Jordanian monarch says much of the problem due to Israeli domestic issues; also says there can be no Israel-Palestinian peace without active US involvement
Jordan’s King Abdullah II said that relations between Jordan and Israel, which fought two wars before signing the landmark peace treaty 25 years ago, are now at their worst point ever and that the neighbors can’t even discuss simple issues.
“The Jordanian-Israeli relationship is at an all time low,” Abdullah said Thursday at an event in New York City hosted by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a US think tank.
Recent weeks have seen Jordan briefly recall its ambassador, take back parcels of land along the border that had been leased to Israel under the peace treaty, and no joint ceremony marking the quarter century anniversary of the peace agreement.
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“Part of it is because of the Israeli domestic matters,” he said, in an apparent reference to the political gridlock in Jerusalem which is leading to a third election in less than a year.
“We are hoping Israel will decide its future — whether it is in the next several weeks or three months,” Abdullah said in an edited video of his remarks that were posted on the Royal Hashemite Court’s YouTube page on Friday night.
“The problems that we have had with Israel [are] bilateral… now I hope, whatever happens in Israel over the next two or three months, we can get back to talking to each other on simple issues that we haven’t been able to talk about for the past two years,” he said.
In the video, he did not clarify which “simple issues” Israel and Jordan have been unable to discuss over the past two years. The bilateral ties between the countries span trade, water, agriculture, tourism, natural gas and many other issues.
Jordan is one of two Arab states which have formal peace treaties and diplomatic relations with Israel, the other being Egypt.
While security ties between the two countries have flourished, political relations have soured recently over a number of matters including Netanyahu’s pledge in September to annex the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, if he is given another term in office.
Jordan has long supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which would include the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
Jordan and Israel also recently went through a diplomatic spat after the Jewish state arrested two Jordanian citizens in August and September. Israeli security authorities held Heba al-Labadi, 32, and Abdel Rahman Miri, 29, for approximately two months under administrative detention for suspected terrorist activity.
Administrative detention is a measure that allows Israel to detain suspects for months at a time without indicting them or presenting details of the accusations against them.
Just over a week after Amman recalled Ghassan Majali, its ambassador in Tel Aviv, in late October, Israel returned the two Jordanian nationals to Jordan.
Raslan Mahajna, Labadi and Miri’s lawyer, said Israeli authorities had suspected Labadi and Miri of maintaining ties to terror groups. He said both of clients denied the suspicions.
Earlier this month Jordan took back control over Naharayim in the Jordan Valley and Tzofar in the southern Arava region.
The 1994 peace agreement allowed Israel to retain use of the enclaves for 25 years, with the understanding that the lease would be renewed as a matter of routine. However, in October last year, Abdullah said his country had notified Israel that it wants to take the sites back.
In his remarks, Abdullah also eschewed the notion that peace could be achieved between Israel and the Palestinians without the backing of the US.
“Anybody who is in the international community who says that we can have peace between Israelis and Palestinians without the support of America doesn’t know our region and the role that America plays,” he said. “We all need America to bring both sides together.”
Since shortly after the Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in late 2017 and announced the US would move its embassy in the Jewish state to the city, the Palestinians have said they will not work with any peace process, in which the US is the sole, dominant interlocutor.
In addition to its moves related to Jerusalem, the Trump administration has undertaken several other measures seen as marginalizing the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership, cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians and the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees, closing the PLO representative office in Washington and most recently declaring settlements do not violate international law.
Trump administration officials have also consistently declined to endorse a two-state solution.
Abdullah added that the peace process was currently on hold, suggesting that it could not be revived until after a new Israeli government is formed.
“Unfortunately, we are in pause mode. As you well know, Israelis have gone through a series of elections. We may be seeing another three months of elections,” he said. “So as a result, we are all in pause mode and we haven’t been able to get people back around the table, talking to each other.”
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/king-abdullah-israeli-jordanian-relations-are-at-an-all-time-low/.
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