Jordan’s King Abdullah II is refusing to meet with, or even speak to, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the current upsurge in tension relating to the Temple Mount, Arab sources told The Times of Israel on Thursday.

According to the sources, American diplomats have been urging the king to help calm tensions via direct communication with Netanyahu. But the king has thus far not been prepared to host or even speak by phone with the prime minister, the sources said, because he believes Netanyahu would portray such interaction as proof of “business as usual” in Israeli-Jordanian ties.

Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office had no immediate comment.

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Abdullah last week warned that bilateral ties would be affected by any further Israeli provocations at the site. Israeli officials then responded anonymously by declaring that Jordan was partly to blame for recent violence, since the Jordanian-appointed Waqf, which administers the mount’s Muslim holy sites, has allowed Palestinian youths to stockpile weaponry inside Al-Aqsa mosque.

The Rai Al-Youm newspaper, edited by the anti-Israeli journalist Abdel Bari Atwan, reported on Thursday that Abdullah has rebuffed several efforts by Netanyahu to speak with him. The newspaper said that Jordan has changed its response to upsurges in tension: on the one hand, it has not hurried to recall its ambassador from Tel Aviv; on the other hand, the king is not talking to Netanyahu.

In previous rounds of tension, contacts between Netanyahu and the king yielded promises by Israel to avoid provocative steps, such as visits by politicians to the Temple Mount. Last Sunday, however, Jewish Home’s agriculture minister, Uri Ariel, visited the mount.

Bilateral tensions notwithstanding, security relations between Israel and Jordan are being maintained for now. Jordan is understood to be providing Israel with intelligence assistance in various fields, including regarding the presence of Islamic State-affiliated groups close to the border with Syria.