This past winter, it had seemed as if spring had come early for Israeli-Jordanian relations. A series of visits and meetings between King Abdullah and senior Israelis, including President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, and Defense Minister Benny Gantz, created a false sense of warmth. In the moment of truth, however, as riots erupted on the Temple Mount, Jordan revealed its ugly face with senior kingdom officials competing against each other for the vilest slander and incitement against Israel.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
However, just as no one should have gotten too excited over the short honeymoon period, no one should overreact to the latest crisis in a long line of them. This is Jordan, this is how it has always been, and this has always been the pattern of our relations with it, even prior to the 1994 peace treaty.
Whoever needs one – here's a reminder of the past. On the eve of the Yom Kippur War, King Hussein, the father of King Abdullah, warned Israel that Egypt and Syria were about to launch an attack. In Israel, as we know, no one was willing to heed his calls. Later, after the war broke out, Hussein stayed out of the fray along his border with Israel, but deployed one of his armored brigades to help the Syrians. Incidentally, three years earlier, in the summer of 1970, the Syrians attacked Jordan, but that attack was rebuffed after Israel sent a secret message to Damascus warning the Syrians that if they don't withdraw their forces from Jordan, the IDF would attack them.
The reality is plain to see, at the very least to anyone interested in eschewing the rose-tinted glasses of a political or diplomatic novice. In the space around us, Israel doesn't have a more reliable security partner than Jordan. To be more precise, it doesn't have a more reliable partner than Jordan's security agencies and army. At the same time, though, very few can compete with the hostility of Jordan's public opinion, which is nourished and exacerbated by virulent media outlets and politicians who spread hatred and call for violence.
"Jordan is Palestine" is a quote attributed to Ariel Sharon, but the truth is that King Abdullah I, the grandfather of the current king, said it when he annexed Judea and Samaria into his kingdom, determining there are no Palestinians and that everyone would thenceforth be Jordanian. Years later, Yasser Arafat would follow in his footsteps when he sought to seize control of Jordan as part of Palestine.
This past haunts the kingdom to this day, as a significant portion of its population is of Palestinian origin. Throughout the years, however, the Jordanians' method of coping with this reality has been to release the pressure valve in the direction of Israel, or more exactly – to pour oil on the fire in the hope that the public will turn its rage away from their economic distress, rampant corruption, and lack of democracy, at Israel instead of the regime at home.
Relations with Jordan are based on security and even economic interests. The advantages from Israel's perspective are considerable, chiefly the ability to lean on Jordan to safeguard our eastern flank against the threat of radical Islam, and of course, Iran as well. At the same time, this cooperation is also an existential security interest of the highest order for the Jordanians. It won't hurt to respond to these Jordanian tongue-lashings on occasion. After all, we too, in Israel, need to release some pent-up anger now and then. On second thought, however, it's doubtful Jordan is as important as it is trying to portray itself, and as long as the important things are working, the dogs can continue barking.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
