Yitzhak Levanon, Israel's former ambassador to Egypt, claims that Jordan is violating international treaties in its handling of yesterday's stabbing attack (Sunday) in the Israeli embassy compound in Amman.
"From my knowledge of embassy service abroad, I have no doubt that the response of the security guard who was stabbed twice was required and acceptable.I understand that now the Jordanians are preventing the embassy staff from leaving.It is inconceivable that we would send someone with a diplomatic passport and diplomatic immunity to hand him over.It has not happened in any Arab country, neither in Jordan nor in Turkey," Levanon said in a conversation with Arutz Sheva.
"We have a great crisis here and in order to calm things down, we have to bring them home. The fact that the Jordanians are not willing and are preventing embassy staff from leaving is unacceptable, especially when there are agreements based on international treaties that grant immunity to embassy workers."
Lebanon argues that the crisis must be resolved directly at the highest level in Jordan - the royal house."We also want to know what happened, and we have a good relationship and cooperation with the royal palace, and both countries have Middle Eastern interests, but on the other hand there is a Jordanian public that is saturated and influenced by false media that inflames passions - which led the young man to try to kill the security guard, so the Jordanians must resolve the incident without harming embassy staff."
He also believes that with regard to the Temple Mount crisis, Jordan changed its position in light of pressure from the street."In the peace agreement with Jordan, it was determined that Jordan has supreme responsibility for Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, and it was happy to be given this responsibility. At first, when we raised the need to install the magnetometers, Jordan realized that they were necessary to protect the Temple Mount.After all, a month ago, we saw how Da'ash blew up a mosque in Mosul despite its sanctity.So who guarantees this won't happen on the Temple Mount?And then, of course, they will blame Israel.That's why Jordan at first showed understanding for installing magnetometers and only after the street began to fulminate did it change its position."