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Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein and ZOA Director of Special Projects Liz Berney, Esq. released the following statement:
The ZOA vehemently condemns Jordan’s unlawful, despicable, insulting new demands to control the Jewish people’s holiest site – the Temple Mount – in the Jewish people’s eternal capital, Jerusalem. Jordan’s demands are equivalent to a non-Muslim foreign country demanding control of the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia (Islam’s holiest site) – and then preventing or severely restricting Muslim visits and worship at the Kaaba, and allowing the Kaaba to be turned into an armed garrison for attacking Saudi citizens.
ZOA urges the Israeli government to promptly and forcefully dismiss Jordan’s unconscionable demands out of hand. Appeasement of any of these demands would be dangerous and shameful.
The long Jewish history on the Temple Mount pre-dates the beginning of Islam by over 2,200 years. Abraham bound Isaac for sacrifice there in approximately 1677 BCE. King David purchased the Temple Mount and built an alter to G-d there, and David’s son King Solomon completed building the First Jewish Temple on the site in 957 BCE – over 1,600 years before Islam was founded in 610 CE. The Jewish Temples stood on the Temple Mount for approximately 1,000 years – again, long before Islam came onto the scene. One hundred and eighty 180 (out of the 613) Jewish mitzvahs relate to the Temple.
Jordan’s outrageous demands, reportedly delivered to the United States, include: (i) giving the Jordanian Islamic Waqf full authority over the Temple Mount, including the authority to severely restrict (or prevent) non-Muslim visits to the Temple Mount; (ii) requiring non-Muslims to apply to visit in writing in advance; (iii) forbidding needed Israeli security, including forbidding Israeli police officers from entering the Temple Mount even when Palestinian Arabs violently riot, shoot and/or pelt rocks, iron bars and Molotov cocktails at Jewish and other worshipers on the Temple Mount or at the Kotel (Western Wall) plaza below; (iv) banning non-Muslim prayer necessities (presumably including prayer books, Torahs and tallits); (v) restricting groups of non-Muslim visitors to no more than five people (which would prevent Jews from forming a minyan to pray); (vi) setting restrictive tour routes of no more than 150 meters in each direction for non-Muslim visitors; and (vii) dictating dress codes for non-Muslims.
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