Actors, Disseminators, and Achievements (Book chapter)

The title is the sixth chapter of the book “Jerusalem and Its Role in Islamic Solidarity” by Yitzhak Reiter published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2008. The following is the chapter.

Introduction

A significant number of lslamic personages and entities place Jerusalem at the forefront of the national struggle against Israel. Jerusalem is for them an asset to be employed in their efforts to mobilize the Arab and Muslim world. Who are the actors who have been driving the process of elevating the status of Jerusalem for Muslims during the last generation? What are their goals and their methods? At the very outset, it should be pointed out that there is no one single directing hand or an orderly inter-Arab or pan-Islamic strategic plan. There are many different actors in this arena, with each individual or group fulfilling a particular function in accordance with his conceptual world and motivating factors. Nevertheless, a few central players may be identified:

=6.1 Jordanian, Palestinian, and Israeli Muslim Functionaries=

Jordan and Jordanian clerics, including many Jordanian Palestinians, were the ones who launched the campaign to elevate Jerusalem immediately after 1967. Both Jordanian government and opposition representatives still play a role in disseminating such messages.

Two entities were centrally involved in stirring up unrest in the aftermath of the 1969 al-Aqsa fire: the religious and political leadership of the Palestinians in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, and the Jordanian government. At the time, these two entities were competing with each other for future control of the West Bank, and it was in the political interest of both to seek broad Arab and Islamic support.

Somewhat paradoxically, it was the Jordanian efforts that highlighted the struggle's Palestinian character by opposing its long-term interests. King Hussein, for whom the Jerusalem shrines served as an important symbol in his efforts to legitimize the Hashemite regime, fostered the East Jerusalem and West Bank waqf institution, subsuming it within the Jordanian Waqf Ministry. However, the waqf officials and the heads of West Bank religious institutions were Palestinians, and they were able to pressure the authorities on the issue of the holy sites-a sensitive issue for the highly vulnerable Hashemite regime. The East Jerusalem waqf administration was thus able to influence Jordan to market to the Muslim world the existence of a conflict between a Jewish religiouspolitical front and a Muslim one regarding Jerusalem, and the importance of broad worldwide Muslim support. The Palestinians in general and Palestinian religious entities in particular-the East Jerusalem and West Bank waqf (among them, former Palestinian mufti Sheikh Ikrima Sabri)-are prime movers in the al-Aqsa-Jerusalem-Palestine campaign.

The third factor, which enjoys perhaps the greatest organizational and disseminating ability, is the Islamic Movement in Israel-both the northern and the southern branches-but Sheikh Ra' id Salah, the head ofthe northern faction, is the leading force behind the campaign. It must be emphasized that the Arab-Muslim citizens of Israel (about 350,000 in 1967 and 880,000 in 2008) have vested interest in both, a permanent solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and in a Palestinian-Muslim sovereignty over al-Haram al-Sharif. In June 1967, Israel's Muslim citizens were able to access al-Haram al-Sharif after a 19-year period of exclusion during Jordanian rule in East Jerusalem. Shortly after taking over East Jerusalem in June 7, the Israeli government was interested in showing that Muslim worship at the al-Aqsa Mosque would be unhindered. The first prayer at al-Aqsa Mosque was broadcast in Arabic over the Voice of Israel (the Israeli national radio station) by religious programming editor Nur al-Din Darini (Abu Jarir), a Muslim citizen of Israel. They also provided transportation for Israeli Muslims to attend the first Friday prayers after the war.

There are two interesting examples of how Israeli Arabs have identified with the Palestinian side regarding the battle over the sacred compound. After a demonstrative tour of the Temple Mount/Haram by members of the Knesset's Internal Affairs Committee in 1986 and the publication of rabbinic decisions permitting Jews to enter the site, Ibrahim Nimr Hussein, the chairman of the National Committee of Arab Mayors, issued the following declaration: "We shall not rest nor shall we remain silent until the status quo is preserved in the place we hold dear."1 Another example is the declaration issued by qadis (judges) and employees of Israel's Shari 'a Courts in February 1986 that stated that any attempt to violate the accepted agreements on the Temple Mount is liable to end in a clash between religions.

Another dimension of the involvement of Israeli Arabs is that of the Islamic Movement. Sheikh Ra'id Salah, the head of the northern branch, was largely responsible for the construction and restoration activities that took place on the Temple Mount during the second half of the 1990s (the construction of huge prayer halls on the lower level-Solomon's Stables and al-Aqsa al-Qadima). The successful dissemination of the "al-Aqsa is in Danger" message may be attributed to his activity and to the mass rallies that his movement has been holding annually since 1996 in Umm al-Fahm. Sheikh Ra'id has succeeded in cultivating connections with the Muslim world, in particular with institutions and individuals in the Gulf countries' Islamic-religious echelons, and in raising funds on behalf of al-Aqsa and Jerusalem. His movement runs the al-Aqsa Association, which collects information on Islamic holy sites in demolished pre-1948 villages in Israel and works to restore them. Had the minister of the interior not prohibited him from leaving the country in 2002, Sheikh Ra'id would be bringing water from the holy Zamzam Spring in Mecca to the al-Aqsa compound and upgrading the al-Aqsa site's sanctity to an even greater degree. The Islamic Movement's southern branch is also active regarding the issue of the shrines, and both branches of the movement run Internet sites on which numerous articles promote the myths and messages discussed above. 2

6.2 Islamic Groups in the Arab World

Among the agents significantly involved in disseminating the new and revived religious myths, the Islamist movements around the Muslim world figure prominently. The most important of these was the Hamas, which operates in the Palestinian territories and which in February 2006 rose to power; the Islamic Action Front in Jordan; and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Religious symbols play a highly significant role in promoting these opposition organizations' antiregime activity among the masses. They disseminate their messages via mosques and movement publications, and they are exceedingly vocal.'

Various distinguished muftis and Islamic establishments in the Arab countries also play an important role in this campaign. Religious rulings, sermons, and announcements that draw attention to the importance of Jerusalem and al-Aqsa, while supporting terrorist acts against Israel as instances of Islamic martyrdom, reiterate the messages that emanate from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and give them broad popular religious legitimacy. Among the prominent actors in this field are Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi in Qatar, various personages connected with the al-Azhar institution in Egypt, and the official muftis of Egypt, Syria, the PA, and Saudi Arabia.

One method used in the dissemination of religious and political messages regarding Jerusalem is that of song. The Jerusalem Waqf's Web site features recordings of over 20 songs about Jerusalem, most of them composed by Palestinians and Jordanians.4 Another medium employed is that of the image of al-Aqsa or the Dome of the Rock, which appears in the background of Palestinian and Jordanian news broadcasts and on the front page of a significant number of newspapers and other publications. In recent years books on al-Aqsa and Jerusalem are featured prominently at the annual pan-Arab book fair in Cairo.

The Arab media are another important factor in the dissemination of messages regarding Jerusalem. Nationalist entities make use of media outlets in the Arab world in order to disseminate ideas related to the upgrading of al-Aqsa, Jerusalem, and the Palestinian issue in general, and they are joined by the official and nonsectarian media establishments. Mention must also be made of the significant role played by the many Islamist Web sites, mainly those in Arabic but also those in English and other languages, as well as by publications intended for a general audience written by academics, clerics, and journalists. These books and articles are generally polemical in nature, but their authors enjoy scholarly and religious authority in the eyes of the general public, particularly among uneducated people.

The al-Quds Institute (Mu'assasat al-Quds)-an organization founded in November 2000 shortly after the al-Aqsa Intifada began and headed by Dr. Muhammad Akram al-Adlouni-integrates a variety of communications media in the dissemination of its messages. This institute, situated in Beirut, runs two Web sites, one in Jordan and one in Lebanon. The Institute defines itself as an allArab and all-Islamic NGO whose aim is to rescue al-Quds from Israel and to preserve its Arab character and its Muslim and Christian holy sites. The Institute counts among its partners a small number of Christian organizations, mainly in Lebanon, but its main focus is clearly Islamic. The organization's 180-member senior administration is headed by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. His deputies are the chairman of Yemen's parliament, Iranian parliament member 'Ali Akbar Muhtashemi, and Michel Edde, a Lebanese Maronite leader. One of the organization's projects is that of establishing an umbrella organization to include over 100 different groups for which the al-Quds issue is a top priority. The success enjoyed by this Institute in disseminating its messages may be seen from reports according to which al-Adlouni met in 2003 with the al-Jazeera television network's CEO and reached an agreement with him on the broadcasting of documentaries on Jerusalem. Al-'Adlouni has also met with the editor of Jordan's al-Sabi/ newspaper and with the head of the Middle East Studies Center in Jordan, with whom he reached an agreement to publish studies that serve his organization's purposes. Al-'Adlouni also claims to have met with Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and with Dr. Hamid al-Ansari, the director of the www.islam-online.net. The organization also reported that in December 2003 it launched (in cooperation with www.ikhwan.net, the Muslim Brotherhood Web site) a six-week online course on the al-Aqsa Mosque, including a refutation of Jewish and Christian claims regarding al-Aqsa site's sanctity. 5

Al-'Adlouni's organization is one of many in the Arab world (over 100 according to the Institute's publications) for which the Islamic struggle for Jerusalem is the highest priority. Since January 2001, the organization has been holding annual conferences in Beirut, to which senior political figures in the Muslim world have been invited.6 The organization has a branch in Yemen and is planning to establish additional branches in all of the Arab and Islamic countries. In 2004, the organization spent about 6 million dollars on various projects, and a similar sum was earmarked for 24 projects in 2005-2006. Some of the initiatives that have received funding are projects of the Islamic Movement in Israel, such as the one to map Islamic holy sites, an Islamic youth march to al-Aqsa (masirat al-bayariq wal-masatib), and a weekly hadith program on Tuesdays. Among the organization's plans are various objectives: to draw up a comprehensive Islamic strategy for Jerusalem's liberation, to establish a satellite television station to be devoted to the al-Quds issue, to establish a waqf museum, to fund additional guards at the al-Aqsa compound, to organize a mobile al-Quds exhibition, to map holy sites in all of Palestine, to compile an encyclopedia oflslamic clerics, and to establish Islamic endowments in Jerusalem on behalf of various Arab and Muslim countries. The organization has called for the last Friday of Ramadan to be observed as a worldwide (pan-Islamic) day of support for al-Quds. In mid-November 2007, al-Adlouni organized in Istanbul a large convention entitled "The International al-Quds Forum." Thirty Muslim organizations contributed to this convention in cooperation with Turkey's waqf for volunteering organizations (TGTV) and the Union of NGOs of the Islamic World. Their mission statement was "to adapt a project of an international humanitarian movement to protect al-Quds and the legal rights of the Palestinian people" as well as "to embrace the authentic identity of the city, its culture and holiness, its structure and people, and its lands."7

Another association involved in the pan-Islamic awareness campaign regarding Jerusalem is the online Muntada al-Quds lil-T lam wa-lil-Thaqafa (the al-Quds Center for Media and Culture). The organization's listed objective number six calls for the dissemination of Islamic messages regarding Jerusalem, to Africa and to such East Asian countries as Indonesia and Malaysia in which large numbers of Muslims reside, and for the publication of material in these countries' languages. 8

The Arab and Islamic regimes make a contribution of their own to this campaign by sponsoring numerous pan-Arab and pan-Islamic conferences devoted to Islamic issues including the question of Jerusalem and the holy sites. Among these entities are the Saudi-sponsored Muslim World League (Rabital al-Alam al-Islami) and the Jordanian-sponsored Aal al-Bayt Islamic organization. The regimes' contribution is also reflected in the many school textbooks that convey the aforementioned messages.9

=6.3 Arab States and Pan-Arab/Pan-Islamic Organizations=

The issue of Jerusalem appeared on the political agenda of Arab states in the wake of the al-Aqsa Mosque arson incident in August 1969. There appears to be an almost complete uniformity in the positions of Arab and Muslim states, as indicated by the decisions of pan-Arab and pan-Islamic bodies: Arab Jerusalem, including the al-Aqsa compound, must return to Arab-Muslim sovereignty, that is, to Palestinian control, and it must become the capital of the future independent Palestinian state. Four Arab-Muslim countries have special status in deliberations on the Jerusalem issue: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Egypt.

Jordan

During the period of Jordanian rule over the West Bank (1948-1967), the Hashemite regime was ambivalent about the Holy City. On the one hand, Jerusalem, with al-Haram al-Sharif at its heart, was the political stronghold of the Hashemite dynasty's enemies-the Husseinis and their allies. On the other hand, Jordan's association with the Holy City enhanced her status in the Muslim world and provided legitimacy to the Hashemites. As the instigators of the Arab revolt against Ottoman rule, the Hashemites saw themselves as the liberators of Jerusalem in 1948 and as the legitimate custodians of Islam's holy sites." Additionally, the Jordanians realized that Jerusalem was of considerable tourist and economic value.

Thus, the Jordanian regime pursued a middle ground for their Jerusalem policy. They developed the city economically and provided their political supporters (many of them of Hebronite descent and longtime supporters of Abdullah I) with important posts in the municipality and in al-Haram al-Sharif's Waqf (the religious trust that administers the site). Simultaneously, the regime developed Amman into the monarchy's most significant political center at the expense ofJerusalem.11

King Abdullah I often attended Friday prayers at the al-Aqsa Mosque and liked to have the Jordanian army's military band play when he entered al-Haram al-Sharif.' This offended the religious sensibilities of the Palestinian clergy, who considered a British-style military band a violation of the site's sanctity. The annexation of the West Bank to Jordan in 1950 did not remove the tensions between the Palestinians and the Hashemite regime. King Abdullah I was assassinated at the entrance of the al-Aqsa Mosque in July 1951. According to one version, the assassin's trail led to Hajj Amin al-Husseini.' Several years after his coronation, the young King Hussein also attended public prayers at the al-Aqsa Mosque.

To a great extent, the Jordanians continued the Ottoman tradition of the site's administration, which had been preserved by the British.'

Some of the Muslim officials in Jerusalem who had been involved in the administration of al-Haram al-Sharif during the Mandatory period continued in their posts even after 1948. They became officials of the Waqf administration, subordinate at first to the prime minister's office and later to an independent ministry-the Religious Endowments Ministry (Awaqf).

In 1954, King Hussein initiated a further phase ofal-Haram al-Sharif's restorations and passed a special law for this purpose.'? Reconstruction began in 1956 but proceeded slowly because of Jordan's lack of economic resources and the reservations of the Arab states, whose donations were small and slow in coming. With the completion of the repairs on the Dome of the Rock in 1964,16 Jordan celebrated the event with the attendance of heads of Arab and Muslim countries and the issuing of a special commemorative post stamp showing the Dome of the Rock and a portrait of King Hussein.17 Subsequently, the Jordanians were able to attract many more Muslim pilgrims and tourists to al-Haram al-Sharif and the Old City. They did not, however, enjoy the fruits of their labors for very long. In June 1967, the Six-Day War broke out and Israel conquered East Jerusalem.

The Jordanian position as expressed by King Hussein (r. 1953-1999) is the exception. This position was presented in detail in an article by Hussein's political advisor Adnan Abu Odeh, who proposed dividing Jerusalem into an Arab section to be called al-Quds, a Jewish section to be called Yerushalayim, and the Old City within the walls, to be called Jerusalem and to be under no one's sovereignty, or under joint sovereignty (under God's sovereignty," in the words of Hussein).18

For King Hussein of Jordan the administration of al-Haram al-Sharif was a vital tool for the Hashemite monarchy's legitimization. Hussein thus took care even after 1967 to fund the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem religious system. The first book published by Crown Prince Hasan bin Talal Jordan's King Hussein's brother-was an academic work that he wrote himself in 1979 on the political controversy surrounding Jerusalem." In 1982, after the PLO's weakening and expulsion from Lebanon, King Hussein appointed a royal Jordanian committee to prevent a change in Jerusalem's character (that is, to prevent its Judaization). One of the functions defined for this body's religious subcommittee was "to draw up a permanent religious plan of action, to affirm Jerusalem's significance and to urge the Arab and Islamic world to liberate the city. According to Jordanian government sources, Jordan has spent about a billion dollars since 1954 on al-Aqsa renovations and maintenance. Jordan is still (in 2008) paying the salaries of about 700 Waqf employees in the PA's Jerusalem district, at an annual cost of about 4.5 million dollars.21

An incident reflecting the inter-Arab competition over involvement at the compound took place in 1992 when money was needed to conduct urgent renovations of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque. Both King Hussein of Jordan and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia competed over who would donate the required funding. Finally, King Hussein decided to contribute 8.249 million dollars of his private and family fortune (from the sale of a house in London) to al-Haram al-Sharif's renovation. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia's request to contribute to the renovations through UNESCO (so as to circumvent the need for Jordanian approval) was rejected by King Hussein.

In the peace agreement signed between Israel and the PA in September 1993, it was agreed that the issue of Jerusalem would be deferred to the negotiations over the permanent status agreements. Jerusalem was not among the jurisdictions granted to the PA, which was established to rule the territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as part of the Oslo agreement. However, on October 11, 1993, Israeli minister of foreign affairs Shimon Peres sent a letter to Foreign Minister Johan Jorgen Holst of Norway assuring him of the following:

I wish to confirm that the Palestinian institutions of East Jerusalem and the interest and well-being ofthe Palestinians of East Jerusalem are of great importance and will be preserved. Therefore, all the Palestinian institutions of East Jerusalem, including the economic, social, educational and cultural, and the holy Christian and Moslem places, are performing an essential task for the Palestinian population. Needless to say, we will not hamper their activity; on the contrary, the fulfillment of this important mission is to be encouraged.

This letter was used as a trade-off to persuade the PLO chairman to establish the PA's center outside Jerusalem, namely in Ramallah.22

The formation of the PA in 1994 immediately created tensions between the Palestinians and Jordan, and between the two of them and Israel.

In the peace talks with Israel, King Hussein insisted on the inclusion of Article 9 (b)-a special article ensuring that, when conducting permanent-status negotiations with the Palestinians, Israel would give "high priority" to the historic and present role of the Hashemite Kingdom "in Muslim holy shrines inJerusalem."23 However, Israel and Jordan failed to take into account the PA, which, along with other Arab countries, viewed this article as confirming Jordanian recognition of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem. The subject was discussed at the OIC summit that took place in December 1994 in Casablanca; Jordan's position (which was supported by Yemen, Qatar, and Oman) was categorically rejected, while that of the PLO (supported by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Morocco) prevailed. However, the summit's concluding declaration referred to the Jerusalem and Palestine issue as a pan-Islamic one whose practical significance lay in the possibility of intervention on the part of Arab-Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Morocco.

Tensions between Jordan and the PA had already come to the fore in July 1994, when Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek invited King Hussein to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque.' PA head Yasser Arafat responded by declaring that Jerusalem lies within Palestinian jurisdiction and that Israel thus had no right to invite King Hussein there, although Arafat was prepared to extend his own invitation to the king to come and pray together with him. Because of these threats, the intended visit did not take place. Another significant achievement for the PLO was the change in composition of the OIC's Jerusalem Committee, headed by King Hassan II of Morocco. King Hussein ultimately abandoned the Casablanca summit, due to the refusal of its participants to express appreciation ofJordan and its King's restoration activities in Jerusalem and at al-Haram al-Sharif, and due to their failure to recognize Jordan's longtime involvement there.26 Jordan, because of this, was obliged to reach an agreement with the PA in which Jordanian authority at al-Haram al-Sharif and the other sites was defined as only temporary, until such time as the PA could receive it via a treaty with Israel. This understanding received additional public expression in May 1996, at a meeting in Cairo in which King Hussein, the Egyptian president, and the head of the PA participated. At the end of the meeting King Hussein announced his recognition of the PA's right to sovereignty over East Jerusalem in the context of a permanent arrangement, but this consent appears to have been tactical on King Hussein's part. There are various indications that Jordan still seeks to maintain its involvement at the al-Aqsa compound in particular and in Jerusalem in general. Thus, in late 1994, shortly after the signing of the peace treaty between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom, King Hussein appointed a new Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs that included representatives from the Muslim world, in an attempt to gain broader legitimacy for Jordan's claims regarding al-Haram al-Sharif.3

King Abdallah II, early in his reign, referred openly to Jordan's surrender of its claims to authority at the Jerusalem shrines, in favor of the Palestinians. Abdallah did not view such authority as an advantage for Jordan over the other Muslim and Arab countries and stated that Jordan was prepared to transfer guardianship of the holy places to the Palestinians whenever they should request it, even before a permanent agreement was signed."" However, Abdallah appears to have changed his mind over the course of time. Since 2002, the dialogue between Jordan and Israel regarding the Temple Mount compound has intensified. A Jordanian delegation is involved in restoration activities at the site (repairing the southern wall bulge in 2002). In recent years, Abdallah II has sponsored a project to restore, at a cost of three million Jordanian dinars (4.5 million dollars), the Nur al-Din Zangi pulpit said to have been brought to Jerusalem by Saladin, a few remnants of which survived the mosque fire in August 1969 and which was finally placed back in the mosque in 2007. In 2004, Jordan formally requested Israel that it be permitted to build a minaret at the Temple Mount's eastern wall, adjacent to the Mercy Gate-another monument (at the al-Aqsa compound that would bear the Hashemite label and serve to strengthen the Islamic character of the site's eastern side) that associated in Islamic apocalyptic tradition with the coming of the Messiah and the resurrection of the dead. Should this tower be built, it would add great legitimacy to the Hashemite Kingdom's claims. This initiative indicates that King Abdullah II of Jordan is interested in maintaining the Hashemite status with regard to al-Aqsa and Jerusalem in the event of a permanent agreement. Recently, King Abdallah decided to grant 1.113 million dinars to the Hashemite Fund for the Renovation of the al-Aqsa Mosque and to increase the salaries of Waqf employees in Jerusalem.

Morocco

King Hassan II of Morocco (r. 1961-1999) had a strong interest in Jerusalem-a factor that strengthened his legitimacy as another Muslim ruler (in addition to the King of Jordan) descended from the Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad VI, Hassan IIs son and successor to the throne, has continued this policy. Among Morocco's most prominent activities with regard to Jerusalem was the decision of the Fourth Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers, held in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, in July 1975 to establish the al-Quds Committee as a standing committee of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The committee is headed by the king of Morocco and meets in Rabat, the Moroccan capital. In 1995, the committee established an Islamic fund for Jerusalem, called Bayt Mal al-Quds, one of whose objectives is that of funding activities aimed at preserving the Islamic character of al-Aqsa and al-Quds. The fund transfers donations from the oil-producing countries for the construction of apartments for Arabs in East Jerusalem and for subsidizing public institutions such as al-Quds University. During the 1980s and 1990s, the king of Morocco donated carpets to the al-Aqsa Mosque.

Saudi Arabia

The Saudis' desire for involvement at the al-Aqsa compound may be seen in the May 1977 Arab League decision to declare Mecca and Jerusalem to be twin cities; this initiative was thwarted, apparently, by Jordan. The Jerusalem Waqf administration was instructed to leave the matter to be handled by Amman, and no action has since been taken on it.33 In 1979, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia proclaimed that "Saudi Arabia is prepared to fight to liberate Jerusalem... which is a matter of life or death and whose status is not inferior to that of Mecca.' In order to strengthen their status in Jerusalem, the Saudis have, since the 1970s, been extending financial assistance to radical groups in the city. During the 1980s, a branch of the Saudi-based General Islamic Congress for Jerusalem opened at al-Haram al-Sharif. This branch functioned as the external framework for a fund for assistance from Arab countries, in particular the (Saudi) Muslim World League. This fund financed restorations at the al-Aqsa Mosque and other Waqf properties. For several years it paid a wage supplement to Waqf employees (75 dinars per month per employee) and provided assistance to various welfare and educational institutions in East Jerusalem, on the West Bank, and in Israel. After the outbreak of the Persian Gulf crisis in 1990, donations from the Gulf countries and from Saudi Arabia all but ceased, in reaction to the Palestinians' expressed solidarity with Saddam Hussein. In late June 1994, a few months after the signing of the Oslo Accords, Saudi Arabia told Arafat that the Jerusalem holy sites are not the property of the PLO but rather of the entire Muslim nation, with Saudi Arabia at its center, and warned him not to create facts on the ground.

After the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada, Crown Prince Abdallah of Saudi Arabia said in a speech at the Arab leaders' emergency summit held in Cairo on October 21, 2000, that "East Jerusalem is an Arab and Islamic cause. It cannot be bargained over or abandoned, under any circumstances. It is an integral part of the Arab occupied territories.36

Egypt

At the time of the peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel, Egyptian president Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat asked, while visiting Jerusalem, to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque and declared that "[n]o Arab country will agree to relinquish the al-Aqsa Mosque or the Dome of the Rock.37

Sadat's visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque is remembered as a dramatic event. After the visit, Sadat's deputy, Hassan Tohami, wrote to Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek of the Egyptian government's decision to send engineers to assist with the al-Aqsa Mosque restorations. The Jordanian-affiliated Waqf administration at al-Haram al-Sharif expressed outrage over the fact that the letter had been addressed to an Israeli body rather than directly to the Waqf, as the site's administrating entity.38

Egypt's position regarding East Jerusalem's political future may be inferred from an article by Dr. Ja far Abd al-Salam, an Egyptian expert on international law who served as vice president of al-Azhar University. According to Abd al-Salam, Egypt's position is that East Jerusalem (al-Quds al-Arabiya, in his words) is an occupied Arab city and part of the West Bank and that it should, therefore, be under Arab sovereignty; the Palestinians in East Jerusalem should exercise their national rights there by virtue of their West Bank Palestinian nationality."

Pan-Arab or pan-Islamic positions regarding Jerusalem are usually expressed by two main entities-the Arab League and the OICas well as at summit conferences of Arab/Muslim heads of state or foreign ministers." These interstate bodies are characteristically active in three areas: expressing positions regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the matter of Jerusalem; issuing statements and diplomatic activity in response to incidents related to Jerusalem and to the al-Aqsa compound; and donating funds to subsidize projects aimed at maintaining Jerusalem's Arab-Islamic character. As mentioned previously, the Jerusalem Committee, headed by the king of Morocco and one of the OIC's standing committees, convened in December 1994 to deliberate over the mutual claims of Jordan and the PLO to authority in East Jerusalem and at al-Aqsa.41

Positions expressed at Arab forums are usually more moderate than the concluding declarations of pan-Islamic forums. The former are political frameworks whose participants have to consider how their statements are received in the international arena, while the latter are mainly cultural frameworks. Thus, at the Third Islamic Summit Conference held in Ta' if, Saudi Arabia, in January 1981, the participating heads ofstate called for jihad to liberate Jerusalem and Palestine from Israeli occupation.42

In contrast, 20 months later, in September 1982, in the wake of the Lebanon War and the PLO's consequent weakening, the Twelfth Arab Summit Conference was convened in Fez, Morocco, and adopted King Fahd's peace proposal that called for founding a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East (Arab) Jerusalem as its capital.

During the period of the first Intifada, the OIC's Jerusalem Committee decided that al-Quds Day should be marked by publicand highly publicized-events around the Arab world. Iran has celebrated the Jerusalem Day since 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini decreed the last Friday of Ramadan as al-Quds Day. It celebrates this event with stamps and posters featuring scenes of Jerusalem, roster of speeches, an art exhibition, a folkloric show, and a youth program supported by hundreds of thousand ofparticipants.43 So does Iran's satellite organization Hizbullah in Lebanon, by marking the day with a large military parade during the last week of Ramadan.

Beginning in 1989, Jordan has marked al-Quds Day with an academic conference held at a different university each year. Al-Quds Day was until recently a kind of lip-service paid by Arab countries to show solidarity with the Palestinian cause. This may be seen in a statement made by Dr. Subhi Ghawsha (a Jordanian of Palestinian origin), who organized the al-Quds Day conference in Jordan in 1995. Ghawsha laments that "[the problem of Jerusalem, which lies at the heart of the Arab-Zionist conflict, has been marginalized and de-prioritized by the Arab world, when it should be its first priority." However, according to him, the coming generations will not cease its struggle to liberate Jerusalem and to restore it to Arab-Muslim and Christian sovereignty.44

Former Jordanian prime minister Taher al-Masri, who is of West Bank origin, said at the same conference that the study day's goal was to refute the [Israeli] historical falsification according to which al-Quds' status in the Arab and Muslim world is a minor one, and to prevent any attempt to erase Arab and Muslim presence from the city and to present it as Israel's eternal and united capital. He decried the fact that Israel's planned Jerusalem 3000 celebrations had not been opposed by the Arab and Muslim world. Al-Masri added that "[t]here is no historical basis for the Jews' claim of 3,000 year-long sovereignty, and it is important that we make our opinion known to the world and that we formulate a strategy in this regard for the world that lies beyond the Arab homeland. Also participating in this conference was Arab League secretary general Dr. 'Ismat Abd al-Magid of Egypt, who spoke of the challenge posed to the Muslim world by Israel's planned Jerusalem 3000 festivities.

Al-Quds Day conferences are usually attended by Jordanian figures identified with the Palestinian issue. Thus, participating in the 1998 al-Quds Day conference in Jordan were Dr. Abd al-Latif 'Arabiyat, former chairman ofparliament and a member of the Islamic Movement inJordan (he also served as chair ofthe board oftrustees ofthe university that hosted the conference), and Dr. Hazem Nusseibeh, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin who had formerly served as Jordan's foreign minister and ambassador to the UN.46 Al-Quds Day is also marked by local initiatives in which leading Muslim clerics participate. For example, on November 11, 2002 (17 Ramadan, the day on which, according to tradition, the Battle of Badr took place between the Prophet and the Quraysh tribe), the Islamic Heritage Committee in Jerusalem organized a virtual world al-Quds Day, on which Islamic groups around the world were invited to participate in an Internet encounter with leading Muslim religious figures.47 In recent years, the al-Quds Day has expanded to being a rite held over a few days and has included protest demonstrations of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for independence. Most protest rallies in a number of locations both in the Middle East and across Muslim communities in the West are organized by radical Islamists.

Eleven Islamic summit conferences have been convened since 1969. The last extraordinary summit was held in December 2005 in Mecca. Although the summit was convened to deal with the Danish Muhammad cartoons controversy, a uniting theme was concern for the safety and condition of the historic Islamic sites in Al-Quds, including the al-Aqsa Mosque.48

The al-Aqsa Summit of November 2000 expressed support for the Palestinian position regarding] Jerusalem, called for the cessation of lsraeli actions aimed at Judaizing Jerusalem, and condemned Israel's renewed efforts to enable Jews to visit the Temple Mount. The conference praised Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco for their contribution to restoration activities on the Temple Mount. It also expressed support for Palestinian efforts to gain sovereignty over Jerusalem, including al-Haram al-Sharif and the Christian holy sites. Islamic country leaders called upon the international community to keep Israel from altering Jerusalem's demographic and geographic character and to cause Israel to desist from its policy of preventing Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from enteringJerusalem and worshiping there freely. Israel was also called upon to cease its policy of revoking Palestinians' Jerusalem-resident status. The summit condemned the Israeli Supreme Court's 1996 ruling affirming the right of Jews to pray on the Temple Mount ("in the precinct of the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque"), as well as an earlier ruling that declared the site to be part of the territory ofthe State of Israel; these rulings were portrayed as encouraging extremist Jewish groups to increase their presence at the al-Aqsa site and to engage in provocative and destructive activities there.49

The OIC's Jerusalem Fund took care to draw up a founding document that emphasizes Jerusalem's Arab character and its religious, political, and cultural sacredness to Muslims. The document was formulated by a team of intellectuals from the Muslim world."" The organization also decided, at the meeting known as the Intifada Summit, to invest 200 million dollars in activities aimed at strengthening the status of Jerusalem Arabs. A plan was submitted to the fund that called for investing 41 million dollars in construction projects and services for Jerusalem's Arab population, but only a portion of these decisions and plans appear to have been implemented.'

Inter-Arab and pan-Islamic bodies also respond vigorously to burning issues connected with Jerusalem and the holy sites. The events of October 1990, for example, drew harsh reactions from the Muslim world. The dispersion of the demonstration on the Temple Mount, during which 17 Muslims were killed, triggered reactions. The Egyptian Waqf Ministry issued a statement in which it referred to Israel as a "true enemy" (although peace was signed between Egypt and Israel in 1979) and called upon Muslims to organize in opposition to it. Saddam Hussein proclaimed that the day of reckoning would arrive, accompanied by the falling of Iraqi missiles on Israel a promise that, indeed, was fulfilled during the first Persian Gulf War. After the Western Wall Tunnel events in September 1996, the Arab League issued a special statement regarding the al-Aqsa Tunnel. A year later the Arab League declared al-Aqsa Tunnel Day (September 25,

1996) as a day of solidarity with Jerusalem, on which all schools across the Arab and Muslim world were to dedicate their study activities to the subject of Jerusalem's Muslim history, its importance to the Arab nation, and to ways of countering efforts to Judaize the city.' As with the Arab League's other decisions, this one appears not to have been implemented.

One recent example of how the al-Aqsa campaign has become a worldwide phenomenon is the program of the forty-fourth annual convention of ISNA-the Islamic Society of North America-held in September 2007. One of the sessions was entitled "The Struggle of al-Aqsa and the Holy Land." The program said that "the session will discuss the recent threats to the stability of the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, which serves as a microcosm of the ongoing Palestinian struggle."5

6.4 Achievements: Raising Awareness in the Muslim World

In previous chapters, we have seen illustrations of the degree to which the use of Islamic symbols has paid off. The historical, religious, and political messages regarding Jerusalem are disseminated widely in the Arab and Muslim world and are readily absorbed by the Arab "street, that is, the general public that is usually not a part of the ruling elite the public that, as a rule, opposes its leadership's moderate and pro-Western policies and expects it to take firmer action against Israel.

My article entitled "Third in Sanctity, First in Politics," which addresses the various elements of Jerusalem's religious elevation in the Muslim world, opens with a story told to me by a friend, an Egyptian intellectual who frequently visits Israel as the guest of Israeli academics and public institutions and as such may be described as a "friend of Israel." While visiting his parents' home in Cairo, I had the opportunity to become acquainted with his completely secular family, no member of which engages in prayer. Members of the family had visited the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa compound as tourists, and they had been to Jerusalem several times during the preceding 20 years. They are not particularly fond of the Palestinians. Yet even my Egyptian friend's story can be seen to illustrate the tremendous influence enjoyed by the "al-Aqsa is in Danger" messages. After his father died, my friend's mother asked him to accompany her on a pilgrimage to Mecca-a duty that, at her advanced age, she was eager to fulfill. At the end of the formal ceremonies at the Ka'ba (a ritual attended by some two million Muslims annually), my friend and his mother lingered around the colonnades of the sacred mosque, where sermons were being delivered by a succession of preachers. One preacher chose to speak about al-Aqsa and the dangers facing it. According to my friend, at a certain point during the sermon the audience became exceedingly agitated and even he and his mother, who are familiar with the actual situation on the al-Aqsa site, began to shed tears.

I heard about this personal experience of my friend's while we were attending a conference on Jerusalem in the capital of Jordan, a conference sponsored by former crown prince Hasan bin Talal. During the lunch break, I asked my interlocutor how it was that the opinions that had been expressed at the conference with regard to Jerusalem by representatives of Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco were more extreme than those of the Palestinians. By telling me his Mecca story, my friend hoped to make the situation more comprehensible to me, adding: "You should know that in the Arab world we view the issue of the Jerusalem holy sites as one that concerns us first and foremost. It touches us and we are very sensitive to it. We will not let the Palestinians belittle this issue or compromise on it, because it is important to us that the Muslim status of the sites be preserved." I later heard similar comments from other conference participants, from Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco.

The success of the strategy of Jerusalem's religious-political elevation lies in the direct and indirect pressure that it exerts on the political leaderships of the Arab countries, primarily on rulers connected with the American sphere of influence (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Emirates). The ruling elites are challenged by the "Arab street" and find it difficult to promulgate a moderate foreign policy when opposition groups representing the more general public opinion in their countries employ religious symbols and "al-Aqsa is in Danger" slogans that strike deep emotional and religious chords, especially when images of slain Palestinians in the "Holy Land" are part of the package. The crisis faced by the Jordanian and Egyptian ruling regimes after the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada, when opposition organizations and Islamist movements sought to demonstrate their solidarity with the Intifada, leading to fears that such demonstrations would lead to overt opposition to the regimes in question, illustrates the fact that large populations in ArabMuslim countries have absorbed and internalized the above-described messages during the last four decades. It also indicates the degree to which Islamist opposition movements are using the Jerusalem issue to pressure Arab regimes and to cause Arab political leaders to identify with the struggle to liberate the Islamic holy places in Jerusalem.

Palestinians are applying direct and indirect pressure on the leaders of Arab countries when they place responsibility for the fate of Jerusalem on "the entire Muslim nation," and first and foremost on the state leaderships. Thus, in a joint interview held with Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Sheikh Ikrima Sabri in January 2001, Sabri stated that for as long as Jerusalem is under occupation, all Muslims around the world would bear the stain of sin (ithm). Qaradawi added that the rulers bear the weightiest responsibility of all: when they suppress their subject populations, their young people are unable to engage in jihad. The masses, for their part, must prepare themselves for the liberation endeavor and donate funds for this purpose.

The following example illustrates how the Palestinian-generated message that Jerusalem belongs to the entire Muslim world has penetrated the Egyptian political echelon: former Egyptian foreign minister Ismat Abd-al-Magid said on an al-Jazeera television program, in which he appeared together with Sheikh Ikrima Sabri and Dr. Hanan Ashrawi (PA's former minister of higher education) about two months after the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada, that "[t]he Jerusalem issue is the heart of the problem and it touches not only Israel and the Palestinians, but also the entire Arab world, both Muslim and Christian." Hanan Ashrawi immediately responded, "If this is true, then it should be translated into practical activity." She meant that Egypt should be more active in supporting the Palestinian cause.

A third example is taken from Jordan: the leader of the oppositional Muslim Brotherhood Abd Al-Majid Dhunaybat, during the inauguration of al-Aqsa Week events in the southern Jordanian city of Maan, said that al-Aqsa's occupation by Israel is a "stain upon the brow of the Arabs. This statement also points an accusing finger toward Jordan's Hashemite regime.

Jordan is an example of the relative success enjoyed by the "al-Aqsa is in Danger" strategy, due to the kingdom's inherent vulnerability. Although the government's foreign policy is generally moderate, due to domestic opposition and public opinion it is obliged to pay lip-service to the Islamic perspective. Jordan permits pro-Palestinian parades and demonstrations to be held and gives freedom of expression to groups representing both the opposition and the government, as well as other dissident groups, with regard to Jerusalem and the holy sites. These entities take advantage of the leeway granted them in order to attack the policy of the regime that continues to exist in peace with Israel and to maintain a degree of normalization with the Jewish state. Thus, the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan organized in late February 1990 (during the first Intifada) an al-Aqsa Week in response to the Hamas movement's Leaflet 52. The time selected was the last week of the month of Rajab, during which, according to tradition, the Prophet Muhammad traveled to al-Aqsa and from there to heaven (al-isra' wal-mi'raj). The event was mainly a festival of speeches in which the Islamization of the Palestinian problem was discussed. There was also a parade organized by the Islamic group at the Jordanian University of Amman, immediately after its sweeping victory in the student council elections.61

It should be noted that the Jerusalem issue is not the only source of pressure on the Jordanian government. The entire Palestinian question constitutes a major challenge for Jordan, due to the kingdom's demographic and ethnic composition (a Palestinian majority of over 50 percent), its pro-American foreign policy, and the Hashemite monarchy's vulnerability. The use made by Palestinians of religious symbols-symbols that the Hashemites employ in order to strengthen their own legitimacy-embarrasses the ruling elite. The regime's method of dealing with Palestinian and Islamic dissent is to express a certain amount of support for the Palestinian struggle or some hostility to Israel, and to participate in certain activities such as the commemoration of the thirty-third anniversary of the al-Aqsa Mosque fire. Statements made by Israeli officials, such as Tsachi Hanegbi (the minister of internal security during the first half of 2003), Mickey Levy (Jerusalem police chief), and others, regarding the possibility of increased Jewish tourism on the Temple Mount were highly embarrassing for the Jordanian establishment, since the Jerusalem Waqf officials are still considered to be its representatives. For this reason, the head of the Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs, Abdallah Kanan (a Prince Hassan appointee),62 makes frequent statements to the press in which he condemns Israel and its actions on the Temple Mount and in Jerusalem. In 2002, Kan'an called upon Jordan's Ministry of Education and its universities to include the Palestinian and Jerusalem problem in its curricula, "due to the current situation in Palestine in general and in Jerusalem in particular, so that it may be internalized by pupils and by future generations." In response, the head of curricula in the Ministry of Education, Mahmud Massad, stated that his ministry was considering the inclusion of a section on Jerusalem in its new curricula. Messages calling for Muslim mobilization to liberate Jerusalem have been appearing in school textbooks in Arab countries for some considerable time. Thus, in a Saudi fifth-grade textbook, one finds the following statement: "Jerusalem has become the focus of interest for our ancient enemies...It is now in the hands of the Zionist occupiers, and the Muslims now aspire to reclaim it from the Zionist exploiters who have wrought destruction there, who have burned the al-Aqsa Mosque and humiliated the city's Muslim residents. The Muslims will succeed, through Allah's might, in liberating Jerusalem and in purifying it of its foreign occupiers.""Another Saudi textbook, one intended for sixth graders, states that "Jewish aggression is currently throwing its shadow over the al-Aqsa Mosque. All of the world's Muslims share the duty of defense and jihad that will ensure Muslim victory and honor and the purification of the Islamic holy places."5

To conclude, the political and ideological struggle conducted by the Arabs and Muslims serves to complement the struggle that is taking place on the religious plane. The conflict's Islamization and its portrayal as a religious or cultural war have the effect of increasing political support for the Palestinians among world Arab and Muslim communities. The political campaign is based first and foremost on the challenging situation that prevails with regard to the Temple Mount/ al-Aqsa compound and generates tensions and incidents that are then exploited in order to transmit the fear-instilling message "al-Aqsa is in Danger." The entities involved in this message's dissemination are mainly Islamist movements claiming that every Muslim nation and each individual Muslim is duty-bound to engage in jihad in order to liberate Jerusalem, with Saladin extolled as the ideal model to be emulated. The campaign's success with the general public is evident, as is its influence on political positions taken by Arab states. Arab state policies are quite consistent in this area, calling for the transfer of sovereignty over the Arab section of Jerusalem to an Arab-Muslim entity. Denunciations of Arab governments' inaction in this area leads senior officials in the Arab world to express themselves in an extreme manner with regard to Jerusalem and ensures that opposition groups enjoy relative freedom to vent their fury over the issue of al-Aqsa and Jerusalem.

References

References are available on the book link of Google Scholar.