One may well understand the internal predicament that Jordan faces, between its majority Palestinian population on the one hand, which constantly exerts political pressures to act with hostility toward Israel, and on the other hand, with its ruling Hashemite minority and aristocracy that looks at the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’s wider, strategic and global interests and welfare of it population.
However, even taking that into consideration, there can be no excuse for Jordan’s recent irresponsible official statements falsely accusing Israel of “violating the sanctity of al-Aqsa Mosque by police forces, and attacking worshipers in an attempt to empty it of worshipers ahead of major invasions of the mosque.”
In similarly false and exaggerated allegations, Jordanian officials have accused Israel of preventing Christian access to Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.
The implication that Israel sought to prevent Christian worship during the Easter festival at the holiest Christian sites is not merely false, but deliberately distorts the real reasoning behind Israel’s concern as to the safety and fire dangers inherent in an overly large number of people gathered in the relatively limited space in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The Jordanian leadership, whether this be King Abdullah himself, his prime minister or other senior government officials, are fully aware of the Palestinian strategy, directed from Tehran and transmitted via the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Hezbollah terrorist organizations, to artificially manipulate the Ramadan period to generate situations of violence, unrest and chaos on Temple Mount.
Yet despite this awareness, and despite the open and collegial diplomatic relationship that it enjoys with Israel, the Jordanian leadership nevertheless allows itself to join the fanatical Islamic bandwagon and be drawn into echoing the false propaganda and hostility toward Israel, in clear violation of its peace treaty obligations with Israel.
While pursuant to Article 9 of its 1994 peace treaty with Israel, Jordan enjoys special, preferential status on Temple Mount with regard to the Muslim holy shrines, neither Jordan nor any other country has been granted preferential status regarding Jerusalem’s Christian holy sites.
In fact, in the peace treaty, both parties undertook to “act together to promote interfaith relations among the three monotheistic religions, with the aim of working toward religious understanding, moral commitment, freedom of religious worship, and tolerance and peace.”
Jordan’s official statements are aimed at achieving exactly the opposite.
Such duplicitous behavior by the Jordanian leadership, replete with false and exaggerated statements against Israel, is totally unwarranted, unjustified, and threatens to undermine the integrity and mutual trust inherent in its peace relationship with Israel.
Jordan cannot have its cake and eat it too
If Jordan enjoys preferential status based on an official, and extremely beneficial political and diplomatic relationship of bon voisinage with Israel, it cannot at the same time duplicitously undermine this relationship by espousing and echoing false, fake, flawed and manipulative accusations against Israel and in so doing, side with the murderous Iranian regime’s machinations to incite terror and violence in the region.
Jordan’s delicate strategic status, both internally and in the intra-Arab context, should not serve as a cover and pretext for echoing knowingly false and flawed accusations against its neighbor Israel. In doing so, Jordan risks prejudicing the extensive benefits in many spheres that it enjoys from its peace treaty with Israel.
One might hope that the king will exercise his authority to stem this dangerous threat to peace with Israel.
The writer, former legal adviser of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, participated in the negotiation and drafting of the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty as well as the several normalization agreements that have been signed over the years between the two countries. He also served as Israel’s ambassador to Canada. He presently directs the International Law program at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.