The “Behind the News” program (25/1/2023) presented the following question: What is new offered by the parties behind the regional and international movement in the region, especially Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is concerned with internal and external pressures, and who is trying to promote his government’s priorities despite their hardships?

Barely hours passed after what Israeli media reported about Netanyahu's pledge to Jordan's King Abdullah II not to prejudice the legal and historical status of the Temple Mount, until the news came confirming the storming of the Al-Aqsa courtyards by Israeli police and intelligence personnel, quoting Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir as confirming that those raids Patios will not stop.

King Abdullah II, during a meeting in Amman with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, stressed the need to respect the historical and legal status of Al-Qudsi Al-Sharif.

This meeting followed a visit by US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to the region, during which he met with Netanyahu and leaders of the Palestinian Authority, in preparation for an upcoming visit by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

Added to the Israeli statements and practices are plans to build thousands of settlement housing units that Netanyahu's right-wing government intends to implement soon.

No change in Jerusalem

On the Israeli side, former Israeli diplomat Meir Cohen indicated that Prime Minister Netanyahu confirmed the absence of any change in the status quo in Jerusalem, and Jordan's tasks were defined as the guardian of the holy places and support for the Islamic endowment related to Al-Aqsa.

And he considered that this visit is of great importance because it came after a cooling in relations between the Israeli and Jordanian sides, explaining that it took place in coordination with the American administration with the aim of calming the situation with the advent of the blessed month of Ramadan and preventing any events in the region against the background of the thorny situation related to the Temple Mount.

On the other hand, the former Jordanian Minister of the Interior, Samir Habashneh, saw that Netanyahu's visit is nothing but an attempt to break the internal and external isolation to which his government is subject, noting that the situation in Palestine indicates the existence of a large explosion as a reaction to the pressure on the Palestinians and the expansion of settlements, expecting that there will be A third intifada that mixes the peaceful and the armed.

He added that there is ethnic cleansing in Palestine regardless of the "sweetened" slogans advocated by Israel, considering that America must remedy the situation to avoid serious repercussions in Palestine before the situation becomes more dangerous.

Expected explosion

On the American level, Ambassador Martin Indyk, the former US envoy to the Middle East peace process, said that America seems preoccupied with the war in Ukraine as well as the challenges caused by the rise of China, noting that the global situation presents major challenges to American interests, but if Netanyahu gives the opportunity to extremist members of the government To achieve their desires in the West Bank or Jerusalem, the situation will lead to an explosion.

Against the background of these developments, the US administration renewed its call on Israel to abandon any unilateral measures that would undermine the two-state solution, on the cusp of a visit by the US Secretary of State to the region, for which the US National Security Adviser Sullivan paved a visit in which the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority met to issue warnings of the consequences. Undermining the two-state solution.

On the contrary, the Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, said that he would continue his incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque, while some seemed to challenge Prime Minister Netanyahu, adding that he would not stop because Israel is not protected by anyone, as he put it.

Ben Gvir added that despite his respect for the Jordanian king, he will continue what he described as "climbing the Temple Mount."