‘UAE agreement allows Jews to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque’

According to a report published by the Middle East Monitor, The UAE’s agreement with Tel Aviv to allow Jews to pray on the Al-Aqsa Mosque’, which is an unprecedented change in the reality of the city, the holy sites, and the rights of Muslims on the TAl-Aqsa Mosque.

The report revealed that An Israeli study centre specialising in Jerusalem affairs has concluded that the Israeli-UAE normalisation agreement makes an unprecedented change in the city’s religious sanctuaries and Muslim rights in the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa. A report by Terrestrial Jerusalem says that the agreement provides legitimacy for Jews to pray inside the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa, which many do already with daily incursions, and limits Muslim rights to pray in occupied Jerusalem.

The UAE-Israeli agreement, says the report, involves a significant change in the status of the Holy City in favour of the Israelis. This is done in such a way that it removes any hope that Jerusalem will become the capital of a future Palestinian state.

The specific clause included in the joint UAE-Israel statement issued a few days ago appears at first to be in the interest of the Muslim community: “Muslims who come to Israel in peace have the right to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque.” The centre notes that this is the first time that the term “Al-Aqsa Mosque” has been used in an international document rather than Al-Haram Al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary (of Al-Aqsa).

There are now fears that the UAE-Israel agreement will lead to the spatial division of the Noble Sanctuary similar to what Israel has imposed at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. This has been divided between Muslims and Jews, to the extent that the Jewish section is now greater than that allocated to the much larger Muslim community in the city,adds the report.