that tensions have reached boiling point over the Israeli genocide in Gaza, alongside its atrocities in the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.
This fury is felt not just by Jordan’s 2.4 million Palestinian refugees, but by the Jordanian population as a whole. It is noteworthy that two recent attacks at the Jordan/West Bank border were carried out by East Bankers.
All Jordanians feel guilt for having sat by during the Israeli bombardment and dismantling of Gaza. This national guilt helps explain why Jordan’s border can pose such a threat to Israel.
It will also be a factor in Abdullah’s thinking: he may conclude that resistance to Israeli predation at Al-Aqsa, whatever the risks, gives the Hashemites their best chance of survival.
The king may also reflect that the world has changed. After Trump’s humiliation by Iran, the US is no longer the force it once was.
If Abdullah goes to war for Al-Aqsa, an apparently defenceless Jordan may find it has more friends than Trump and Netanyahu expect.
As Israel and the US ponder an illegal smash-and-grab raid on the third holiest site in Islam, Abdullah thus faces an existential choice: give in to Trump and Netanyahu, or fight back and risk his life and his throne.
It is not just the future of the Hashemite dynasty that depends on his choice, nor only the future of the Middle East.
Three years ago, I interviewed Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib, the director of the Islamic Waqf, which holds the sacred site in trust, about the Israeli threat to Al-Aqsa.
He said this: “Here in Jerusalem we rely on the custodianship of King Abdullah. This place is part and parcel of Islamic theology and belief. It represents the faith of nearly two billion Muslims. King Abdullah and all Hashemites are descendants of the prophet. They will never allow Israel or anyone else to control the mosque.
“God forbid if Israel changes the status quo. That would lead to a religious war that would extend far beyond Al-Aqsa.”
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.
