Bridge attack underlines Jordan’s thorny peace with Israel

Managing the 30-year-old Jordan-Israel peace treaty has never been easy for Amman. The 1994 “Wadi Araba” peace deal was supposed to end decades of hostilities. The two countries fought bloody wars in 1948 and 1967 and, in both, the Hashemite Kingdom lost men and territory and had to welcome hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees. But in 1968, at the Battle of Karameh, the Jordanian army and the Palestinian resistance were able to push back an Israeli incursion into the East Bank of the River Jordan. A political and military stalemate ensued and Jordan and Israel found themselves enmeshed in a “no peace, no war” situation.

That remained until 1994, when the late King Hussein decided to sign a peace treaty with Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin after the Palestinians secretly negotiated their deal with the Israelis at Oslo.

But the majority of Jordanians, many of whom are of Palestinian origin, never really appreciated the fruits of that peace. For the Jordanian negotiators, the treaty delineated the final borders between the kingdom and Israel, while designating the West Bank as occupied territory, the future of which would be negotiated separately between Israel and the Palestinians. Jordan would reap other benefits, like an annual share of water from Lake Tiberius and a recognized “special role” for the Hashemites over Al-Haram Al-Sharif, which the Jordanian Waqf would administer.

One of the bilateral understandings in the treaty was to maintain the policy of open bridges, adopted in 1967, which allowed West Bank Palestinians to cross into Jordan and back.

The treaty was ratified by the Jordanian parliament, but most Jordanians never fully embraced it. It was often described as a cold peace, one between states rather than people.

Most Jordanians never fully embraced the deal. It was often described as a cold peace, one between states rather than people

Osama Al-Sharif

Challenges to the treaty soon materialized. Rabin was assassinated by a radical Jew in 1995, paving the way for a young and fiery right-wing politician, Benjamin Netanyahu, to form his first government in 1996. From then on, King Hussein and Rabin’s vision for a bright and peaceful cooperation between the two neighbors began to disintegrate.

Much has happened since then to mar ties between the two countries. Ironically, most incidents took place on Netanyahu’s watch, including on Sunday morning, when a Jordanian truck driver shot and killed three Israeli border guards on the Israeli side of the King Hussein Bridge, aka Allenby Bridge. The assailant was shot dead by Israeli soldiers.

The timing, identity of the attacker and incident location are important. It happened after 11 months of Israel’s genocidal war — which is still raging — on the people of Gaza and two weeks after Israel launched a brutal military campaign against Palestinian refugee camps in the northern West Bank. Jordanians have been protesting across the kingdom for most of this period, while demanding the abrogation of the peace treaty.

The location, a pivotal border point between Jordan and the West Bank, which is under complete Israeli military control, symbolizes the complexity of relations between Jordan and Israel. The bridge is used exclusively by Palestinian travelers but is also a key commercial passageway.

Hours after the attack, it was revealed that the Jordanian attacker, 39-year-old Maher Al-Jazi, hailed from a prominent tribe in southern Jordan with a history of fighting Israel and supporting the Palestinians. On Monday, Jordan confirmed the identity of the attacker but underlined that Al-Jazi was acting alone.

Israel was quick to shutter all crossing points with Jordan. Netanyahu blamed Iran’s “evil axis” for instigating the attack. One far-right member of his Cabinet urged him to annex the Jordan Valley and crush Palestinian armed resistance in the West Bank.

For Jordan, the incident occurred two days before crucial legislative elections, in which political parties were competing, including the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic Action Front. The Islamists were quick to celebrate the killing of the Israelis, holding rallies honoring Al-Jazi and praising armed resistance against Israel. How Sunday’s incident affected voters’ choices in Tuesday’s poll remains to be seen.

A few months ago, Jordanian officials castigated Hamas for calling on Jordanians to become active in confronting Israel, warning the Islamist movement against interfering in domestic affairs. And Jordanians expressed their anger when Amman actively intercepted Iranian missiles heading toward Israel during an attack in April.

But the national euphoria that followed Al-Jazi’s bold action underlined people’s growing animosity toward Israel and their disgust at its war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. This is something that Jordanian officials should take note of as they manage their ties with an Israeli government that openly and publicly provokes Jordan on a daily basis.

Sunday’s incident also brought back bitter memories of when a Jordanian judge, Raed Zeiter, was gunned down by an Israeli soldier on King Hussein Bridge in 2014. Also, in 2017, an Israeli security guard shot and killed two Jordanians at Israel’s Amman embassy compound and was allowed to leave for Israel. Netanyahu welcomed him as a hero. No one was punished for either incident.

The national euphoria that followed Al-Jazi’s bold action underlined people’s growing animosity toward Israel

Osama Al-Sharif

Netanyahu’s provocation of Jordan includes allowing Jewish worshippers, and later Cabinet ministers, to storm Al-Aqsa Mosque on an almost weekly basis in a clear violation of the status quo proclamation.

Jordan’s links to the Palestinians in general and the West Bank in particular are both historic and unique. Until 1967, the West Bank was administered by Jordan and tens of thousands of its residents still retain their Jordanian citizenship.

King Abdullah took the lead in warning of the dire humanitarian catastrophe that Israel was creating in Gaza. The Jordanian army carried out dozens of humanitarian air drops over the enclave. He has pressed the US and other Western governments to enforce a ceasefire.

But in response, Israeli officials have attacked the kingdom and its leadership, all while fanatics in Netanyahu’s government openly talk about annexing the West Bank to kill the prospect of a Palestinian state and hinting that Palestinians will eventually be expelled to Jordan. The “Jordanian option” has been supported by the Likud and other right-wing Israeli parties. At the same time, Jewish ultranationalists speak of Greater Israel extending its borders to Jordan as well.

For Jordanian officials, managing peace with Israel is becoming a risky business. On more than one occasion, they have declared that the forced transfer of Palestinians from the West Bank would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

At the same time, the same officials are realizing that the kingdom is finding itself between a rock and a hard place. The demise of the two-state solution, which Amman backs wholeheartedly but is becoming dubious, delivers an existential threat to Jordan. Jordan’s closest allies, the Americans, have proven weak and indecisive before Netanyahu and his gang.

While Jordan is wary of its citizens becoming radicalized as a result of Israel’s war crimes and direct threats, it can only tighten its internal security while looking for ways to manage what has become a thorny and complicated relationship with Israel.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010