Showing posts with label #Jordan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #Jordan. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Arab-Israel Conflict – Forgotten Facts!


The term "Palestinian" is itself a masterful twisting of history. To portray themselves as indigenous, Arab settlers adopted the name of an ancient Mediterranean tribe, the Philistines (“Invaders” in Hebrew), that disappeared over almost 3000 years ago. The connection between this tribe and modern day Arabs is nil. Romans, in order to conceal their shame and anger with rebellious regions, changed the references to Judea and Samaria by naming them Palestine.

1. Nationhood and Jerusalem - Israel became a nation in the 14th century BCE. Two thousand years before the rise of Islam.

2. Since 1272 BCE the Jews have had dominion over the land for up to 1,000 years with a continuous Jewish presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

3. The only Arab dominion since the Arab invasion and conquest in 635 C.E. lasted no more than 22 years.

4. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.

5. For over 3,000 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital and Arab leaders did not come to visit.

6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Koran.

7. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray facing Mecca (often with their backs toward Jerusalem).

8. In 1854, according to a report in the New York Tribune, Jews constituted two-thirds of the population of that holy city. (The source: A journalist on assignment in the Middle East that year for the Tribune. His name was Karl Marx. Yes, that Karl Marx.)

9. In 1867, Mark Twain took a tour of Palestine. This is how he described that land: A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. We never saw a human.

10. In 1882, official Ottoman Turk census figures showed that, in the entire Land of Israel, there were only 141 000 Muslims, both Arab and non-Arab.

11. A travel guide to Palestine and Syria was published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker. The book estimated the total population of Jerusalem at 60,000, of whom 7,000 were Muslims, 13,000 were Christians and 40,000 were Jews.

12. As the Jews came and drained the swamps and made the deserts bloom, Arabs followed. They came for jobs, for prosperity, for freedom. And they came in large numbers.

13. In 1922 with what was widely acknowledged as the illegal attempt to separate Trans-Jordan – on the east side of the Jordan river, the Jews were forbidden to settle in almost 77% of the British Mandate of Palestine, while Arab settlement went unrestricted and encouraged by the British mandatory authority.

14. Prior to the Second World War Mojli Amin, a member of the Arab Defense Committee for Palestine, proposed the idea "that all the Arabs of Palestine will leave and be divided up amongst the neighbouring Arab countries. In exchange for this, all the Jews living in Arab countries will leave and come to Palestine."

15. Did you know that Saudi Arabia was not created until 1913, Lebanon until 1920? Iraq did not exist as a nation until 1932, Syria until 1941; the borders of Jordan were established in 1946, in violation to Articles of the Palestinian Mandate, and Kuwait in 1961. Any of these nations that would say Israel is only a recent arrival would have to deny their own rights as recent arrivals as well. They did not exist as countries. They were all under the control of the Turks. Over 80% of the original British Mandate land was given to Arabs without population transfer of Arabs from the land designated for Jews.

16. In 1947, the Jewish state huddled on 18% of the original British Mandate land. The Jews accepted it gratefully. The Arabs rejected it with a vengeance and seven Arab states immediately declared war against Israel.

17. In 1948, the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Most of them left in fear of being killed by their own Arab brothers as traitors.

18. Some 850,000 Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab countries, due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.

19. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is claimed to be around 630,000 (where did they get this number?). Based on the population census, the estimated number of Arabs who left Israel was around 460,000. They were ordered to leave by Arab leaders at the time.

20. From 1948 to 1967 Arabs made no attempt to create a Palestinian state. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated, 58 synagogues in Jerusalem were destroyed and the Jews and Christians were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.

21. Arabs began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in only in 1964, on the initiative of Egyptian-born Yasser Arafat. The idea became a popular Arab propaganda tool after Israel re-captured Judea, Samaria and Gaza in the defensive 6-Day War of 1967.

22. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, Arab-Palestinians are the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel.

23. Arab refugees INTENTIONALLY were not absorbed or integrated by the rich Arab oil states that control 99.9 percent of the Middle East landmass. They are kept as virtual prisoners by the Arab power brokers with misplaced hatred for Jews and Western democracy.

24. There is only one Jewish state. There are some 50 Muslim countries, including 22 Arab nations.

25. The PLO's Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.

26. Pan-Arabism or the doctrine of Muslim Caliphate declares that all land that used to belong to Muslims must be returned to them. Thus, Spain, for example must eventually be re-conquered. 

For the full Shamrak Report article see below.

The Shamrak Report | Defending Israel and Promoting Jewish Zionist Ideals

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

The Price Of Saudi-Israeli Peace.

Video Of The Week-A Camera Made in Israel Which Sees Through Walls - https://tinyurl.com/9y9fs53x 

For the full Article by Douglas Bloomfield - https://tinyurl.com/ycbwu6uc

Here is the letter from the JP, reacting to the Article above.

The connection drawn between relations with the  Saudis and concessions to the Palestinians, mentioned in the last few days’ editions of the Post, is extremely disturbing as it concerns one of the most basic reasons for the continuing war between Israel and the Palestinians. i.e. the so-called “OCCUPATION”, as explained below.

This has probably been one of the most successful and powerful propaganda stories put out over the past 70 years or so, arousing the most serious and widespread anti- Israel and antisemitic feelngs worldwide.

The actual fact of the matter is that the true status of Judea and Samaria, according to its factual recent hisfory, is that it was internationally established  legally as Israeli territory, was occupied by Jordan in 1948 in an attempt to destroy Israel, and recaptured by Israel in 1967 when the surrounding Arab countries again tried to annihilate Israel.

Israel then refrained from annexing the area (called “the West Bank”) but was prepared to negotiate its status in the framework of an overall peace agreement, which status applies until today. Israel has meanwhile tried to give the Palestinians the opportunity to develop independently in parts of the “West Bank”, but they have failed in this endeavor, using their energies to fight each other and attempting to murder Jews and Israelis.

The Palestinians never owned any country or part thereof, and the concept of “occupation” by Israel in this regard is a total fabrication since they’ve never owned anything that could be occupied.

The entire phenomenon of Palestinians waging war on Israel with every means available, including rockets into residential areas, continual horrific terrorist murders of Jews or Israelis, the spreading of lies in every country, and their Covenant calling for the annihilation of Israel, rests on one assumption only ― the lie, which they have taken to believing themselves, that Israel occupies their land.  

The aggressive  behavior of the Palestinians has proved conclusively that Israel daren’t allow an independent Palestinian entity on the West bank highlands overlooking the Israeli central coastal plain, which would place it  under threat of destruction.

And America  claims that Israel must make serious concessions to the Palestinians so as to encourage the Saudis to improve ties with Israel?. Surely it’s the Palestinians who must make huge concessions to Israel?

Charles Smith, Shoresh  

 

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Wednesday, March 15, 2023

"From Terror Supporter to ‘Palestine Correspondent”

Video Of The Week -The Story of a Palestinian Terrorist - https://tinyurl.com/3xatcujn

For the full article by Honest Reporting go to - https://tinyurl.com/5cpyvwz5

On September 8, The Nation announced the hiring of Mohammed El-Kurd as its first-ever “Palestine Correspondent.” El-Kurd, a student at the City University of New York’s Brooklyn College, said he would be writing about “Palestinian resistance without burrowing in the sand,” using language that is “loyal to the Palestinian street.”

El-Kurd will publish his first essay about the Arab-Israeli conflict in the coming days, introducing the magazine’s million followers to his radical viewpoints, as HonestReporting detailed in July.

Indeed, for those who have followed the writer since he gained notoriety by protesting against Jews seeking to reclaim ownership of properties in the eastern part of Jerusalem that were confiscated from them between 1948 and 1967 when Jordan occupied the holy city, El-Kurd’s skewed interpretation of “journalism” is crystal clear.

In fact, El-Kurd’s Twitter feed demonstrated what The Nation’s latest addition defines as “Palestinian resistance;” that is, the murder of Jewish Israelis. Just two days before his hiring was announced, he rejoiced as six Palestinian terrorists broke out of Israel’s maximum-security Gilboa Prison.

“I am going to bed with a smile on my face and dreaming of the day all prisons are abolished,” El-Kurd tweeted, calling the incident “excellent.” Nevertheless, El-Kurd called the recapture of four of the terrorists a “heartbreaking development.”

Moreover, The Nation’s new correspondent regularly downplays war crimes by Hamas, another US-designated terrorist organization. El-Kurd has incited violence and glorified terrorism, recently stating that he mourns “all of our [Palestinian] martyrs.” He previously lauded Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine member and two-time airplane hijacker Leila Khaled.

El Kurd’s support for Palestinian terrorists dovetails with his long history of shockingly antisemitic remarks. For instance, El-Kurd in May called the Israel Defense Forces “sadistic & bloodthirsty,” a slanderous charge reminiscent of medieval blood libels. Similarly, he shared an Instagram post that promoted claims that the Jewish state deliberately kills Palestinians to harvest their organs.

He has furthermore said that Israel “kills,” “blows up,” “burns” and “tortures” Palestinian children in order to “instill terror” in them (see here, here, here and here). The so-called correspondent has gone so far as to describe Israel as a “child killing entity” — an overt example of Jew-hatred according to the widely adopted IHRA definition.

In an equally repulsive Twitter post, El-Kurd claimed — without proof — that “Holocaust survivors” threw Molotov cocktails at his home. He also accused a Hong Kong-based Jewish author of “ethnically cleansing” and “Kristallnachting” Palestinians, the latter being a reference to the Nazi-initiated pogrom in Germany in 1938 that various historians mark as the beginning of the genocide of some six million Jews.

While El-Kurd’s claim to fame is that he “reports” on events in Jerusalem, he all-too-often simply disseminates lies. On May 10, for example, El-Kurd posted a video to Twitter that he claimed proved Israelis were “readying themselves” to “invade” the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In reality, the clip showed Jews praying at the Western Wall.

El-Kurd conjured up a bogus story about a stabbing attack by Israeli “settlers.”

One needn’t be a journalist to reach the conclusion that El-Kurd’s history of spreading fake news, antisemitism and inciting violence should disqualify him from informing The Nation’s readership on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

That said, The Nation is known for its anti-Israel bias. In the last few months alone, it charged Israel with “colonialism,” “official racism” and “mass expulsions.” Moreover, the magazine has repeatedly peddled false accusations that Israel practices “apartheid”, and gave a platform to the mother of a confirmed Palestinian terrorist to suggest her son was innocent.

With the hiring of El-Kurd, though, The Nation has plunged to new depths in its ongoing campaign to tarnish the Jewish state.

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Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Unprecedented Meeting With Arab States Re Iranian Threat

Video Of The Week -Israel’s Iron Beam Even Better Than Iron Dome - https://tinyurl.com/bpbhk43y

The Wall Street Journal reports that top military officials from Israel, Egypt, Jordan Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as representatives from the U.S., Bahrain and UAE, discussed the shared Iranian threat

Israel took part in a secret, U.S.-initiated meeting of top military officials from throughout the Middle East in Egypt in March in order to discuss combatting the shared threat of Iran’s missile and drone capabilities, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The talks, held at Sharm El Sheikh, included senior military officers from Israel, Egypt, Jordan and two countries with whom Israel does not have relations: Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain sent officers to the meeting as well, the report said, and Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of the U.S. Central Command, represented the United States, which convened the gathering.

The Wall Street Journal report said that this meeting was the first time that such a range of senior Arab and Israeli officers were gathered by the United States to talk about a shared threat.

According to the report, it was made possible by a series of regional shifts: fears of Iran shared by the states, strengthened ties under the Abraham Accords as well as Arab states’ desire to acquire Israeli arms and defense technology.

Biden's Mideast visit could advance Israel-UAE-Saudi defense alliance

An Israel-Gulf defense pact won't solve Israel's greatest challenge

U.S. lawmakers aim to help integrate Israel, Arab states' air defenses against Iran

The recent attacks by Iran and its proxies against Saudi infrastructure and other targets in the Middle East have prompted the coalition of Israel and a number of Arab countries in the region to develop a joint mechanism for detecting and intercepting missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. 

There has already been security coordination on this matter between the Israeli defense establishment and its peers in some of these countries. This cooperation includes operational coordination, the exchange of relevant intelligence about threats, visits by delegations and joint training between Israeli and foreign air forces.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz told lawmakers last week that what he dubbed the "Middle East Air Defense Alliance" is already operational. "Over the past year I have been leading an extensive program, together with my partners at the Pentagon and in the U.S. administration, that will strengthen the cooperation between Israel and countries in the region," he said, according to an official transcript. "This program is already operative and has already enabled the successful interception of Iranian attempts to attack Israel and other countries."

Part of the United States’ plan to strengthen Israeli military cooperation with other regional states includes air force cooperation "against Iranian attempts to harm countries in the region with rockets, cruise missiles, and drones,” Gantz said.

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Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Israel Signs Free Trade Deal with UAE

 Video Of The Week - Israel to Help Solve Europe’s Energy Shortage - https://tinyurl.com/yckrfs2k 

For the full article from the JPost by LAHAV HARKOV go to https://tinyurl.com/2p84zx99

Ambassador to the UAE Amir Hayek succinctly announced the signing of the agreement on twitter, tweeting "Done!" in response to a previous tweet on the topic.

Israel entered its first-ever free-trade agreement with an Arab state, when Economy Minister Orna Barbivay signed the deal with her counterpart in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday.

Ambassador to the UAE Amir Hayek succinctly announced the signing of the agreement on Twitter, writing “Done!” in response to a previous tweet on the topic.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett praised the FTA as “historic” and the fastest to be signed in Israel’s history. He thanked Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohamed Bin Zayed for accelerating the process.

 “We are continuing to warm the peace between the countries,” Bennett tweeted.

On Monday, Barbivay said her visit to Dubai was “of strategic importance to the economic relations between the State of Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Together we will remove barriers and promote comprehensive trade and new technologies.”

Israel and the UAE established full diplomatic relations in August 2020, in what is called the Abraham Accords. Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco followed soon after.

“Together we will remove barriers and promote comprehensive trade and new technologies,” she added.

Israel and the UAE established full diplomatic relations in August 2020, in what was called the Abraham Accords. Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco followed soon after.

Israel has 19 free agreements, including the one with the UAE. Israel also has a more limited free-trade agreement with Jordan, but the new deal with the UAE is much broader and is similar to those with the United States and the European Union.

The free trade agreement is the UAE’s second, following one with India earlier this year.

This agreement covers 96% of the trade between Israel and the UAE, which stood last year at $885 million.

That is more than double Israel’s $330m. in trade with Egypt in 2021, even though the two countries have had a peace agreement since 1979.

According to the Economy and Industry Ministry, the level of trade in 2020 stood at $120m. and at $1m. in 2010.

The FTA signing went forward as planned, even though the UAE criticized Israel a day earlier for allowing Jews to visit the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site.

“The UAE today strongly condemned the storming of al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard by extremist settlers under the protection of Israeli forces,” a statement by the Emirati Foreign Ministry read, calling on Israel “to take responsibility for reducing escalation and ending all attacks and practices that lead to the continuation of tensions.”

There was no documentation of violence by Jews or Israelis on the Temple Mount this week, though some did pray at the site in contravention of the rules for Jewish visitors. Some Muslims threw rocks at visitors and police from the Aqsa Mosque.

The UAE statement came a day after the annual Jerusalem Day flag march through the Old City, which was mostly peaceful, though some Jews and Muslims chanted calls for violence and there were some minor clashes, leading to about 50 arrests.

Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.

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Tuesday, June 15, 2021

UAE, Bahrain Welcome New Israeli Government

 Video Of The Week – Who is Naftali Bennett? - https://tinyurl.com/3cepy9fr

Historic normalization deals between Israel and 4 Arab nations were hallmark of Netanyahu  and Trump administrations; FM Lapid indicates eagerness to expand on ties

For the full article go to Times of Israel – By Toi Staff 15.6.2021 https://tinyurl.com/3cepy9fr

 The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on Monday welcomed the new Israeli government, indicating that the historic normalization deals forged by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Trump administration would flourish beyond the change in leadership.

UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed spoke Monday with new Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, discussing “mutual cooperation and Abrahamic Accords,” the Emirati Foreign Ministry said in a tweet.

“His Highness congratulated @yairlapid on his new term as Israel’s new FM,” it said.

“I had the great pleasure of speaking to the Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates this evening and I look forward to working with him to build on the warm and unique relations between our two countries for the benefit of our peoples and the entire Middle East,” Lapid said.

Earlier, Bahrain Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa issued a statement congratulating Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Lapid on the formation of a new government.

“The crown prince expresses his sincere wishes that the newly formed government will enhance development, stability, and peace in the region and the world,” the statement said.

The new government, an unlikely alliance of right-wing, left-wing, centrist, and Islamist parties, was sworn in on Sunday, ending Netanyahu’s 12-year term in office.

During Lapid’s first visit to the Foreign Ministry on Monday, he highlighted his diplomatic priorities, including building on the Abraham Accords that also saw Israel sign deals with Morocco and Sudan.

 “Part of our work will of course be to strengthen our presence in the region. Great things have happened this past year. We need to continue the development that started with the Abraham Accords. To work to strengthen the peace with the Gulf States, with Egypt and with Jordan,” Lapid said.

“We will work to sign agreements with more countries in the region and beyond. It’s a process, it won’t happen in a day, but the Foreign Ministry will coordinate those efforts,” he said, indicating a shift in the Israeli approach.

In recent years Israel’s efforts to expand its ties with the Arab world have largely been conducted by the Mossad.

Also Sunday, the Kan public broadcaster reported that talks are underway between Israel, the US, the UAE and Bahrain aimed at holding a ceremony in September to mark the one-year anniversary of the signing of the Abraham Accords.

It was not yet clear where the event will be held or whether the ceremony might be used to announce the addition of another country to the normalization circle.

Kan said the talks were conducted by outgoing foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi, who was part of the Blue and White party that is also part of the new government, indicating that the efforts will likely continue.

Lapid also specifically highlighted improving ties with neighboring Jordan, praising King Abdullah as “an important strategic ally,” and promising to work with him. Ties between Jerusalem and Amman were frigid at best over the last several years and Abdullah reportedly had little patience for Netanyahu.

But Lapid added that Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians will be a defining factor in the nation’s ties with other countries, likely referring to the sensitivity in the Arab and Muslim world surrounding the ongoing conflict.

 “We might not be expecting a final status agreement soon but there is a lot we can do to improve the lives of the Palestinians and the dialogue with them on civil issues,” he said. 

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Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Jordanian vote shows why defensible borders still matter


Video Of The Week - Social Media Propagates Anti-Semitism - https://tinyurl.com/ya24ympw

If you want to understand the true obstacle to Mideast peace, look no further than the Jordanian parliament’s unanimous approval last week of a bill to ban natural-gas imports from Israel, just days after the gas began arriving.
Energy-poor Jordan needs a stable, affordable fuel supply, which the Israeli deal provides. When it was signed in 2016, the Jordanian government said it could save the country $500 million a year—almost 4 percent of Jordan’s 2019 budget and more than half its projected deficit for that year (the actual deficit was apparently higher). In short, the deal would let the kingdom redirect significant amounts of money to some of its other crying needs.
But that doesn’t interest Jordanian lawmakers. What they care about is that this is “the gas of the enemy,” to quote protesters against the deal.
They also don’t care that Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty 25 years ago. As last week’s vote made clear, every single Jordanian lawmaker still views Israel as an enemy with whom trade is anathema, even if Jordan itself would benefit greatly. That stance is wildly popular: Almost all Jordanians have an unfavorable view of Jews and similar views of the Jewish state.
Israel’s egregious efforts to accommodate Jordan’s anti-Israel sensibilities didn’t help, either. The gas comes from a field developed by an Israeli company, Delek, in partnership with an American one, Noble Energy. But to enable the deal to move forward, the partnership acceded to the Jordanian power company’s demand that no Israeli entity be party to the contract. Officially, therefore, the contract isn’t with Israel, but with Noble’s American marketing subsidiary.
The deal will most likely go ahead despite parliament’s objections because though King Abdullah is happy to let his lawmakers spout anti-Israel rhetoric, he rarely lets them interfere with anything that he considers an important Jordanian interest. And for now, despite the country’s growing unrest, Abdullah’s grip still seems firm.
But regardless of what happens to the gas deal, the vote shines a spotlight on two errors that have consistently undermined Western peacemaking efforts.
The first is underestimating the depth of Arab hatred for Israel, and therefore failing to grasp that this is the principal obstacle to peace. Westerners tend to assume that everyone the world over basically wants the same things—peace and prosperity—and therefore, all sides should be happy to make compromises for peace. But in reality, as the Jordanian vote shows, neither peace nor prosperity is a prime motivator for many people in this part of the world, whereas hatred is a very powerful motivator.
Thus when Jordanian lawmakers had to choose between a deal that would boost Jordan’s economy and a chance to publicly display their hatred of Israel, between a deal that would bolster the peace treaty and legislation that would undermine it, they unhesitatingly chose the latter. And Palestinians have repeatedly done the same.
A corollary of this, incidentally, is that the Western belief in an economic “peace dividend” is pure fantasy. Peace treaties can’t provide a significant economic boost when one signatory largely refuses to do business with the other; consequently, neither the Israeli-Jordanian nor the Israeli-Egyptian treaty has produced major economic benefits for any of the countries involved. A 2018 study by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change found that Israel’s trade with the Gulf States—with which it has no official relations—exceeds its trade with Egypt and Jordan combined.
This doesn’t mean that economic ties are useless; they undoubtedly play a positive role. Jordan has derived benefits from its peace with Israel, including the tens of millions of cubic meters of water a year that Israel is treaty-bound to provide, as well as a vital route for trade with the West (after the Syrian civil war made Jordan’s former route through Syria impassible, goods started going through Haifa Port instead). These benefits presumably contribute to Abdullah’s reluctance to capitulate to parliament’s periodic demands to scrap the treaty. But when material interests collide with Arab hatred of Jews and the Jewish state, the latter often wins.
The second major Western fallacy is that peace obviates the need for defensible borders. Granted, the Jordanian and Egyptian borders are both currently peaceful; Israel’s security cooperation with both countries is close; and both these facts will likely remain true as long as the current Jordanian and Egyptian rulers hold power. But as the Arab Spring made clear, no Mideast autocrat’s reign comes with a long-term guarantee. And given the enormous public hostility to Israel in both Jordan and Egypt, there’s also no guarantee that a new government wouldn’t scrap the treaty.
Although the treaty with Egypt did survive the Muslim Brotherhood’s brief time in power, it’s far from clear that would have remained true had President Mohammed Morsi not been ousted after a mere year in office, long before he had time to implement most of his plans. And it’s even less certain that the Jordanian peace would survive Abdullah’s fall, judging by last week’s parliamentary vote and many similar votes in the past. In that scenario, Israel’s longest border could become a hostile one overnight.
The unabated hostility to Israel among most of its neighbors, coupled with the uncertain future of any agreement signed with a dictator, means that Israel can’t afford to assume any treaty is permanent. It must be prepared to defend itself if a new Arab government scraps the treaty. Indeed, both the Jordanian and the Egyptian treaties were drafted with that in mind, and that’s also why even Israel’s main center-left party insists on retaining the Jordan Valley in any deal with the Palestinians. Yet Westerner peacemakers routinely dismiss the need for territorial depth and favorable topography, insisting that “international forces” (who will run if trouble erupts) and unspecified “technological means” provide sufficient protection.
The Jordanian vote is a reminder that hatred is strong and peace is fragile. If would-be peacemakers don’t start confronting this hatred rather than pretending it doesn’t exist, long-term prospects for peace are dim. And in the meantime, any treaty will have to include defensible borders.
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