Rabat and Riyadh will now try to make it as difficult as possible for Jordan to maintain its status at the holy site, thereby also challenging Israel and the United States on this sensitive matter. Fifty-one years have passed since the establishment in Rabat, Morocco, of one of the most hostile organizations towards Israel ever. One of the more prestigious committees in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, formerly known as the Organization of the Islamic Conference, is the Jerusalem Committee. Morocco’s kings, the “defenders of Islam’s holy sites in Jerusalem,” have led this committee for decades. From Morocco’s standpoint, normalization of ties with Israel is not just a renewed embrace of the Moroccan diaspora in Israel, but a stake with which it can improve the kingdom’s standing at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, the third holiest place in Islam.
