Jordan's King Abdullah has refused a request from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet, London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported on Sunday.
Adding insult to injury, Netanyahu reportedly seethed after Abdullah refused even the prospect of a phone conversation despite being just one of two Arab countries alongside Egypt that have official diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.
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An official Jordanian source quoted in the paper confirmed that "Israeli-Jordanian relations are very difficult," in light of the do-over Israeli election and a lack of progress with regard to US President Donald Trump's so-called "deal of the century" for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Abdullah recently met with Jared Kushner while the White House senior was in the Middle East this week to shore up support for the long-awaited peace plan.
Abdullah reportedly rejected the details of the secretive plan and the prospect of participating in a conference of Arab leaders at Camp David "just for the sake of photos, as was the case at the Bahrain economic workshop."
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the initiative to convene the Arab leaders, saying that "the purpose of the conference is to strengthen Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the elections, establish the normalization of Israeli-Arab relations – and push aside the Arab peace initiative."
Ramallah further noted that holding the conference shows that the US does not see the Palestinian leadership as a peace partner and is simply interested in reaching an agreement without the Palestinians, thereby eliminating the prospect of a two-state solution.
The Jordanian leader reiterated that there was no significance to an agreement that does not include the establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem.
At the same time, he stressed that he would reconsider should Trump be prepared to engage in genuine discourse on the matter.
In another hiccup in the allies' relations, Jordan announced Friday the closure of Aaron's Tomb to visitors in the area of Petra, after a group of Israelis prayed there without having receiving permission from the Jordanian Waqf, the authority charged with overseeing the country's holy sites.
This article was originally published by i24NEWS.
