More than 25 years after the signing of the Jordan-Israel peace
treaty, the vast majority of Jordanians remain adamantly hostile to their
western neighbor, and while a new generation was born in the so-called peace
era, the rejection of any form of normalization with Israel continues to rise.
What is baffling for some analysts is the fact that young Jordanians, mostly
university students, are now leading the movement to resist any form of
normalization.
اضافة اعلان
Jordan and Israel enjoyed a brief phase of warm peace under King
Hussein and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who both had a shared vision for a
regional Benelux, involving Jordan, Israel and a nascent Palestinian entity.
This vision was shattered when Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish radical after
a series of incitements by then upcoming Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu.
For decades, peace between Jordan and Israel was described as
cold and at best as tepid. Governments made deals, some controversial, but at the
public level there was a general resentment toward and widespread boycott of
any dealings with Israel by Jordanians. But why?
The relationship between Jordan and the West Bank is unique in
all forms. Historically and politically, the West Bank was part of the Kingdom
of Jordan between 1950 and 1967. The Jordanian Arab Army fought to defend the
West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Many Jordanian
soldiers died while defending the Old City. It was their sacrifice that
prevented Israeli militias from taking the historical city then. Jordanians
remember with pride their sacrifices in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Palestine to
this date. And every year Jordanians mark the anniversary of the battle of
Karameh, in 1968, when Israel tried to invade the East Bank and was repulsed by
the Arab Army, at a cost, of course.
These battles are engraved in the national psyche. Jordan
received waves of Palestinian refugees following the 1948 debacle and the 1967
war. Many of these refugees and displaced persons are Jordanian nationals.
Another dimension to Jordan’s unique tie to the Palestinian
cause is the Hashemite custodianship of Jerusalem’s Muslim shrines, starting
with the founder of the Kingdom, King Abdullah I, who was assassinated at the
gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1951. Even at the lowest point of ties with Israel,
King Abdullah II has been consistent in reaffirming his commitment to
protecting Al-Aqsa, which has been at the center of Jordan-Israel clash for
years.
At popular level, Jordanians feel a special kinship to the suffering
Palestinians. Israel has Palestinian blood on its hands, but it has also
spilled Jordanian blood. Over the past decade, Israelis killed in cold blood a
Jordanian judge crossing the river into the occupied territories in 2014 and two
Jordanians, shot dead by an Israeli diplomat in the Israel embassy compound in
Amman, in 2017. Both crimes have passed without accountability. Such incidents
further tarnished Israel’s image among Jordanians.
And when it comes to rejecting the two-state solution, which
Jordan staunchly supports, there is a special dimension that concerns Jordan.
For decades, the Israeli Far Right has claimed that a Palestinian state does exist
and it points to Jordan. The so-called Jordan Option is not a farcical rhetoric
by a dazed Israeli politician, but a conviction that the Palestinian question
can and will be resolved at the expense of Jordan.
Such existential concern has made headways among Jordanians,
especially East Banker tribes that do not trust Israel and believe that a
conspiracy exist to “liquidate” the Palestinian national cause at their
expense. That is why any talk about redefining the Jordanian national identity
is treated with great suspicion by Jordanians.
It is no wonder, then, that when Jordanians found out that their
government had signed a letter of intent with Israel and the UAE last week to
begin feasibility studies of a project dubbed “electricity-for-water” between
Jordan and Israel, tens of mostly university students tried to stage a protest.
They were quickly rounded up and arrested without charge. The move triggered
nation-wide indignation that resulted in the staging of a number of protests
last Friday involving thousands who denounced the proposed deal and called for
the release of the students.
It was an ill-planned move by a government that had only a week
before submitted proposals to empower the youth and encourage them to become
politically active. The logic behind the proposed trilateral project baffled even
experts, so the government came under pressure to withdraw from the deal.
Jordanians, from all walks of life, will continue to resist
normalization with Israel, primarily because of their unique ties to the
Palestinian cause. The amazing thing is that young Jordanians, born after the
signing of the peace treaty, are now leading the protest movement and are
inspiring the nation. Changing, or attempting to change, such innate
convictions seems an impossible task at this stage.
Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.
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