T. Belman. Let’s be clear, Jordan is not “Israel’s ally”. Recently Edy Cohen of BESA wrote Sorry but Jordan is not a friend? It supports a two-state solution west of the Jordan River and it supports Iranian expansion. The sooner the King abdicates, the better.
In setting out the Jordan Option I proposed that Israel provide Jordan with much more water than Bennett just did. As I pointed out in Memo to Kushner, this water would come from a new desalination plant that Israel would build at a cost of $1.2 billion. What Bennett gave them is a drop in the bucket, so to speak.
Any one who thinks that Egypt would bring Iranian oil to the Mediterranean rather than Saudi oil, is delusional. Nothing will happen in Jordan without Saudi consent. Rest assured that SA will not permit Jordan to kiss up to Iran. The Saudi-Jordan border is 450 miles long. SA wants to keep it peaceful.
Opposition leader claims that supplying additional water to Amman enables it to provide oil to Iran via a never-built pipeline, thus bolstering Tehran’s nuclear program
By Amy Spiro, TOI 12 July 2021, 9:09 pm
Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to accuse Israel’s ally Jordan of aiding Iran’s nuclear program via a never-implemented pipeline deal Monday.
Netanyahu’s comments were aimed at prime minister Naftali Bennett, whose government recently agreed to double the amount of water Israel exports to Jordan, which is experiencing a severe shortage.
“[Bennett] doesn’t understand that when he gives King Abdullah water, Abdullah is simultaneously giving oil — to who? To Iran,” said Netanyahu at a meeting of his Likud faction at the Knesset on Monday.
Netanyahu stated that Abdullah “unfortunately agreed” to the creation of a future pipeline from Iraq through Jordan to Egypt, which would therefore “give Iran huge economic power” to develop its economy “and its nuclear program and its terror activities.”
The Iraq-Jordan pipeline, which was first proposed in 2013, has yet to be established, and an agreement to extend it to Egypt has yet to be signed. It’s unlikely that any use of the pipeline would see Jordan, which has no oil, sending the resource to already oil-rich Iraq or Iran.
Adbullah, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Iraqi President Barham Saleh, and Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi met last month in Baghdad in efforts to forge closer ties between the nations. Iran is not part of the proposed agreement, though Tehran exerts some influence over the government in Baghdad.
It is extremely rare for senior Israeli officials to publicly criticize Jordan or Egypt, which up until recently were Israel’s sole open allies in the Arab world. The comments underlined the frayed relationship between Netanyahu and Abdullah, which was blamed for a nadir in bilateral ties between Jerusalem and Amman.
In a speech to the Knesset plenum Monday evening, Bennett hit back at Netanyahu’s comments.
“In the name of what Israeli interest did Netanyahu sacrifice our ties with Jordan?” Bennett asked rhetorically. “We are fixing these relations in order to build better ties with the Jordanian Kingdom — this is in the best security interests of the State of Israel.”
Bennett reportedly met secretly earlier this month with Abdullah in Amman, and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid met with his Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Safadi, on Thursday. On Saturday evening, new President Isaac Herzog spoke with Abdullah via phone about “the recent return of diplomatic ties between the two countries.”
Netanyahu accused Bennett of not understanding that he should have demanded concessions from Jordan in exchange for the water. The former prime minister noted that Oman, which he had sought closer ties with, has moved toward Iran after rejecting the potential of normalization with Israel, and suggested that Jordan — which signed a peace deal with Israel in 1994 — could do the same.
“It’s no surprise that Oman, and not just Jordan, is moving toward Iran,” said Netanyahu. “Weakness is what pushes other countries away, strength brings them closer. This is a weak government that is canceling out so many of our achievements, which is another reason to bring it down.”
Jordanian farmer Ahmad Daoud, 25, shows a branch of a tomato plant that has dried out because of severe drought, at the land which he rents in Ghor al-Haditha, around 80 kilometers (some 50 miles) south of the capital Amman, April 20, 2021. (Khalil MAZRAAWI / AFP)
In April, Netanyahu himself approved the supply of an additional three million cubic meters of water to Jordan, after a several-week delay due to escalating tensions between the nations.
Jordan still faces a water deficit of several hundred million cubic meters a year, and would have to import considerably more to ensure a continuous supply for all its needs. Jordan is one of the driest countries on earth and its water shortages are expected to worsen with climate change.
Abdullah is slated to meet with US President Joe Biden at the White House next week.
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They supported the Pals in spite of their false negotiating practices, as the US and EU have each done, but Jordan chose this course because this policy allowed them a special prominence in the region. Unfortunately for them, Israel has found its own microphone to indirectly or directly engage the Arab world, without a need of a Jordanian switchboard.
In recent decades, their preference was placed in supporting the dishonestly named Peace Process in lieu of generating strong, warm ties that would have garnered them the visage of an ally if not the actual status of such. Instead their economy lies in ruins – the product of their corrupt governmental system which is designed as a siphoning mechanism, ever draining what little may be squeezed from their destitute public into the royal coffers.
This is easily seen to be their most grievous betrayal, for by doing so, they grant their people no hope, no support and no future. Their reliance upon the great gifts of largess from the Saudi’s was re-paid by their support of Iraq in the Gulf War and then when the Saudi’s and the Qatar began their feud, Jordan again tried to be everyone’s friend which took but a short time to be recognized by each side.
Of course, it should be recalled that Jordan’s idea of friendship is defined by having each friend donate great wealth to them. Their duplicity with each state in the region is as obvious to all as it is damaging to their subjects. It is unfortunate that this kingship has failed both their people and the region so badly, but their ruling practices were only designed towards self-empowerment and self-aggrandizement to the misery of all who they ruled, or made either loose or close attachments.
Their only faithful support was to their own family and the overstated image they were intent upon maintaining. Their reckless rule was poorly managed to this effect and their families fall from power is well deserved and well past a fair expiration date. Their people deserve a just government, and honest moves toward reforms that support a prosperous future for their people which could be gained thru an honest leadership devoted towards peaceful extension of strong ties and close cooperation.
Such a change in course could generate a wealth of opportunity for both peoples, who sprang from the ruins of the displaced overlords of both the Ottomans and British to produce a full friendship and a hearty alliance which could then be fairly boasted. Til such time as this, the use of the word alliance with Jordan should be seen for the claptrap that it is.
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@Ted
Well stated! I bristle each time I hear Jordan described as being Israel’s ally and how successful their alliance has been over the years – no alliance could long be held, if ever gained, from such a line of craven brigands as devoid of any constant merit as the Hashemite family. The simple reality is that Jordan had an opportunity to be an ally, and gain a very good ally in Israel.
Unfortunately, like his father and great-grandfather, Abdullah chose less wisely, and chose a path that betrayed the relationship created with their Jewish neighbors a century ago which prevented the strength of geography and history(talking about history back in the early 1920’s just to be clear) becoming what it might have been. The treaty that everyone mistakes as an alliance should not be described as more than it is. Indeed the territory of Palestine under both the Ottomans and the British were not held separate, but had a common command and economy. Indeed, it was only in the post-Mandate period in which the great partition was made following a series of great betrayals.
The initial monarch of Jordan was the current Abdullah’s namesake and great-grandfather. It was this original Abdullah’s false nature that set the family motto of betrayal and tendencies towards a vacillating faithfulness. He was to be awarded the independent kingdom of Jordan ripped from Mandate lands as the unfortunate outcome of the Cairo Conference of 1921.
Though he would not achieve his crown for some 28 years, his agreement was made knowing the Jordan River was to demarcate the limits of his kingdom from the Jewish Homeland. Without considering the controversy and possible motives behind his actions(a very interesting but very long discussion), Abdullah’s false devotion to the Cairo pact which betrayed the rights and borders of his neighboring twin-born Jewish State was to be seen as a image of the family crest.
In truth his murder at the hands of his Arab brothers was due to his inconstant nature in supporting any bargain for very long, as his death was his reward for considering a renewal of the pledge which gained him his crown. His grandson, Hussein, carried on this great hallmark of the family shame in 1967 for, yet, another betrayal upon their Jewish neighbors. For this specific betrayal, the Hashemites were rewarded with the just emancipation of their stolen Jewish lands back to the Jewish People.
Regretfully, the history of Jordan and Israel could have been one in which the two people were held within a common plight of success or failure, but the Hashemite Kingdom’s treacherous inclination held this possibility as a road never attempted. In spite of the unfaithful nature that came to be expected of Jordan, Israel has over the years made countless overtures towards supporting stronger ties, but the Jordanians have seen their strength in the region as the Arab microphone thru which Israel could indirectly negotiate with the Arab states.
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