Jordan quietly gaining Temple Mount control*

Officials say Arab kingdom using shell firms to buy key properties with
access to holy site

Posted: March 13, 2007
News from Israel

JERUSALEM – Jordan has been quietly purchasing real estate surrounding
the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in hopes of gaining more control over the
area accessing the holy site, according to Palestinian and Israeli
officials.

The officials confirmed that the Jordanian Kingdom has been using shell
companies during the past year to purchase several apartments and shops
located at key peripheral sections of the Temple Mount.

Temple Mount in Jerusalem

The officials said Jordan also set up a commission to use the companies
to petition mostly Arab landowners adjacent to eastern sections of the
Temple Mount to sell their properties. They said profits from sales at
any purchased shops would be reinvested to buy more real estate near the
Mount and in eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods.

The shell companies at times have presented themselves as acting on
behalf of the Waqf, the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount.

Sheik Azzam Khateeb, who was installed last month as the new manager of
the Waqf, is known to be close to the Jordanian monarchy. The previous
Waqf manager, Sheik Adnon Husseini, was loyal to Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party and had relations with Israel and
some Jewish groups.

"Khateeb answers directly to Jordan," a Fatah official said.

The Israeli and Palestinian officials said Jordan recently placed a bid
to purchase Jerusalem's Intercontinental Hotel, which is situated on an
important road that leads to an ancient cemetery on the Mount of Olives,
adjacent to the Temple Mount. Informed sources say that the hotel is
owned by groups representing the Israeli government and is leased every
10 years to a new company. The last lease was signed in 1997 and expires
later this year. It was not immediately clear whether Jordan's bid was
accepted.

The Mount of Olives is site of many biblical events and is considered
important to Judaism and Christianity.

Real estate ownership in Jerusalem's Old City is widely considered a
sensitive matter. Previous Israeli-Palestinian peace proposals
tentatively divided parts of the city based on Jewish or Arab residence.

Jordan previously controlled eastern Jerusalem and the Temple Mount from
1948 until Israel liberated the territory in the 1967 Six Day War.
During the period of Jordanian control, Jews were barred from the
Western Wall and Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest sites, and hundreds of
synagogues were destroyed. Jordan constructed a road to the
Intercontinental Hotel that stretched across the Mount of Olives,
bulldozing hundreds of Jewish gravestones.

Jordan the past few months has boosted its public profile on the Temple
Mount.

The appointment of Khateeb as the new Waqf manager for the Temple Mount
was widely seen as a nod to Jordan.

In January, Israel granted Jordan permission to replace the main podium
in the Al Aqsa Mosque from which Islamic preachers deliver their
sermons. The podium is considered one of the most important stands in
the Muslim world. Muslims believe it marks the "exact spot" their
prophet Muhammad went up to heaven to receive revelations from Allah.

The new stand bears the emblem of the Jordanian Kingdom. It replaces a
1,000-year-old podium believed to have been shipped to Jerusalem by the
Islamic conqueror Saladin. That stand was destroyed in 1969, when an
Australian tourist set fire to the Al Aqsa Mosque.

Last month it was first reported that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert granted
permission to Jordan to construct a large minaret at a site on the
Temple Mount where Jewish groups here had petitioned to build a synagogue.

A minaret is a tower usually attached to a mosque from which Muslims are
called to the five Islamic daily prayers.

There are four minarets on the Temple Mount. The new minaret will be the
largest one yet. It will be the first built on the Temple Mount in more
than 600 years and is slated to tower over the walls of Jerusalem's Old
City. It will reside next to the Al-Marwani Mosque, located at the site
of Solomon's Stables.

A top leader of the Waqf said that Olmert's granting of permission to
build the minaret in the synagogue's place "confirms 100 percent the
Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) belongs to Muslims."

"This proves Jewish conspiracies for a synagogue will never succeed and
solidifies our presence here. It will make Muslims worldwide more secure
that the Jews will never take over the Haram al-Sharif," the Waqf
official said.