(PresidentialHill.com)- A US think tank is warning that the decades-long peace between Israel and Jordan could be unraveling, threatening to upset the fragile regional stability challenged by Iran, Russia, and China.
According to Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, since 2020, peace between Jordan and Israel “has turned decidedly cold” in recent years as Jordan began to publicly war with Israel, refusing to sign the Abraham Accords, threatening to abolish the peace deal it signed with Israel in 1994, and, most recently, attacking incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
After Netanyahu’s election in November, Jordan warned Israel not to alter the status quo on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the holy site that is frequently ground zero for hostilities between Palestinians and Israel.
Schanzer’s report, published in December, indicates that the US could be facing a looming crisis in the Middle East that could threaten to upset nearly three decades of stability between Israel and Jordan, empowering American enemies like Iran, Russia, and China while further eroding US influence in the region.
In a recent interview with the Washington Free Beacon, Jonathan Schanzer said his analysis shatters long-standing taboos about the fracturing peace between Jordan and Israel. He said many in Washington believe that Jordan is “both too valuable and too weak to challenge,” adding that he refuses “to be bound by those constraints.” Schanzer told the Free Beacon that while he supports Jordan, he thinks the country “can do better.”
According to Schanzer’s report, if the US wants to avoid a full-blown crisis, it must change its view that Jordan is “beyond reproach,” an approach he says is “failing.” He recommends that the paradigm must change “while also identifying ways to encourage economic and military ties.”
Jim Phillips, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation also warned that relations between Jordan and Israel have become increasingly strained in recent years over the issue of the Palestinians.
Phillips told the Free Beacon that Jordan’s King Abdullah is frustrated by the lack of progress on establishing a separate Palestinian state, which the king sees as a bigger threat to his hold on power than the threat a Palestinian state would have on Israel’s security.
Phillips believes Abdullah wants to appease the Palestinians who make up about half of the population in Jordan.
