Of the four countries that directly border Israel (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt), Jordan appears to have the best relationship with the Jewish state. A peace treaty signed in October 1994 still stands firm, despite the recent strain due to the Israel-Hamas war. The two countries also have agreements regarding manufacturing and distribution of water, a critical resource in a desert region.
Unlike many other Arab rulers, King Abdullah II likes the West. He attended school in England and the United States, ascending to the Hashemite throne in 1999 after the death of his father, King Hussein. For the most part, he has maintained King Hussein’s pro-Western policies—stoking the ire of radical Muslims who would like to see him either deposed or dead.
Perceiving Hamas as a destabilizing influence in the region, Abdullah threw the terrorist organization out of Jordan in 1999 and shut down its offices in Amman. He disdains the Muslim Brotherhood, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization that he has called a cult and “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
Today, however, he finds himself between a rock and a hard place. Jordan’s population of 11.5 million includes 1.4 million Syrian refugees and 2.3 million Palestinians whose sympathies lie with Hamas.
From War to Working Relationship
Israeli-Jordanian relations have not always been good. Jordan opposed Israel fiercely when the Jewish state declared its independence on May 14, 1948, and joined Israel’s enemies in the War of Independence.
During the war, Jordan annexed Judea and Samaria (West Bank), as well as eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount and the holiest site in all of Judaism: the Western Wall. Until then, both Arabs and Jews had resided in Jerusalem for centuries. After the war, Jordan expelled approximately 3,000 Jewish people from the annexed area, and all Jews worldwide were denied access to their holy sites until Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War that reunified the city under Israeli control.
A state of war existed between Israel and Jordan from 1948 until October 26, 1994, when the countries signed the “Treaty of Peace Between the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” in a ceremony held in Israel north of Eilat, near the Jordanian border. The treaty guaranteed safe and secure borders for both countries, recognized each country’s sovereignty over its respective territory, set the international boundaries between the countries, and recognized both countries’ “rightful allocations . . . in Jordan River and Yarmouk River waters and the Araba/Arava ground water.”
It also laid the framework for joint projects to alleviate water shortages, including “prevention of contamination of water resources.” The treaty created a Joint Water Committee and specifies: “Israel may extract twelve million cubic meters (MCM) of water during the summer and thirteen MCM in the winter from the Yarmouk River. In exchange, Jordan is allowed to “store” twenty MCM of its water in Lake Tiberias in Israel during the winter. Israel agreed to help Jordan find additional water using desalination technology. This dovetailed nicely with Israel’s long-term desalination program. (In fact, in its recently released National Water Plan, Israel stated that it intends to meet 70 percent of its water needs through desalination by 2040).“
Israel has stood solidly behind the agreement; and in 2021, it doubled to 50 million cubic meters the amount of fresh water it sells to Jordan in what has been called “the largest water sale in the history of the two countries.”
Israel and Jordan also share a Qualified Industrial Zone (QIZ) composed of industrial parks that house manufacturing operations in Jordan and Egypt. This program was introduced in 1996 by the U.S. Congress to foster cooperation between Israel and its neighbors and allow duty-free export of QIZ goods to the United States, provided the goods include a minimum of 8% input from Israel, as stipulated in the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement. The QIZs have bolstered Jordan’s economy, particularly its garment industry, and generated more than 30,000 jobs.
The amicable relationship between Israel and Jordan has endured so far, despite intense hostility in the region since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks. In fact, according to one well-placed observer, “On a military and intelligence level, cooperation continues to thrive. In April 2024, Jordan, in coordination with the United States, assisted in the downing of many of the more than three hundred missiles and drones that Iran and its proxies launched at targets in Israel. French Rafale fighter jets also intercepted some of those weapons at Amman’s request. This support came amid reports from an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-linked news agency that Iran had threatened Jordan that it would become a target if it cooperated with Israel again.“
So far, Israeli and Jordanian officials continue to meet secretly to discuss shared security concerns. Only God Himself knows what will happen to Israeli-Jordanian relations after King Abdullah’s reign; but given the Arabs’ intense hatred for Israel, they probably will deteriorate quickly.
