In his article ‘The Islamic scramble for Jerusalem’ in The Strategist, former Israeli diplomat Jacob Rosen-Koenigsbuch claimed that ‘the Palestinian Authority, consciously or unconsciously, [is] in competition, and eventually on a collision course, with Jordan about which country will have the special role in Jerusalem’s holy shrines’, and that Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran are also competing with each other over the Muslim holy sanctuaries in Jerusalem. This is far from the truth.
No Muslim ruler or country claims sovereignty over occupied East Jerusalem other than the Palestinian Authority (PA). The current Jordanian role with al-Haram al-Sharif is due to the fact that Jerusalem was occupied while it was under Jordanian rule and the Palestinian Authority is prevented by Israel from looking after al-Haram al-Sharif. This agreement was made between the Jordanian government and the PA. The Vatican, Sweden, Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and 138 other states recognise Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.
All Muslim countries want Jerusalem and its holy sanctuaries to be liberated from Israel’s occupation, but being a city holy to Muslims doesn’t mean they claim a special role and sovereignty over it, just as no Catholic country claims sovereignty over the Vatican because it’s holy to them.
Similarly, being also holy to Jews doesn’t give Israel the right to colonise the city. These colonialist ambitions don’t belong to the 21st century. The Crusaders and others have tried and failed.
Jerusalem was originally established by the Jebusites, an Arab Canaanite subgroup who are the Palestinians of today, and has throughout history been their spiritual, commercial and cultural capital. We were a settled, urban and advanced society before nomadic Hebrews came to our country.
You can find the rest of this atrocious piece of pro-Palestinian lies and propaganda at a site dubiously named The Strategist.