Joseph Puder – June 12, 2020
There is a quiet struggle going on over control of East Jerusalem’s Noble Sanctuary (Haram al-Sharif) or Temple Mount. It is not as you might guess between Israel and the Palestinians. It is actually between two Sunni-Muslim nations, the Hashemites Kingdom of Jordan and Erdogan’s Turkey. To the extent that Israel is involved in this quiet struggle, it is to strengthen Jordan’s position against the encroaching Turks, by adding Saudi representatives to the Islamic Waqf Council. The Islamic Waqf Council controls the activities surrounding the Noble Sanctuary or Temple Mount. Israel has engaged the U.S. administration to mediate the issue with the Saudis.
The Hashemites, who once controlled Mecca and Medina, Islam’s holiest sites, lost out to the Saudis in the 1920’s. The Hashemites are related by a bloodline to the Prophet Mohammad through his daughter Fatimah and her husband Ali, the Fourth Caliph. Hasan, the son of Fatimah and Ali, is the progenitor of the Hashemite line, which is a subdivision of the Quraysh tribe. The consolation prize was control over Islam’s third holiest site -The Noble Sanctuary or Temple Mount where the Al-Aqsa and Omar mosques are located. The Prophet Mohammad is said to have flown from the al-Aqsa mosque to heaven on his horse named Buraq.
Given the historical rivalry between the House of Saud and the Hashemites, Jordanians in the past would not contemplate allowing their Saudi rivals a foothold in Jerusalem’s holy places. But now, after 100 years, Erdogan’s Turkey is challenging Jordan’s control over the Temple Mount. Jordan, under the Hashemite King Abdullah II, is finally relenting to the Saudis out of financial necessity and a looming threat from Erdogan’s Turkey.
Even more significantly, Turkey’s influence peddling in Jerusalem is not limited to the Temple Mount. In its efforts to bolster the Palestinians, Erdogan’s Turkish government delivered a treasure trove of 140,000 pages of microfilm, which includes land registrations under the Ottoman Empire from 1517-1917. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has used it to challenge Israeli ownership of real estate in various parts of the country. The Turkish development NGO or TIKA, working on behalf of the Turkish government has invested around $1.3 million annually in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. The Turkish organization, “Our Legacy,” funded by TIKA, has as its goal the “protection of the Al-Aqsa mosque, and the Ottoman legacy in Jerusalem.