Jonathan Schanzer
FDD, Dec. 8, 2022
“Despite its reliance upon Israel for security, intelligence, and a range of products and services, and despite the trilateral relationship with Israel and the United States that is a core pillar of Jordan’s relationship with Washington, Amman simply cannot embrace Israel openly.”
The Middle East witnessed remarkable change in August and September 2020 with the Abraham Accords. It began with decisions taken by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain to enter into peace agreements with Israel. Sudan and Morocco followed soon thereafter.1 Seemingly overnight, a rare sense of optimism washed over the Middle East.
These agreements were certainly not the first of their kind. In 1979, Egypt made peace with Israel. In 1993, the Palestinians entered the Oslo diplomatic process with Israel, initiating more than a decade of attempted peacemaking. In 1994, Jordan made its own peace with Israel.
For the two decades that followed, observers referred to Jordanian-Israeli ties as the “warm peace,” particularly compared to the frosty ties Israel maintained with Egypt and the collapse of Oslo. However, since 2020, if not before then, the Jordanian peace has turned decidedly cold. It is especially frigid now compared to the rapidly growing ties between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco. Even relations between Israel and Egypt have improved. With rhetoric that increasingly echoes the sentiments of rejectionist Arab nationalists or even Islamists, Jordan’s current policies appear to run counter to the current trendlines of the Middle East.
After the recent electoral victory of Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu, along with other right-wing Israeli politicians, Jordan issued an unprovoked and blistering statement warning Israel not to alter the status quo on the Temple Mount, invoking its role as custodian of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The statement signaled the likely renewal of acrimonious ties between the king and Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. … source