Since Jordan and Israel signed their 1994 peace accord, known as the Wadi Araba Treaty, the West Bank-Jordan border has been mostly quiet.
However, that was not the case on 8 September when a Jordanian truck driver shot to death three Israeli border guards at the Allenby Bridge crossing (or the King Hussein Bridge) near the West Bank city of Jericho.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the “loathsome terrorist” for killing three of his country’s citizens in “cold blood”. Hamas did not claim responsibility for this deadly act but called it a “natural response” to Israel’s nearly year-old war on Gaza.
This incident occurred following a period of intensifying Israeli aggression against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Since last year, Israel has been using air power in the West Bank, conducting at least 37 drone strikes, helicopter gunship attacks, and airstrikes during the 12 months leading up to June 2024. The majority of these attacks have targeted heavily populated urban places, as well as refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nablus.
Then on 27 August, the Israeli military sent hundreds of ground soldiers, drones, warplanes, and bulldozers into the West Bank, constituting Israel’s largest military operation in the occupied Palestinian territory since 2002.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the operation was meant “to thwart Islamic-Iranian terror infrastructure that was set up there”.
Jordan's stakes
Jordan, of all Arab states, is most vulnerable to these developments in the West Bank. For officials in Amman, the Gaza war’s continual expansion into the West Bank and elsewhere in the region is, to say the least, alarming.
From Amman’s perspective, Israeli policy in the West Bank is destabilising and threatens Jordan's vital national interests.
While fearing the risks of greater spillover into Jordan, the leadership in Amman is seeking to placate various domestic, regional, and global players to maintain a delicate balancing act that has long been critical to the Hashemite kingdom’s stability.
With a population at home that is increasingly restive and angry about Israel’s war on Gaza as well as many serious economic problems, Jordan’s ruling elite can’t ignore public opinion.
However, the Amman government is well aware of how much harm Israel could do to Jordan if it would pull out of the 1994 peace treaty and actively support the Palestinian resistance. Additionally, Jordanian authorities also understand how much Amman depends on backing from the United States and other Western powers.
There is no denying that Israel’s increasingly oppressive and brutal occupation in the West Bank makes this balancing ever more challenging for Amman.
Rhetoric versus action
As the Gaza war rages on and violence escalates in the West Bank, it is difficult to exaggerate how much is at stake for Jordan.
“I think the Jordanian government is in full panic mode over the genocide in Gaza and increasing Israeli violence against Palestinians in the West Bank,” said Dr Nader Hashemi, director of Georgetown University’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, in an interview with The New Arab.
Just as the Cairo government fears that Israel’s actions in Gaza are aimed at restructuring the besieged enclave’s demographics through war, forcing Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt, the core concern for Jordanian authorities is that Israel will carry out a ‘Nakba 2.0’ in the West Bank that sends large numbers of Palestinians into Jordan.
In fact, Jordanian officials worry that the past nearly year of Israel’s war on Gaza has become a precedent for the West Bank. Members of Netanyahu’s cabinet openly advocate for pushing the Palestinians out of the West Bank and into Jordan, making Amman’s concerns about a mass transfer valid. Jordan’s leadership has declared this Amman’s red line.
“As with all Israeli assaults and annexation efforts on the West Bank, Jordanian elites and citizens alike have an existential fear that the true extremist goal of the Israeli government is to displace all Palestinians from the West Bank onto Jordan, the so-called ‘alternative homeland’ scenario. So, the stakes are nothing short of absolute survival,” Dr Sean Yom, an expert on Middle East politics at Temple University, told TNA.
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Such dynamics help one understand why Jordanian authorities are angry at Netanyahu and his right-wing allies in government. Decision makers in Amman deeply mistrust Israel’s current leadership to the point where even the implementation of a Gaza ceasefire is unlikely to restore any trust.
Among all Arab states, Jordan has stood out for being so vocal when criticising and condemning Israeli crimes since 7 October. At no point since Israel’s attempted assassination of Khaled Mashal in Amman in 1997 have Jordanian-Israeli relations been at a lower point than they are today.
However, as experts note, it is necessary to distinguish between words and actions regarding Amman’s approaches to Tel Aviv.
"Bilateral relations between Israel and Jordan really haven’t changed. I think Jordan is really concerned that Israeli aggression, violence, and genocide have destabilising effects for the Jordanian monarchy, so that’s why they want this war [in Gaza] to come to an end,” says Dr Hashemi.
“That’s why [officials in Amman] have been rhetorically - I want to emphasise rhetorically - very critical of Israel. The event that happened [on 8 September] where someone from Jordan killed three Israeli [border guards] is something that Jordan fears very much. But there’s close security cooperation and coordination behind the scenes between the two governments. So, relations now are in a difficult moment. But I don’t think there’s been any substantive change,” he added.
Weakness of Arab states
The past nearly 12 months of Israel’s war on Gaza have played out across the wider region in ways that further expose the weaknesses of Arab states, including Jordan.
Although Amman is extremely vested in a Gaza ceasefire, viewing the continuation of this war as a grave threat to future stability in the Hashemite kingdom, Jordan ultimately lacks the necessary influence over Israel and/or the US to do much about the Gaza war.
Perhaps Jordan’s one source of leverage is the 1994 peace treaty, which Amman could abrogate. But it is doubtful that the Jordanian monarchy would do so.
“The US will punish Jordan for this, including withholding part or all of its over USD 1.5 billion annual package of economic aid and military assistance,” Dr Yom told TNA.
“And the Jordanian government can't afford this, especially as it deals with new sources of insecurity in terms of drug-smuggling clashes and Iranian-supported militia activities across the Syrian and Iraqi border frontiers,” he added.
Bordering both the West Bank and Israel, Jordan has long been considered an anchor of stability in the Middle East.
Yet, the longer the Gaza war continues with Israel accelerating its decades-old ethnic cleansing campaign in the West Bank with new tactics, the Hashemite kingdom is coming under greater amounts of pressure and feeling more heat.
To be sure, if the Gaza war’s regionalisation destabilises Jordan, countries across the region and beyond will pay a high price.
Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics.
Follow him on Twitter: @GiorgioCafiero