The danger of a religious war over Jerusalem sounded alarm bells across many capitals in the region and around the world. "We shall not let the [Naftali] Bennetts and the [Ismail] Haniyehs drag us into a regional explosion," a senior State Department official told Al-Monitor, following the meetings convened by US Secretary of State John Kerry in Amman on Nov. 13 with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordanian King Abdullah II.

The Amman summit produced only a bandage for the bloodshed in Jerusalem. Netanyahu, according to the State Department source, went a long way to pacify the king of Jordan. It was clear in the meeting that the mere existence of the 1994 Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty was at stake. Not only did the prime minister give guarantees to uphold the status quo on the Temple Mount, but both his interlocutors (Kerry and Abdullah) also understood that Israeli construction in East Jerusalem would be curbed. Netanyahu was apparently shocked by the demons he himself helped create. Abdullah called in the meeting for an urgent renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, yet Netanyahu could console himself by the fact that Kerry did not seem inclined to jump into such a waterless pool. Without a clear commitment to border demarcation on the basis of the 1967 lines, talks will not be renewed.

Aaron David Miller, vice president of the Woodrow Wilson Center and a key player on the Clinton Middle East team, told Al-Monitor: "The peace process is like rock and roll — it will never die. But chances of getting negotiations back on track now seem doomed. You have Israeli and Palestinian leaders who won't lead; huge gaps on core issues; deep mistrust between the parties; and an unstable regional environment that makes sustainable and successful negotiations difficult, if not impossible."

Netanyahu continues to stick to his three no's: no border, no settlement freeze, no negotiations. He made this clear to the new EU High Commissioner on Foreign and Security Affairs Federica Mogherini at their Nov. 7 meeting in Jerusalem. Diplomatic sources in Brussels tell Al-Monitor that British and French foreign ministries discussed recently with the State Department a more solid rescue operation for the current situation. Europe is worried about an Islamic emotional outburst on the issue of Jerusalem, and in the view of the European leaders, only a renewal of the peace process can stop the ongoing process of spiraling violence.