Amman warns that the gradual normalisation of Jewish prayer at Jerusalem’s most contested holy site could transform the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a wider religious confrontation. Jordan has called an emergency meeting of Arab and Muslim foreign ministers amid mounting fears that Israel is dismantling the decades-old arrangements governing the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem. The meeting, scheduled for Wednesday in Amman, will bring together ministers from Arab states as well as Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi is expected to seek a coordinated diplomatic response to what Amman describes as an “imminent” threat to the compound and to Jordan’s custodial role there. “Jerusalem is a tinderbox,” Safadi told The Guardian , warning that interference with the site’s established arrangements could produce repercussions across the Muslim world. There is, however, an important distinction: no Israeli cabinet decision form...
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Tuesday that he would not resign and insisted that his government was fully aligned with the country’s armed forces. “If I resign, I will announce it officially. I will not resign, and I will stand firm,” Pezeshkian said, according to the Iranian newspaper Entekhab . “We are fully coordinated with the military forces,” he added, rejecting attempts to portray the supreme leader, the government and the military as following different policies. The statement, released in a preview of a four-part televised account of his government’s first two years, was necessary because the resignation story had become more than a passing rumour. It was being used to question whether Pezeshkian still possessed meaningful authority at the precise moment Iran is weighing further escalation against a diplomatic exit from its five-month war with the United States. Left unanswered, the allegation risked turning him into a lame-duck president in the eyes of Iran’s bu...