By: Yori Yanover, JP January 17th, 2014
His Majesty King Abdullah meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Amman on Thursday Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Royal Court Secretary of State
John Kerry’s effusive optimism regarding the peace talks have been a source of concern not only to Netanyahu and the majority of his coalition government, but also to King Abdulla II of Jordan.
The two leaders’ supposedly secret meeting on Thursday in Amman—which was made public almost immediately by the Jordanians—was devoted to one issue: Jordan is very unhappy about the possibility that Israel would take the IDF out of the Jordan Valley.
According to Makor Rishon, the Jordanians don’t care if the plan is to remove the IDF now, or in 10 or even in 50 years. They don’t want Israel out of that stretch of land across the water, period. The official press release after the Amman meeting was basically the usual stuff about the need to establish “a viable and independent Palestinian state within the pre-1967 lines that lives side-by-side with Israel, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” based on “the international resolutions, the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative and the two-state formula.”
Then there was the part about the king “urging all stakeholders to work for a comprehensive and just peace by ensuring the right atmosphere that renders peace talks successful.” The very fact that this urgent, unscheduled meeting had nothing new to say begs the question about what was really said.
The immediate outcome of the two neighboring leaders getting together, a Jordanian source told Makor Rishon, is another devaluation of the chances of Kerry coming up with a comprehensive plan. “If, two weeks ago, there was a fifty-fifty chance that such a document be presented, now that chance is much lower,” the source said. “For now, the Americans believe they’d be able to draft a paper, but they’ve been running into bigger and bigger difficulties. It’s possible that in the end they’ll put nothing on the table, or they’d put down something and say, ‘Take it or leave it.’
Maybe they’ll degrade the document’s contents, to enable both sides to accept it—but that would also mean that whatever achievement they reached over these past months will be lost, and that would also be problematic.”
Israel and Jordan have been maintaining an effective security cooperation along Israel’s eastern border.
When asked in private, the Jordanians are vehemently opposed to having Palestinian forces posted along the river, preferring without hesitation the current arrangement. But, obviously, they can’t say that publicly.
If the security plan of General George Allen is implemented, Jordan would have to change its own security alignment long the river. The plan calls for international, Israeli and Palestinian forces to be posted, and the Jordanians—like anyone who hasn’t drunk Kerry’s Kool Aid—know this will only mean trouble.
Israel has had a generally quiet and prosperous peace with its neighbor to the east, with Israeli factories moving to the Hashemite side, attracted by the cheap labor, and the two countries sticking to their mutual commitments, including Israel’s obligation to provide Jordan with its share of the Kinneret water, rain or shine. Much of that tranquility can be attributed to the fact that both countries’ security communities have developed an atmosphere of trust and cooperation, and so they’ve been able to bock whatever mayhem going on in the PA from spreading east into Jordan.
In yesterday’s meeting, both Netanyahu and Abdullah praised the success of the past 20 years. They reassured each other that the system ain’t broke and needs no fixing, thank you very much.
This would go a long way to lose Kerry friends not just in AIPAC, but in the Democratic Senate and, hopefully, Vice President Biden. Despite everything Biden may be saying publicly in support of his president’s aspirations, he is an old foreign policy hand, with an intimate familiarity with the Middle East. Surely, he knows how volatile Jordan is already, and how much more threatened would the king’s rule should the IDF pull out from his western flank.
It cannot be stressed enough that the king belongs to an endangered minority in Jordan, the 20% or so of Bedouin tribesmen loyal to him. The rest of his citizens are Palestinians who have arrived over the past seven decades. They’re doing well there, and when they don’t, the Legion and the secret police make sure they behave, occasionally massacring them by the tens of thousands.
But permit a direct, daily contact between armed Palestinian forces and the Hashemite Kingdom, and the fireworks would start shortly thereafter. Jordan already is a home to 1.2 million Syrian refugees. Crime is on the rise, employment is down, gun purchases are up. Jordan’s office of the interior said some 120 thousand weapons were sold there last year, and an estimated 1 million unregistered weapons are in circulation. Jordan does not another porous border. This is why King Abdullah insists on being informed about the negotiations, if not on actually being a participant.
He’s also been opposed to the fast pace of Kerry’s team. His former prime minister, Ma’ruf al-Bakhit, working on behalf of the king, has been recommending to the Palestinians to slow things down. He cautioned them that this is the wrong time for a final deal with the Israelis, because the entire Arab league is busy putting out their own fires at home, and would have no resources left to back the Palestinians internationally. Al-Bakhit has also stated that Jordan should be a direct partner in the talks, seeing as it would have to pay a price, no matter the outcome. And Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh has told the Amman press that a royal team has been present in some of the sessions. The Obama team has a chance to add Jordan to the list of pro-western Arab states it and its predecessors have demolished. The fun never stops.
Why do you ask?
yamit82 Said:
Yes, Ted has a little list: http://youtu.be/1NLV24qTnlg
yamit82 Said:
the enemy of my emey is my friend!!!!!!
@ yamit82:
A famous “Artista”. Know for how she drags her paint!
honeybee Said:
Who is she?
yamit82 Said:
Van Dike!!!!!!!!
@ Bear Klein:
Dear bear,
I respectfully disagree. The bastard, is not clueless. In fact, it is more of a Calculating Asshole.
Bernard Ross, in his inimitable style, has dissected the bastard’s mo in the arik Sharon z”l thread (#47).
It is premeditated baiting.
We should not allow this bastard to get away with his ‘hit and run’ tactics, but where possible, use shy guy’s method of popping veins…
😉
There probably is a large measure of truth in all these conjectures. The “Kingdom of Jordan” (actually, the Emirate of Trans-Jordan, until the original Emir Abdullah proclaimed himself King Abdullah after his forces occupied Shomron and Yehuda, which led to his assassination of the steps of one of the two large Islamic masjids in Jerusalem) has far more to fear from a western border of a Palestinian state than of a western border of the Jewish state. About 80 percent of his subjects are Palestinians held in check by the Bedawi Arab tribes who remain loyal to the present Abdullah who is the most prominent surviving descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhamad.
The interest of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in supporting Abdullah in their dealings with the State of Israel is multifold. First, like the now once again stable government of Egypt, Jordan, and and various Sun’a emirates, their trust in John Kerry and Barack Hussein Obama has slid to rock bottom, and I think they see little future likelihood that the USA will regain its status of global hegemony. Second, as leaders of Sun’a Islamic societies that have been involved in more or less perpetual war with the breakaway Shi’a Islamic sects since that developed not longer after the death of the prophet Muhamad, they have nothing to gain but everything to lose in a nuclear-armed Iranian Shi’a regional empire that would be a fatal result to Kerry’s and Obama’s misguided foreign policies in the Middle East.
None of this means these Islamic royalists will think of themselves as befriending the Jews of Israel or the Zionist movement of the Jewish nation.
But Israel and our Jewish nation need none of that. What we need, is stability in the west, which the military-backed government can all but guarantee if they are not overthrown, stability across the Jordan River and Dead Sea in the east, which the Kingdom of Jordan can guarantee if they are not overthrown, and stability in the Red Sea southern approaches to Israel which the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can guarantee if they are not overthrown.
If all this is so, and evidence is starting to accumulate to verify much of this, then Israel has only two enemy groups in and around the MIddle East. One, of course, is Ayutolist Iran with its threat of a nuclear arsenal that could prove to be an existential threat to Israel. The other are the various irredentist Palestinian Arab gangs and their UN-organized and US-supported quasi-official entity, the Palestine Authority. Hezbolla, the Iranian-back gang located in western and southern Lebanon and in parts of what formerly was a united Syria. Hamas, which has local power limited to control of the Gaza Strip, is also an active enemy, albeit with Sun’a rather than Shi’a connections. It might even be accurate to consider the presumably-dreaded Al Qa’ida Sun’a Islamic fighters as having targeted just about everybody and everything in the West other than the State of Israel. The map depicting all their attacks seem to show it that way.
What all this tells me is that Israel has a non-announced green light from some significant players to rapidly settle, annex and render permanent a solid border of Jewish State control over the Jordan River Valley lands, and to keep the bulk of the local Arab population in the uplands of Shomron and Yehuda under control sufficient that no armed gangs that might endanger the Kingdom of Jordan could even get organized.
Moreover, a State of Israel that is seen as a local running dog of the USA could never be fully trusted by the local Sun’a Arab kingdoms and sheikhdoms. The Washington gang must be shaken off by the Jewish nation as soon as possible; not just for present-day Israel, and for the Zionist movement to bring the Jewish nation home to Eretz-Yisrael, but for the sake of the neighborhood as well.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ CuriousAmerican:
Maybe you are baiting, maybe you are ignorant, I do not the cause or motivation but you are for certain clueless.
Jordan fought Israel and allowed terrorists into Israel in 50s and 60s. What happen is if they wished to survive in the end the IDF taught them you must quit attacking us and letting anyone attack us from your territory.
I have family friends at Kibbutz Sde Nahum (not far from Jordanian Border), I remember them showing all the shrapnel marks from Jordanian fire in the walls of the buildings facing east. Not too hostile, sure “Clueless American” (your new moniker) !
CuriousAmerican Said:
Portrayed how, when and by whom?
Comment in moderation.
Ted am I on your moderation list?
@ Bert:
The little King really hates BB and this meeting was publicized by the monarchy to send the message to Kerry that Jordan is not on board with the PA occupying a common border with the Kingdom. There is another item of mutual concern to both Israel and Jordan and that’s the recent presence of Al-Qaeda in Southern Golan. The Americans are now training Iraqi forces in Jordan to fight the Saudi supported Al-Qaeda forces fighting the Iranian supported Shia Government in Iraq. This could backfire on the King. The Americans will throw him under the bus eventually and the Saudis can’t be happy with him. Right now he needs Israel to protect his back.
@ Eric R.:
Were not in Kansas anymore!!!!!!!
“When asked in private, the Jordanians are vehemently opposed to having Palestinian forces posted along the river, preferring without hesitation the current arrangement. But, obviously, they can’t say that publicly.”
It is time for the Arabs who deal with Israel to get some backbone and come out of hiding.
honeybee Said:
And this article did not even bring up the most bizarre, looking glass aspect of this relationship – that Israel, the Jewish state, is in negotiations to sell natural gas (energy) to Jordan, an Arab state.
Believe it or not ; Jordan has not been as hostile as portrayed.
Jordan did not participate in 1956 or 1973 war.
In 1948, Golda Meir and Abdullah made an agreement to split Palestine. Israel likes to say that Jordan invaded but Jordan invaded with Israeli consent. If you doubt me I will get you a video of an Israeli general admitting it.
So Jordan was not really so hostile in 1948, except over Jerusalem.
In 1967, Hussein did not want to join the alliance with Egypt but was forced to by a rising Palestinian population – and was forced to act by treat obligations to Nasser.
The Husseins have never really been too hostile to Israel.
No fiction writer could dream this one up. Amazing