Abdullah: Israeli domestic paralysis hurting ties

Israeli-Jordanian relations are at an “all-time low,” and the political paralysis inside Israel is keeping the two countries from talking about “simple” issues important to bilateral ties, Jordan's King Abdullah II said on Friday. Although bewailing the stagnant state of the Middle East diplomatic process, and urging people to once again re-focus on that issue, Abdullah said that the problems Jordan and Israel are having are related to bilateral issues. “Part of it is internal [Israeli] politics – I understand that – but not at the expense of something that my father [King Hussein] and the late prime minister [Yitzhak] Rabin fought so hard to achieve,” he said, speaking of the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian peace accord. “I hope that whatever happens in Israel in the next two or three months, we can get back to talking to each other on simple issues that we have not been able to talk about for the past two years,” he said. Abdullah's comments came at an event in New York where he was honored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Relations between the two countries have been strained in recent weeks because of Jordan's demand for the return of Naharayim and Tzofar to full Jordanian sovereignty – opting not to renew an annex in the 1994 peace accord that allowed Israelis to lease and farm land there – and also because of the administrative detention of two Jordanians in Israel for two months on security grounds. Jordan recalled its ambassador in October to protest the detention, but agreed to send him back to Tel Aviv after Israel released the detainees earlier this month. Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic process, Abdullah said that “anybody in the international community who says that we can have peace between Israel and the Palestinians without the support of America does not know our region, and the role America plays. We all need America to bring both sides together.” His words come even as the Palestinian Authority continues to boycott the Trump administration, alleging that it is strongly biased toward Israel. Abdullah said that the diplomatic process is currently in a “pause mode – largely because of Israel having gone through a series of elections” – but that the two-state solution remains the only solution. “What is the alternative?” he asked, adding that time was critical because “every time we lose a year, it will be much more complicated for the Palestinians and Israelis to go forward together, and Israel's future is being part of the Middle East. The problem with that is that it is never going to happen 100% unless we solve the Palestinian problem.” Full integration of Israel into the region, he stressed, will not happen without a solution to the Israel-Palestinian issue. Regarding voices in the United States calling for the US to bring its troops home from the Middle East, Abdullah said that while he understands and can sympathize with the sentiment, if the US withdraws today, it will simply have to come back tomorrow because the problems are not going away. “The United States is in the unique position of being the most powerful and capable country in the world, and with that comes a moral responsibility to help stabilize the world,” he said. “Sometimes if you move out of a campaign before it's over, you're only going to be back tomorrow to try and fix it again, having lost all that ground.”

Abdullah: Israeli domestic paralysis hurting ties

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Abdullah: Israeli domestic paralysis hurting ties

Jordan recalled its ambassador in October to protest the detention, but agreed to send him back to Tel Aviv after Israel released the detainees earlier this month.

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