The Arab Kingdom

08-14-2023 • arclein

In December 2022, Abdullah II, the king of Jordan, gave an interview to the CNN anchor Becky Anderson. Sitting close to the Jordan River, not far from where Jesus is believed to have been baptised, this Muslim ruler expressed his concerns about the status of Jerusalem and the Christians under pressure from the new, extremist Israeli government. He emphasised that the 'Hashemites', his family, are the custodians of both Christian and Muslim sites in the holy city. Abdullah II cited his great-great-grandfather Sharif Hussein. It was from Hussein's time, sometime at the end of the First World War, according to Abdullah II, that the Hashemite custodianship of Jerusalem's holy sites originates. His ancestor even gave sanctuary to Christi