President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, Jordan’s King Abdullah, and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas urged Israel to preserve the status quo at Jerusalem’s holiest site, Al Aqsa, Islam’s third holiest site.
The three leaders warned Israel’s far-right government Tuesday stating that “illegal and unilateral” actions threatening the prospects of a peace agreement between the two sides must end. Palestinian officials involved stated that the three leaders are becoming increasingly concerned about recent events, particularly Israel’s punitive actions against the Palestinian Authority and the statements made by the new far-right government regarding the growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
This is not the first time that the three leaders have come together; doing so on a regular basis to coordinate their policies toward Israel and to look for means of maintaining peace negotiations. Following the re-election of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as head of a right-wing, religiously conservative government, their meeting on Tuesday assumed greater significance.
Previous peace treaties
Jordan and Israel signed the peace agreement on Oct. 26, 1994, during a ceremony in Israel’s Arava valley, north of Eilat and close to the Jordanian border. The treaty was signed by Prime Ministers Rabin and Abdelsalam al-Majali, and President Weizman of Israel shook hands with King Hussein.
Regarding Egypt, the Camp David Accords of 1978 were followed by the signing of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty on March 26, 1979, in Washington, D.C., United States. Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt, and Menachem Begin, the prime minister of Israel, signed the pact in the presence of Jimmy Carter, then president of the United States.
It is also important to note that this month, Itmar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister in Netanyahu’s new government, visited the Al Aqsa compound in East Jerusalem sparking controversy as the US, Israel’s biggest supporter, denounced the visit.