U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pushed the emergency ejection button on his Paris talks with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov over the crisis in Ukraine and flew into Israel to try and force a last-minute agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority for the release of more Arab terrorists.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has stated no more concessions will be taken unless it is “clear” what Israel will receive in return, but it is anyone’s guess what Israel could gain except for Brownie points in the White House and another dinner with Kerry, for what it’s worth.

And motorists are being smacked with the occasional closing of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway between 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 pm. Israeli time and during Tuesday morning’s rush hour, 8-10 a.m., so Kerry can have all the of the road it himself.

The Palestinian Authority newspaper Al-Quds quoted Kerry as saying he told PA officials he will free the terrorists with his own hands if he has to.

Most Israelis, from Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon to even the dovish media with the exception of Haaretz, would not mind if Kerry would take a walk, a very long walk and even better off a short pier.

The Palestinian Authority also is not so thrilled with him. Its officials have created a cold air mass before his arrival, saying that they really are not interested in extending the talks that Kerry initiated last July, but that can be discounted as playing hard to get.

Kerry will meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu Monday evening and then travel to Ramallah for a discussion with Mahmoud Abbas.

“Secretary Kerry decided it would be productive to return to the region,” State Dept. spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
Translation: Kerry is roaring into town with ammunition on both shoulders and will tell both sides that they will bear the wrath of Obama himself if they don’t agree to help the president make a fool out of himself.

No one really knows who is on first anymore. Kerry and his media groupies have created the fiction that Israel agreed last July to free several Arab terrorists who are card-carrying Israeli citizens.

Netanyahu was quoted this past December 31 saying he never agreed to free them as part of the fourth and final batch of terrorists, but the truth really doesn’t matter anymore. Freeing them has been accepted as a fact by Kerry, the Palestinian Authority, and the media, so the truth really does not matter anymore.

Israel reportedly has offered to free more than the last group of 26 terrorists, which is not likely to happen unless he card-carrying Israelis will remain in jail. The Palestinian Authority supposedly has demanded that Israel free several hundred terrorists, and all of this, of course, for the grand prize of a few more months of charades masked as negotiations” over when to end the follies.

Kerry said Monday afternoon, “I think it’d be inappropriate to get into any kind of judgments about what may or may not occur or happen because it’s really a question between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and what Prime Minister Netanyahu is prepared to do. So he has – he is working diligently, I know. I just literally talked to him 15 minutes ago. And he’s working at it.”

Kerry and Netanyahu spoke Sunday night and again Monday morning, and they obviously were not just chewing the fat.

Not by coincidence, Opposition leader Yitzchak Herzog is meeting in Amman Monday with Jordanian King Abdullah, the first official Israeli visit since Israeli soldiers killed a Jordanian judge at the Allenby Bridge crossing when he allegedly attacked a soldier and tried to grab his weapon.

Kerry is banking on the usual gambit of threatening Abba and Netanyahu that whoever says “no” will be blamed for the collapse of his stage show. At some point, and that point is not far down the road and may already have been reached, the Palestinian Authority will say, “Blame us all you want. We have the United Nations in our pockets.”

Netanyahu so far has been too chicken to be blamed because the only thing he has in his picket is the Book of Psalms, but he hasn’t used it very much.

Jordan’s State Minister for Media Affairs warned on Monday that Israel’s allowing Jews to pray on the Temple Mount and “allowing extremist settlers to violate the sanctity of Al Aqsa Mosque under the protection of the Israeli police and army, will ignite violence and religious extremism in the region.”

Jordan’s official Petra News Agency reported that the minister, Mohammed Momani, pointed “to the religious importance of Al Aqsa Mosque to 1.7 billion Muslims as it is one of Islam’s three holiest sites and Islam’s first Qiblah.”

No mention was made that the Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest site, and the Jordan Times stated, “By law, Jews are not allowed to pray at the site and although non-Muslim visitors are permitted, such high-profile visits by right-wing government figures are very rare and tend to stoke tensions.”

The statement referred to Housing Minister Uri Ariel, who frequently visits the Temple Mount and did so on Sunday, prompting Arabs to riot and throw rocks at policemen.

“Jordan rejects Israeli escalation in Al-Aqsa as well as measures that allow radicals to violate Al-Aqsa under protection of police and occupation forces,” Momani said.

Contrary to the Jordanian report, there is no law barring Jews from praying at the Temple Mount. The Chief Rabbinate, citing Jewish laws, forbids Jews from ascending to the location where the First and Holy Temples once stood. An increasing number of national religious rabbis allow and often encourage Jews to ascend to certain parts of the Temple Mount, after immersing in a mikveh (ritual bath).

The “law” against praying on the Temple Mount is imposed by the Muslim authorities on the Temple Mount, whose a ”custodianship” was granted by Israel to Jordan, the same Jordan that closed all holy sites to Jews and Christians during its occupation of the Old City of Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria from 1949 to 1967.

The question remains why the Arabs are so afraid that a Jew will pray on the Temple Mount? The standard answer is that they are afraid that Jews will eventually build a synagogue there. The Arab world loves to be paranoia that the Jews in Israel secretly want to undermine the Al Aqsa mosque and cause its collapse, making way for the building of the Third Temple.

That idea is ridiculous, if for no other reason than 99 percent of the construction workers in Israel are Arabs. Can you see Arabs going to work to build the Third Temple in place of the Al Aqsa mosque?

But there is another reason the Arabs don’t want Jews praying there, or anywhere else for that matter. God might listen to the Jews’ prayers.

The Muslims are big on making themselves heard. The loudspeakers at every mosque in the world, especially in liberal Israel, produce enough noise pollution to put a Madonna concert to shame.

The loudspeakers routinely drown out Jewish prayers at the Patriarchs’ Cave in Hebron and often at the Western Wall. It brings to mind the shouts of the idol worshippers whom the Prophet Elijah challenged to offer sacrifices and bring rain to break a drought.

When the rain did not come, he asked them, “Wha’ happened? Maybe your gods are asleep? Yell a bit louder and wake them up.”

When the idol worshippers gave up, Elijah offered sacrifices, doused the altar with water and prayed to God, Who responded with a holy message – rain.

The Muslim idiots don’t realize that the essence of Jewish prayers are the Shema, recited out loud with the second verse said in a faint whisper that no one except the worshipper and God can hear, and the Silent Prayer, known as the Amidah, which is recited three times day.

God responds to prayers, not noise, and the more noise Jordan makes, the more God is going to hear the whispered prayers of Jews, even those prayers that cannot be said on the Temple Mount because of Islamic paranoia, which is the real incitement to violence.

The video below shows one of those Muslims on the Temple Mount cursing Rabbi Yehuda Glick, who was ushered by policemen off the Temple Mount lest his presence “incite violence.”

President Shimon Peres made a special apology on Monday for the death of a Jordanian judge last week even though the IDF has not yet changed its original preliminary conclusion that he assaulted an IDF soldier and tried to grab his rifle.

The incident has fanned the anti-Israeli flames in the monarchy. Since it was discovered that the suspect was not your ordinary terrorist suspect but was a judge, the Netanyahu government has been falling over itself to make amends.

The worst possible scenario is that the soldiers made a mistake and that the military’s first conclusions were wrong, but so far, there has been nothing to indicate otherwise.

Peres, said,  “I wish to express my deepest condolences to the people of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan for the death of Judge Raed Zeiter at the King Hussein Bridge on March 10th. As the President of the State of Israel I would like to express compassion to the bereaved family, I share in their grief.

“Earlier today I conducted an important conversation with His Majesty King Abdullah II and expressed our deep regret to him.”

Of course, Peres brought up his peace mantra again – no day in the life of President Peres can pass without it. “We discussed the importance of achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians based on two states for two peoples,” President Peres said. “We further discussed the urgent need to bring an end to the bloodshed in the Middle East and advance a future of stability and prosperity for all the people of our region.”

He praised King Abdullah II as “a leader of vision” and that “under his leadership Jordan plays a key role in the search for peace and stability in the Middle East. Israel agreed to the Jordanian request to establish a joint Israeli-Jordanian team to complete the investigation and their work has begun.”

Israel medicine has trumped politics again, this time in order to perform a kidney transplant for the desperate Jordanian parents of a seven-year-old boy, making the diplomatic row between Jordan and Israel over the killing of a Jordanian judge just another whiff of Arab hot air.

“Y” received a new life at the hands of Israeli doctors at Rambam Health Care Campus, where doctors only one month ago began performing pediatric kidney transplants. News of availability of this surgery traveled quickly and within a few days Rambam received a request from the Jordanian parents of “Y,” “Please help us by doing a kidney transplantation on our son.” A few days ago it happened.

The little boy, “Y,” suffered from acute kidney failure and needed a new kidney to survive. However, the procedure is not available in Jordan. After checking all possible options, his parents felt that Rambam was the best place to go. They turned to Dalia Bessa, the Israeli Civil Administration Health Services Coordinator, to help bring their son to Rambam.

For Rambam this came as quite a surprise—the procedure had only been available for a few weeks there. Prior to that, Rambam only offered kidney transplants for adults. Once Rambam received approval for performing this surgery in children, the hospital became the second in Israel able to provide this service, and the only one in northern Israel.

Due to the immediate danger to “Y”’s life, approvals were processed quickly. He came to Rambam shortly before surgery to undergo pre-surgical examinations and tests. Since he needed to undergo daily dialysis, and tissue matches had determined that his mother was a suitable donor, he stayed at Rambam. Even though his parents had seven other children, both parents stayed with “Y” to see him through this life-saving surgery.

When the day came, it was literally a day of surgery. First, the little boy’s mother underwent a three-hour procedure performed by a multidisciplinary team to remove one of her kidneys. Then a different multidisciplinary team brought “Y” into a separate surgical suite where the three-hour transplantation was performed.

The surgeries were successful and two days later “Y” and his mother were able to see each other. “Y” is now in a regular pediatric room becoming acclimated to his new life, no longer dependent on machines to stay alive. Soon he and his parents will return to Jordan.
Last year, 600 children and adults from the Palestinian Authority were brought to Rambam for a variety of simple to complex medical problems.

On Monday morning, a Palestinian Authority Arab tried to grab a gun from an IDF soldier, while yelling “Alahu Ahkbar”, near the terminal at the Allenby Bridge. IDF soldiers, from the Engineering corps, shot and killed the terrorist, according to Galei Tzahal.

The crossing has been temporarily closed following the attack.

The terrorist was identified as Raed Za’eiter (38), formerly of Shechem (Nablus). The Palestinian Authority Prime Minister said that Za’eiter worked as a civil court judge in Jordan.

The Allenby Bridge is the primary land-crossing point between Israel and Jordan. It was first built in 1885 by the Ottomans, rebuilt in 1918, destroyed in 1946, rebuilt again in 1968 (the wood bridge pictured above), and then finally a modern bridge was built adjacent to the wood bridge in the 1990s.

The bridge is also called the King Hussein Bridge.

Is the Temple Mount in Israel’s hands? If the nationalist Knesset members don’t provide the answer, the Arab MKs will do so in their place.

Who is the sovereign on the Temple Mount? Official Israeli claims, of course, are that it is the sovereign. But in practice, the sovereignty is being transferred to Jordan – both on the ground and by ignoring international treaties that are being signed behind Israel’s back.

According to the Jordanian foreign minister, “An agreement was signed last year between King Abdullah and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas]. The agreement endorses the historic, existing situation regarding the Hashemite control of the holy places.” He added that Jordan’s control over the Mount enjoys an international consensus. “The entire world and all the religions accept the existing reality,” he said. (Translated from the Hebrew in a February 19 NRG article.)

When I found out that an agreement had been signed to transfer the Temple Mount from the Palestinian Authority to Jordan, I asked Prime Minister Netanyahu how it could be that Israel was not reacting? Would you also be quiet, I asked him, if a second party would sell your house to a third party? After all, it is clear that Israel’s silence in the face of this agreement, publicized throughout the world, is really its tacit approval.

Replying on behalf of the Israeli government, Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir said the following: “Israel is the sovereign in Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount. It administers the most holy place for Jews while considering the fact that the site is holy for Muslims as well, and on the basis of its commitment in the peace agreement with Jordan, in which it was stipulated that ‘Israel respects the special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the places holy to Muslims in Jerusalem.’ Nothing less than that, but also nothing more. It has nothing to do with the agreement signed between Jordan and the PA – an agreement that does not bind Israel. That is all.”

Here’s my answer to Yair Shamir: “I did not receive an answer to my third question: What about Israel? I presume that if I would sell the honorable minister’s home to his neighbor, the honorable minister would oppose the move. We did not hear any voice of opposition from the Israeli government or from the prime minister of Israel over the fact that the Palestinian Authority decided to transfer the sovereignty on the Temple Mount to Jordan. Does the honorable minister, in the name of the government of Israel, say clearly now from the podium of the Knesset of Israel that the government of Israel sees itself as sovereign on the Mount and any agreement transferring the sovereignty from a second party to a third party is null and void? Am I correct, honorable minister?”

I did not receive a clear answer. That is why it is so important for the Knesset’s Jewish members to have its say on the issue of sovereignty over the Temple Mount. Jordanian pressure is taking its toll, presumably translated into pressure that ends up being exerted upon the nationalist Knesset members. If, God forbid, the Jewish MKs do not have their say, the Arab MKs will be able to pass any legislative measure they wish – with all the implications of that eventuality.

Forty-seven years after our paratroopers liberated the Mount with their blood and shouted “The Temple Mount is in our hands,” the question arises: Will our Jewish MKs have the courage to repeat that sentence in the Knesset?
This article originally appeared in Hebrew in Makor Rishon.

The Lower House of the Jordanian parliament voted Wednesday to expel the Israeli ambassador from the country as a protest to the Knesset’s having the audacity to debate the status of the Temple Mount.

In addition, 47 of the 150 legislators in the House signed a resolution that the peace treaty with Israel should be torn up and thrown away.

“The motion came in response to Israel’s actions in Jerusalem and to the Knesset debate of a law that seeks to impose Israel’s sovereignty over al-Aqsa,” the Al-Rai newspaper quoted MPs as saying in the motion.

“Israel’s actions clearly violate the peace treaty… it is aggression against Jordanian custodianship,” the motion said.

Certainly, if Israel violates the peace treaty, harsh action is warrant. Flagrantly inciting rage by even discussing the idea of a Jew praying on the Temple Mount, home of the Al Aqsa mosque, is hard evidence for condemning Israel from the depths of the Quran.

So let’s take a look at the peace treaty that Israel has so disgustingly violated.

The reference to the Temple Mount is implied in Article 9, entitled “Places of Historical and Religious Significance and Interfaith Relations.

The first clause states, “Each Party will provide freedom of access to places of religious and historical significance.” That kind of puts a giant hole in the Jordanian legislators claim that Israel has violated the peace treaty. Of course, they could always fall back on the Arab world’s fattest lie that has made the imams look even more ridiculous – that the Jewish Holy Temples never existed, that the Bible is a Zionist work of fiction and that the Western Wall’s only religious significance is that Mohammed hitched has horse there, without even paying for the parking spot.

The next clause states, “In this regard, in accordance with the Washington Declaration, Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines.”

So far, the term “permanent status” can be ascribed only to peace talks. They have become such a fixture for diplomats and  journalists that they are going to be sorry if  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry ever gives up. He probably won’t, because then he would not have anything to keep him busy. Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, China – they are small potatoes for him. He can wrap up those problems in a day or two.

Clause number 3 states, “The Parties will act together to promote interfaith relations among the three monotheistic religions, with the aim of working towards religious understanding, moral commitment, freedom of religious worship, and tolerance and peace.”

Lovely.

The Jordanian parliament thinks that the Knesset debate, initiated by Knesset Member Moshe Feiglin, should not be about freedom of religious worship. It thinks that “working towards…peace” means expelling the Israeli ambassador. One third of them think peace means breaking the peace treaty, and all of this because the Knesset talked about Jews praying on the Temple Mount.

The truth is that Jews prayed on the Temple Mount way back when, not only 2,000 years ago but also 45 years ago. No one said “boo” because the Arabs and Jews were at peace. The Arabs had been freed from the rule of Jordan, an occupation that never was authorized by the United Nations. They were neglected as second-class citizens, and Arab villages in Judea and Samaria were left to eat the crumbs that Amman left behind.

After the Six-Day War, The Arabs – pardon the expression – never had it so good. Israel opened up all holy sites to all religions, Israelis traveled and shopped freely in Judea and Samaria, and tourism flourished.

Knesset Member Moshe Feiglin may have single-handedly ditched  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s framework on Tuesday by brining to the Knesset floor a debate on the prohibition against  Jews praying on the Temple Mount.

In advance of the historic debate, the first time the issue ever has been discussed on the floor of the legislature, Arabs rioted and threw rocks at police, who dispersed them with stun grenades and tear gas and arrested three rioters. The violence forced the closure of the Temple Mount to Jews and tourists. Score one for the Muslims.

In Jordan, opposition leaders called on the monarchy to tear up the peace treaty with Israel.

The Temple Mount is the most untalked about core issue in the so-called negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The “status of Jerusalem” is a known basic issue, but there is simply nothing for negotiators on both sides to talk about when it comes to the Temple Mount.

It evokes more emotions than all other issues combined. The Oslo War, popularly called the Second Intifada, erupted after Ariel Sharon ascended the Temple Mount in his campaign for Prime Minister  in 2000. The violence was due to happen in any event given the refusal of Yasser Arafat to accept then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s offer for almost all of Judea and Samaria and most of the areas of Jerusalem that had been occupied by Jordan between 1949 and the Six-Day War in 1967.

Arab riots on the Temple Mount have become more regular as the “peace process” comes closer to another death, following the death of the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap, among other snake oil remedies..

The more Muslim clerics and Arab leaders claim that the Jewish Holy Temple never existed and that the Jews have no connection with the site, the more they are arming  themselves with hate and lies that spell “war.”

All it takes is MK Feiglin to set them off, and if Tuesday’s debate is his only accomplishment  in the current Knesset session, it will be far greater than almost all combined  acts of his 119 colleagues

Israel conveniently washed its hands of responsibility for the Temple Mount after the 1967 war and gave Jordan the right to be custodian through the Islamic Waqf.

Buoyed by the Chief Rabbinate prohibition of Jews praying or even ascending the Temple Mount because of several issues relating to Jewish law on the ruins of the Holy Temple, the Arab world tightened its enforcement against Jews trying to do so.

Many national religious rabbis allow Jews to walk on certain parts of the Temple Mount, and MK Feiglin has been doing so for years. He was barred from the Temple the past year until earlier this month, when he resumed his monthly habit of immersing in the Mikveh and visiting the holy site.

Prayers, of course are forbidden, lest Allah be upset over hearing the Shema Yisrael prayer. No prayer books are allowed, and police remove anyone who starts moving his lips. The Supreme Court has questioned the discrimination but has not issued any direct order that allows Jews to pray at the site.

Feiglin brought the issue to the Knesset after having easily secured the required signatures of 30 Knesset Members to debate the issue.

Tuesday’s discussion, was a debate and nothing more and nothing less, but it was more than enough for the Arab to press the riot button.

Arab MKs in boycotted the discussion, which may have been their best strategy since anything they say makes them look even dumber than they are.

The Arab paranoia of Jews ascending the Temple Mount stems from the same attitude that prompted Jordan to ban Jews from all holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria until the War in 1967.