MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 7/28: After today's previous MER article was published -- "God War Emerging In Holy Land" -- this Agence France-Presse article has just come over the wires. Characteristically the representatives of the Hashemite Kingdom -- the regime that has been most complicitous in secretly collaborating with the Israelis for decades to control the Palestinians sandwiched between them -- are publicly posturing in one way while actually acting in another. Most importantly, read carefully, the specific condition used by the Jordanian Foreign Minister -- laying a cornerstone "inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound" -- is not what is planned at this point for tomorrow, thus giving the Jordanians an easy way out to actually do nothing while touting their purposefully deceptive rhetoric. After all, both the Jordanian and Egyptian governments continue to have both a formal peace treaty as well as diplomatic relations with Israel. Moreover, for many years now, a very short distance from the Al-Aqsa Mosque and "Temple Mount", anyone willing to pay a few shekels can walk on over to the Jewish Quarter and view for themselves a detailed scale model of the planned Third Temple. But all these years as usual the Jordanians, as well as the Arafat Authority, have sat around saying, and more importantly doing, little.

(Agence France-Presse - AFP - Amman - Saturday, July 28 9:04 PM SGT ) - Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdel Ilah Khatib on Saturday warned of a "dangerous escalation" if Jewish radicals went ahead with plans to lay a symbolic cornerstone for Judaism's third temple in Jerusalem.

"This is considered an unjustified provocation for the Muslim nation and a violation of the sacred character of Al-Haram Al-Sharif," home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third most revered spot in Islam, Khatib said.

Israel's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a group of right-wing Jewish radicals could lay a symbolic first stone for raising Judaism's third temple in Jerusalem's Old City on Sunday.

But the court said they could not place it on Temple Mount, a holy place disputed by Muslims and Jews, which is home to Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and the biblical site of the second Jewish temple demolished by the Romans in 70 AD.

Any attempt to lay a cornerstone inside the mosque's compound "will lead to a dangerous escalation and Israel must bear responsibility for it," Khatib said in a statement carried by the official Jordanian news agency Petra.

He said this would also violate the status of the Islamic holy places as well as international law.

Khatib appealed to the UN Security Council to block plans by the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement to erect a new house of worship.

Petra said Jordan will contact the countries with permanent membership in the Security Council -- China, Britain, France, Russia and the United States -- to explain the consequences of such a move.

The court granted the fundamentalist Jewish group the right to lay the symbolic cornerstone at the Dung Gate, the southern entrance to the Jewish quarter of the walled Old City.

But it forbade such a ceremony within the Al-Aqsa mosque compound for fear of sparking clashes.

A visit to the site by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in late September, while he was still an opposition leader, triggered fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinians, starting the 10-month-old Palestinian uprising or intifada.

East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was occupied by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and subsequently annexed by the Jewish state. The Palestinians want to make it the capital of a future state.

Sunday's ceremony will mark Tiss Be Av, when Jews commemorate the destruction of the first and second Jewish temples.

The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement believes that erecting a third temple will usher in a new era, in which the Jewish people live in harmony with God.

The Palestinians have condemned the Israeli Supreme Court decision, and the 13 Palestinian groups which "lead" the intifada have called for a mass rally on Sunday to defend the mosque compound.

The Arab League's new spokeswoman, Hanan Ashrawi, also warned Saturday that Israel may be unable to control the subsequent explosion of rage caused by the laying of the cornerstone.

"Israel has not learned from its own dangerous mistakes," she said, recalling the Sharon visit which sparked the intifada.

Mid-East Realities

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Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/7/310.htm