Very interesting.
Israel should be doing exactly the opposite, nationalizing all non-Jewish religious sites. Once they do that, they can be very liberal about leasing them to whatever religion—as long as that religion exhibits “good behavior”.
If they get obnoxious to Israel, they can “lose their lease”, and the religious site can be leased to a different sect.
Importantly, this hits close to home with religions, and is a very tangible threat to them. In Saudi Arabia, the Wahhabi sect runs all the religious sites. But when they start agitating to overthrow the regime, the Saud threaten to take away the Wahhabi’s control over mosques and give it to the Sufi sect, which would be more than happy to take it.
This scares the Wahhabis half to death, so they behave themselves.
And the Israelis should do the same thing. If Israel took away the Wahhabi lease of the al-Asqa mosque and gave it to the Sufis, the Wahhabis would about poop themselves. And for their part, the Sufis would probably be exceptionally good and well behaved tenants.
How long before the Vatican gives it to the Muslims?
Rather, have a good working relationship with the Vatican to preserve the holy Christian sites.
I think he is pleading for help to manage the site.
Don’t trust Francis
The Vatican needs to keep its mitts off of Israel. But then, the holiest site of the Jewish religion has been in moslem hands for over a thousand years (and kept that way by Moshe Dayan after the Six Day War).
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