Is Jordan violating Israeli sovereignty? Campaign bolsters ‘first line of defense for Al-Aqsa’

“The campaign does not belong only to the Engineers Association but to the entire Jordanian people, and it represents the feelings of the residents [of Jordan] towards the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

By Aryeh Savir/TPS

The Jordan Engineers Association has recently concluded a campaign in which it collected donations totaling 2.9 million shekels (nearly $1 million) for the renovation of Arab homes in Jerusalem, a form of foreign intervention in Israel’s capital, two pro-Israel organizations charge.

The Arabic research division of the Im Tirzu Zionist movement, together with the Lach Yerushalayim organization, has revealed a campaign for Jordanian foreign involvement in Jerusalem.

Chairman of the Jordan Engineers Association Majed al-Taba stated that the Jordanian body has collected nearly 3 million shekels ($1 million) in a fundraising campaign to renovate and repair the infrastructure of 338 Arab-owned educational institutions and homes in the Old City of Jerusalem, near the Temple Mount.

“This campaign is the Jordanians’ response to the Balfour Declaration that allowed the Israeli occupation authorities to establish a national home for Jews in Palestinian lands,” said al-Taba, after the successful campaign.

“We will light the candles of steadfastness,” he stated over the weekend, at the end of a five-year-long campaign to strengthen the infrastructure of Arab homes in the Old City.

Al-Taba added that “the campaign does not belong only to the Engineers Association but to the entire Jordanian people, and it represents the feelings of the residents [of Jordan] towards the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

Jordan’s Hayat FM radio, which sponsored the campaign and promoted it in the Arab media, said that the residents of the Old City “are the first line of defense for the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” and “supporting the Old City families brings us one step closer to prayer inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We will soon be able to broadcast and say from the Al-Aqsa plaza ‘we are in Jerusalem and hello to you, this is the news edition.’”

“Today we strengthened the [Arab] Jerusalem resident in his opposition to the occupier,” the radio said

Referring to the meddling of a Jordanian entity in Jerusalem, the two Israeli organizations warned that “in recent years, the State of Israel has been losing control of what is happening in Jerusalem. The capital of Israel must not become the center of foreign involvement of hostile states whose purpose is to infringe on our sovereignty.”

“It is very disturbing to see the Jordanian involvement. While Israel continues to provide them with water at bargain prices and warms up relations, the Jordanians are deepening their agitation in the city to challenge the Jewish legitimacy and connection to the capital,” they added, calling on the government to “stop this as soon as possible.”

They turned to the Foreign Affairs Minister Yair Lapid and the Public Security Minister Omer Barlev on the subject so that “they would stop the Jordanian invasion of Jerusalem.”