Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's recent trip to Jordan, which reportedly focused strictly on economic and humanitarian matters (more water to an increasingly parched Hashemite Kingdom), indicates the beginning of a diplomatic-security revolution, no less, and the re-emergence of the Palestinian issue. It's not for nothing that the US State Department rushed to issue a congratulatory statement. The old Democratic administration-Jordanian-Palestinian Authority alliance is being rekindled. Unlike during the Obama administration, however, when a contrarian right-wing Israeli government was in place, Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid view are champions of this alliance.
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While Bennett agreed to transfer double the amount of water stipulated in the peace treaty with Jordan, and Lapid authorized increasing the scope of Jordanian exports to the Palestinian Authority from $160 million to $700 million, the Jordanian foreign minister, summed up the true framework of the visit: "There's no alternative to the two-state solution to achieve a comprehensive peace." Whether this statement was coordinated in advance or Israel chose not to respond after it was issued – a new course has been set.
For more than a decade, Benjamin Netanyahu labored to convince the American administration and moderate Arab states that peace with Israel was a diplomatic-security-economic matter of utmost importance to them, first and foremost, and that they needn't continue conditioning such progress on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The new equation at the core of the four peace treaties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco didn't just confirm the new terms of reciprocity – "peace in exchange for peace" – but also altered regional priorities. It completely changed the paradigm for defining the problem and the solution, the reason and the result. No longer was Israel the source of regional upheaval, and the conflict with the Palestinians was no longer the only priority. Just the opposite, united interests, Israel's security and economic prosperity, and the understanding that it contributes to regional stability led to new alliances and indirectly led to the degraded standing of the PA, which chose instead to cultivate rejectionism and conflict, to the point that it was viewed as the impeding factor to regional peace.
It's not a coincidence that Israel's relationship with Jordan deteriorated in recent years. Jordan was the central force that worked to prevent the US-Israeli plan that would have allowed the Jewish state to impose its sovereignty in parts of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley. Jordan's leaders repeatedly warned that any form of annexation would endanger regional peace. In one of his public comments, the Jordanian prime minister even said, "The death of the two-state solution will lead to an apartheid state, but if Israel is prepared for one democratic state, whose Arab citizens would enjoy full equal rights, Jordan could view that positively." In other words, if in the past there were those in Israel who argued that "Jordan is Palestine," then the new line insinuated here is that if Israel doesn't concede to the two-state solution, then "all of Israel is Palestine."
Bennett and Lapid's approach to Jordan, therefore, is the new government's first diplomatic canary in the coal mine, and the beginning of the unraveling of Netanyahu's historic diplomatic achievement. It wouldn't be surprising if we learn that during his visit to Amman, Bennett made promises in other areas as well. Not surprising, but certainly very concerning.
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