10-26-09

Jordan's ties with Israel turn cold

AMMAN // Jordan and Israel mark 15 years of peace today, but ties between both countries are cooler than ever.



Since the right-wing Israeli government of Benjamin Netenyahu took office in May, Jordan has been left further disappointed with its neighbour.



“Our relation is getting colder,” King Abdullah told Israel’s daily Haaretz newspaper this month. “Let’s remember that the peace treaty was signed as part of a process to achieve comprehensive peace. And the full potential of not just Jordanian-Israeli relations, but the whole region, will not be realised unless comprehensive peace is achieved.”



The king has for years expressed his frustration with Israel’s intransigence over the peace process, its ignoring the two-state solution, expanding the settlements, building the separation wall and continuing oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, but his latest remarks indicate that he is fed up.



“After 15 years, the peace treaty started losing its political value for Jordan,” wrote Fahed Kheitan, a political columnist with Arab Al Yawm, an independent daily in Amman.



“Our experience in the past 15 years reiterate that the unilateral agreements cannot be a substitute to just and comprehensive peace … the Wadi Araba agreement is no longer a red line, and instead of being a burden on Jordan, it is now on the table to be used as a [tool] to pressure Israel.”...



... “After a decade and a half, there is cold peace between Jordan and its western neighbour. Successive Israeli governments’ measures in Jerusalem are provocative. When it came to the prisoner swap between Hizbollah and Israel in 2008, Israel handed the remains of Jordanian soldiers to Hizbollah instead of Jordan. And when Israel and Hamas agreed on a truce last year, Israel embarrassed Jordan and Egypt who were trying to isolate Hamas,” Mr Momani said.



The peace treaty did enable Jordan to come out of a state of isolation from the West and many Arab countries for its perceived support for Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq in the Gulf War in 1991.



“If you look at the treaty from a regional perspective, it is not up to expectations,” said Fayez Tarawneh, a former prime minister and the former head of the Jordanian delegation to the Jordan-Israeli peace talks. “Also, the split in the Palestinian scene is a breaking bone for the Arabs.



“Jordan, however, would have been in a vulnerable situation if it did not have a peace treaty. Just remember what was Jordan’s situation before 1994 when it refused to join the coalition against Iraq,” Mr Tarawneh said. Today, Jordan is banking on the Obama administration to pursue a strategy that would ultimately create an independent Palestinian state...





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