While Jordan Worked to Resolve the Temple Mount Crisis, Turkey Worked to Exacerbate It

Thus argues Michael Koplow:

The political pressure that the king [of Jordan] faces to cut ties with Israel any time there are rumors that Israel is threatening al-Aqsa puts him in a bind where he is forced to take self-defeating measures, so his priority is generally to work out a solution that makes the problem go away without endangering the Israeli-Jordanian relationship. The [recent] case has been no different. . . . But [King Abdullah’s judiciousness] really shone through following the attack on the Israeli security guard in the Israeli embassy compound in Amman, and the guard’s subsequent shooting of his attacker and another Jordanian bystander.

The . . . facts in this case matter less than the optics; what ordinary Jordanians saw was that an Israeli shot and killed two Jordanians, and Israel demanded to bring him home without having to face an investigation . . . in Jordan. One might imagine how this could have quickly spiraled out of control. Instead, Israel and Jordan were able to come to an agreement that brought the embassy guard home and ended the crisis, and to the extent that the quid pro quo was trading the guard for the metal detectors—something that seems to have obviously happened but that has been denied by both sides—it allowed both sides to de-escalate things. . . .

This does not mean that King Abdullah is perfect or that Jordan bears zero responsibility. . . . Jordan could have done more in the past and should do more going forward to make sure that the Islamic Waqf [the Jordan-controlled body responsible for the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem] does not allow weapons to be smuggled onto the Temple Mount and prevents violence.

The contrast to the behavior of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is striking. Koplow continues:

Erdogan . . . is doing everything in his power not only to try to use the Temple Mount for his own narrow political gain, but to supplant Jordan’s role in Jerusalem entirely. . . . The Turkish government has been paying to bus protestors to the Temple Mount from around the country, and pictures have circulated on social media in the last two weeks of Muslim protestors around the site waving Turkish flags. . . .

Erdogan is not alone in pouring gasoline on the flames. Mahmoud Abbas deserves an entire column of his own detailing his irresponsibility in nearly every aspect of this drama, including his continuing dissembling over alleged threats to the Temple Mount status quo and his shockingly irresponsible and dangerous invitation to the Tanzim militia to lead mass protests [last] Friday. Any violence that occurs as a result should be laid directly at Abbas’s feet.

But Abbas is acting defensively out of cowardice and fear over what his political rivals will say; what makes Erdogan’s behavior more odious is that he is actively inflaming passions and inciting against Israel simply to make himself look better and boost his standing.

Read more at Matzav Blog

More about: Israel & Zionism, Jordan, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian terror, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Temple Mount

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF