In an article published in Israel Hayom, Mudar Zahran, the secretary general of the “Jordanian Opposition Coalition” says that Jordan’s King Abdullah is “creating a diversion while developing plans for a third Intifada, along with a variety of acts of systematic incitement against Israel and the US.”

Zahran explains that the Abdullah’s kingdom is in trouble and is feeling the pressure from internal “riots, protests, and unrest that have been hitting Jordan for months and people are calling him out, hurling insults at him in public” even though insulting the King can carry with it a 15-year prison term.

This has  been evidenced in the Hashemite Kingdom’s government-controlled press, the sentiment when addressing the parliament and in “the actions of his puppet parliament”. And although the King’s cabinet is usually mum, “everyone has become “concerned for Jerusalem,” and as he himself has put it: “No to giving Jerusalem, no to Jordan being Palestine and no to naturalization (of Palestinians}”.

According to Zahran, the King will use Jerusalem, more specifically, the Temple Mount, to divert internal crises towards Israel.

I recently spoke with three Arab community leaders; here is how they read the king’s actions:

He sites one source with “friends in the Israeli establishment” whose father was “an elder of elders of Jerusalem’s Arabs.”  He told Zahran that: “Jordan’s king is in trouble and about to lose his throne, and he knows it. He is looking for something very touchy and has settled on using Jerusalem as a focal point. The card he will play is Al-Aqsa Mosque” – that is, the claim that Abdullah is doing everything to save Al-Aqsa. As my friend put it, “The only thing that could trigger the people against Israel is Al-Aqsa.”

Zahran does not serve in Jordan’s parliament although he describes himself as the ‘secretary general of the Jordanian Opposition Coalition’.