Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Israel’s top envoy to Jordan warned that the two countries’ peace treaty was at risk of collapse from clashes around Jerusalem’s holy shrines and implicated his own government for failing to calm tensions, in a rare public criticism from a serving diplomat.

Ambassador Daniel Nevo said at a conference on Monday that battles at the Al Aqsa Mosque and visits there by Israeli right-wing legislators who inflamed Muslim opinion by advocating to end a ban on Jewish prayer on the Old City Temple Mount, known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary, could spark a crisis.

Mr. Nevo suggested that declarations by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel would uphold the religious status quo at the site—holy to both Jews and Muslims and overseen by Jordan—was inadequate to calm relations with Jordan.

“Imams are saying the Jews are conquering or penetrating Al Aqsa.…It’s enough to put all this peace treaty in jeopardy,’’ said the career diplomat, who was speaking at a Hebrew University conference on the 20th anniversary of the peace treaty.

“The government of Israel cannot allow extremists to take over Al Aqsa, and do whatever they want to do, and change the status quo….This is not acceptable. This thing can explode everything,” he said.

A spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu declined to comment on the ambassador remarks, which came days after Jordan recalled its ambassador.

Jordan’s ambassador to Tel Aviv, initially scheduled to address the conference, was summoned back to Amman on Wednesday after Israeli border police clashed at the entrance to Al Aqsa with demonstrators who threw rocks and shot fireworks at them. The Muslim Waqf, the Jordanian-led religious authority that administers the Jerusalem site, accused the Israel border police of desecrating the site.

The ambassador’s recall marked the biggest blow to ties in recent years. Still, Mr. Netanyahu telephoned Jordan’s King Abdullah and both governments made the conversation public, a sign that high-level lines of communication remain open between the two U.S. allies.

The peace treaty between the two countries is considered a strategic pillar underpinning region security by both the U.S. and Israel. The neighbors collaborate extensively on security, and are working on strategic economic deals on water and gas.

Mr. Nevo stressed the importance of Israel’s role in preserving “peace and quiet” at the holy site. He said that inaccurate reports on Arab language satellite channels were ratcheting up pressure around the region on the kingdom.

He said noted that Jordan is already under enormous strain from the refugee influx from Syria, has a fragile economy, and that the country’s majority population of Palestinian origin is sensitive to all developments that occur in the Palestinian territories west of the Jordan river.

“We have to do our utmost to ease the pressure on Jordan from our side,’’ he said. “Not enough is being done.”

*Wall Street Journal