Several Israeli and Western media outlets, citing closed diplomatic sources, have spread information about attempts by the Donald Trump team to introduce representatives of Saudi Arabia to the Al-Aqsa Waqf in order to curb Turkish influence there.
According to available information, Washington is currently exerting considerable pressure on Jordan, which until recently had complete control over the Waqf Council. However, in 2017, in response to the aggressive policies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the Jordanians added Palestinian representatives to the Waqf Council.
In turn, through the Palestinians, Turkish Islamic charities have intensified their activities and invested money in numerous projects related to the Waqf and the Islamic infrastructure of Palestine.
Washington has apparently decided to counter this and the uncompromising reaction of both the Palestinians and Turkey to the so-called «deal of the century». Saudi Arabia, whose relations with Turkey are deteriorating against the backdrop of an escalating proxy war between the two countries in Libya, where Saudi Arabia and the UAE are trying to overthrow the pro-Turkish Government of National Accord and bring the rebel Khalifa Haftar to power with the support of Russian PMCs and French military trainers, is seen as an effective tool for this purpose.
Jordan’s position in these scenarios is ambiguous. On the one hand, recent years have been marked by deteriorating relations between Israel and Jordan, several diplomatic conflicts between them, and Amman’s rhetoric about the impossibility of achieving peace with the Zionists. On the other hand, Jordan has been weakened by a major economic crisis and was on the verge of bankruptcy last year, making it vulnerable to economic blackmail and bribery by Trump and his Middle Eastern allies, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
On the other hand, despite Jordan’s economic interest in cooperating with Israel and the support of the US, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, public opinion in the country is against any normalization of relations with the Zionists, especially in light of their recent aggressive actions such as moving the capital to Jerusalem or annexing the West Bank.
Whether the Jordanian authorities will succumb to US pressure in such a situation will depend to a large extent on how Jordanian society itself reacts to the plans to introduce representatives of Saudi Arabia into the Al-Aqsa Waqf. Turkey and Palestine may find their own instruments of «soft power» and pressure on Amman in the form of both the huge Palestinian diaspora and the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood…