Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas raised his rhetoric on Tuesday, threatening about the "risk of an intifada" or popular terror war if clashes at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem continue.
After a meeting with French leader Francois Hollande in Paris, Abbas warned about the clashes that have been occurring since last week, saying, "what is happening is very dangerous."
He called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to "stop" the clashes, and warned against "an intifida which we don't want."
The statements are ironic, given Abbas's call for violence at the Temple Mount - Judaism's holiest site - just last Wednesday.
In that call which was broadcast on official PA TV, Abbas said "the Al-Aqsa (Mosque) is ours...and they (Jews) have no right to defile it with their filthy feet," while praising "martyrs" who spill blood in Jerusalem for Allah.
In the meeting on Tuesday, Hollande called for "peace, calm and the respect of principles" around the flashpoint holy site.
"I expressed our attachment to the status quo over the mosque compound," he said after the talks with Abbas.
Abbas' visit to France comes shortly before the United Nations General Assembly in New York where he will oversee the raising of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flag at the UN.
On the same day as the flag-raising, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will host a meeting of the Middle East Quartet seeking a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The last "peace talks" were torpedoed by Abbas last April when he signed a unity deal with Hamas.
The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, along with the secretary general of the Arab League, will attend in a bid to force a return to the negotiating table.
Since last Sunday on the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah, Islamist extremists have been violently rioting on the Mount, turning Al-Aqsa Mosque into a base to launch attacks against police with rocks and explosives.
The Jordanian Waqf remains in de facto control of the holiest site in Judaism, and has banned Jews from praying at the site despite Israeli laws stipulating freedom of worship.
AFP contributed to this report.