Despite Agreement, Israeli Police Remove al-Aqsa Mosque Surveillance Cameras

Kerry Had Announced Deal With Netanyahu Just Two Days Prior

Two days after Secretary of State John Kerry announced a deal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow the installation of surveillance cameras at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, cameras arrived at the facility and were quickly and forcibly removed by Israeli police.

The cameras were brought in by Waqf, a religious trust that runs the mosque, the cameras were brought in to “defuse tensions” and to provide transparency amid growing anger about the Israeli crackdowns on Palestinians, including the access to the mosque, one of the most important in Islam.

Police defended the move, saying the cameras were an “alteration of the status quo on the Temple Mount” and would not be allowed. Netanyahu’s office claimed the deal was that they’d eventually discuss the process of getting cameras with Israeli technicians.

Apparently it never dawned on Netanyahu that agreeing to cameras would mean someone going out and buying cameras, but rather a sort of an Oslo Agreement in micro, where the principle of the cameras would endure for generations of on-again, off-again talks with no cameras ever showing up.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.