President Biden reportedly plans to visit the eastern part ofJerusalem next month without Israeli accompaniment, raising concerns that America is shifting policy on Israel’s capital. 

Separately, with Jordan’s King Abdullah due to visit the White House on Friday, some fear that the president will endorse the Hashemite monarch’s demands for sole Jordanian control over Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. 

As Muslims marked the holy month of Ramadan in April, Hamas-instigated riots around the mount, known in Arabic as Haram al Sharif, led to clashes with Israeli police, leading many around the world to brace for the eruption of a religious war. 

An accompanying terror wave that has so far killed at least 19 Israelis since March has not ceased even as Ramadan ended. Israeli security officials are on high alert as several meaningful dates approach. Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas. 

While Israelis initially welcomed Mr. Biden’s first visit as president, they are now increasingly doubtful that it would contribute to calming the tense situation. The White House is yet to finalize the dates and itinerary of the June visit, but Israelis are apprehensive about Mr. Biden at least tacitly endorsing many Arab demands in Jerusalem.

An official who asked for anonymity raised the possibility that Mr. Biden’s visit could lead to further rioting. Hamas leaders, the official told the Sun, could tell followers that the months-long violence had achieved positive results, and so more rioting and terror are needed. 

According to Israeli press reports, Mr. Biden is scheduled to visit the largest Palestinian medical center in eastern Jerusalem, the Makassed Hospital, which Washington plans to support financially.

Israelis do not oppose American aid to Palestinian institutions, but they are reportedly irate that plans call for the president to go to eastern Jerusalem unaccompanied by any Israelis. If Mr. Biden becomes the first American president to do so, it “would be viewed as not recognizing Israeli sovereignty over that part of the capital — and rolling back, to some extent, former US president Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital,” the Jerusalem Post reports today   

The story made the rounds in the Israeli press last night, raising questions about possible responses by Prime Minister Bennett and his government. 

“My source on this story wouldn’t comment beyond the fact of the hospital Biden wants to visit and that the US is giving it money, nothing on politics,” the Post reporter who broke the news, Lahav Harkov,  tweeted. Yet, she added, “the source is an Israeli official. And I think if Israel is leaking this, it’s trying to stop it from happening.”

While on the campaign trail in 2020, Mr. Biden vowed to reopen an American consulate in the eastern part of the Israeli capital that would cater to Palestinian affairs. As yet he has refrained from doing so, but Israelis now fear he would use the June trip to fulfill his campaign promise. 

The consulate closed when Mr. Trump became the first American president to abide by a U.S. law calling for the American embassy to be moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. 

A section of the American embassy at west Jerusalem currently is dedicated to catering to the Palesitnian population in the city and the West Bank. Reopening a separate American consulate in eastern Jerusalem would signal a departure from Mr. Trump’s approach. 

Israel united Jerusalem shortly after the 1967 Six-Day War. Before that, eastern Jerusalem, mostly populated with Arabs, was occupied by Jordan. Amman’s King Hussein renounced Jordan’s sovereignty over Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1988.

After the 1967 war Israel applied its law to the entire city, while sovereignty over the rest of the West Bank was to be determined in negotiations. Several attempts at negotiation have been made after the Palestinian Authority was created in the early 1990s as part of the Oslo Accords, but talks have so far failed to resolve the West Bank’s final status.  

Many world leaders nevertheless started referring to an “independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital” as a done deal. American officials, in contrast, have to date refrained from making a legal determination on the final legal status of eastern Jerusalem or the West Bank. 

An agreement between Jerusalem and Amman, reached after Israel took control of the city, concluded that Jordan, which sees itself as guardian of Jerusalem’s holy mosques, would appoint a Muslim authority, the Waqf, responsible for running the al Aqsa area’s religious affairs. According to that agreement Israel would be charged with maintaining security on the Temple Mount. 

Now Amman wants to bury that pact. “Israel has no sovereignty at the al Aqsa mosque, it is an occupied Palestinian land and a Muslim worship place,” Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safari, said today.

Jerusalem is concerned that Mr. Biden on Friday could at least tacitly endorse King Abdullah’s views on the Temple Mount, and that in June the president could inch closer toward endorsing Palestinian demands to end Israel’s sovereignty over its united capital.