A bleak future ahead for Jordan-Israel relations
Analysis: Despite deep strategic ties, Israel’s new far-right government could threaten Jordan’s custodianship over holy sites in Jerusalem and jeopardise the fragile peace agreement between both countries.
01 December, 2022
With Israel’s most right-wing parliament now in session and headed by Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, analysts fear Jordan’s relations with Tel Aviv are at risk of deterioration.
“Jordan represents the most likely and the most dangerous point of escalation or deterioration in Israel’s foreign policy,” said Gil Murciano, the CEO of Mitvim, an Israel-based foreign policy think tank.
There is “continued mistrust” between Netanyahu and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Murciano told The New Arab, referencing the all-time-low Jordan-Israeli relations reached during Netanyahu’s former 12 years as prime minister.
Among the many points of tension under Netanyahu’s previous term was a tit-for-tat row last year when Netanyahu cancelled the Jordanian Crown Prince’s visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque and in retaliation, Amman denied Netanyahu’s helicopter access to Jordanian airspace.
The year prior, the 1994 Wadi Araba treaty — which established Jordan and Israel’s diplomatic relations — was nearly ruptured when Netanyahu proposed a plan to annex the occupied West Bank’s Jordan Valley.
“The far-right government has an agenda which harms Jordan’s top national interests. There will be no effort to restore any kind of negotiations for the peace process or the two-state solution,” Oraib Rantawi, the director of the Amman-based Al Quds Center for Political Studies, told The New Arab.
Israel’s Religious Zionist Party, headed by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, won 14 seats in the recent election and is now the third-largest political force in Israel. The party attracts immense support from settlers with its overt agenda to expel Palestinians from the occupied West Bank.
“Ben Gvir’s government uses annexation as not only a slogan, but as a policy plan — a policy plan that makes collision with Jordan immediate,” said Murciano.