Jordan deplores Israeli violations in Jerusalem at UN Security Council meeting

AMMAN — Jordan on Friday participated in the emergency UN Security Council meeting regarding the Israeli violations of the status quo in Jerusalem, held at a joint Jordanian-Palestinian request with the support of the United Arab Emirates, the Arab delegate to the council, France, China and Malta.

Delivering the Kingdom's statement at the meeting, Jordan's permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Mahmoud Al Hmoud reaffirmed the Kingdom's condemnation of the storming of the Al Aqsa Mosque/Al Haram Al Sharif by the Israeli minister of national security on Tuesday, under the protection of the Israeli occupation forces, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Hmoud stressed that storming the Al Aqsa Mosque is a provocative step that is rejected and condemned, and represents a flagrant violation of international law and the historical and legal status quo in Jerusalem and its holy sites.

The statement underlined the Hashemite Custodianship of Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, and the Kingdom's continued efforts, led by the Custodian of Islamic and Christian holy sites, His Majesty King Abdullah, to protect these holy sites and preserve their Arab Islamic and Christian identity.

The statement underscored the Kingdom's position rejecting any measures aimed at changing the historical and legal status quo in Jerusalem and its holy sites.

The statement also urged Israel to respect the status quo, and return to the situation that existed before the year 2000 in a way that guarantees respect for Al Aqsa Mosque/Al Haram Al Sharif and its 144 dunums’ status as a sole place of worship for Muslims only, and that the Jordan-run Jerusalem Awqaf and Aqsa Affairs Department is the only entity that is authorised to manage its affairs and organise entries to the site.

The Kingdom also called on Israel, as the occupying power, to comply with its obligations under international law, especially international humanitarian law, with regard to occupied Jerusalem and Al Aqsa Mosque.

It also warned that the ongoing violations and assaults on holy sites, alongside with the continuous Israeli incursions into the occupied Palestinian territories, will only result in further escalation and represent a dangerous direction that the UN Security Council and the international community must work to stop immediately. 

The statement stressed that the dangerous consequences of unilateral measures aimed at imposing new facts on the ground, such as annexing land and expanding settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, violating holy sites in Jerusalem, demolishing houses and expelling residents, would push the entire region towards more tension and escalation.

Jordan's statement called for finding a political ground to re-launch serious and effective negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis in order to reach an accepted peace that meets the rights of the Palestinian people, and that the Palestinian cause has been and will remain the first and central Arab cause.

It also reiterated that the two-state solution that embodies the independent and sovereign Palestinian state with occupied Jerusalem as its capital along the pre-1967 borders, in accordance with international law, the approved references and the Arab Peace Initiative, is the strategic option agreed upon by the international community as the only way to achieve just and comprehensive peace.

Hamoud rejected the accusation of the Israeli representative to the UN that Jordan had occupied the West Bank in 1950.

In response to these remarks, Hmoud said that Jordan has never occupied the West Bank, and the situation in 1950 was a union between the two banks of the Jordan River so that the Palestinians were enabled to exercise the right to self-determination, and half of the Jordanian government was from the West Bank.

He added that this accusation is a lie and constitutes misleading information promoted by the Israeli representative.