Fatal Attack at the Israel-Jordan Border Could Land King Abdullah in a Political Minefield
The joint Jordanian-Israeli investigation into Sunday's fatal shooting of three Israelis at the Allenby Bridge is currently focused on a question that worries Jordan no less than it does Israel: Did the perpetrator act alone or was this an organized operation, and if so, who's behind it?
The close intelligence cooperation between Israel and Jordan is perhaps the only area that hasn't eroded as a result of the war in Gaza, and it may guarantee a swift and efficient investigation.
- In the absence of a diplomatic plan, Jordan fears it will be forced to recognize Hamas
- Israeli killed, one wounded in drive-by shooting attack in West Bank
- Two attempted car bomb attacks in West Bank wound three Israelis; assailants shot dead
From Jordan's perspective, however, the concern is twofold, and the embarrassment following the attack is great. Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, Amman has been waging a dual campaign. On the one hand, King Abdullah II was careful not to break the rules with Israel and with the United States. He used diplomatic measures in an effort to persuade Israel not to invade Gaza.
The scene of the attack, on Sunday.Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
When these efforts failed, Abdullah bluntly condemned Israel's policy, recalled the Jordanian ambassador and suspended commercial and economic agreements such as the water-for-energy deal, under which Israel was supposed to sell Jordan about 200 million cubic meters of desalinated water a year in exchange for 600 megawatts of solar-generated electricity.
On the other hand, Abdullah continues to buy natural gas from Israel despite the demands of the Jordanian public and the parliament to cancel all agreements with Israel.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi is one of Israel's harshest critics. He has called to try Israel for war crimes, even though two years earlier he and then Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi discussed how to promote joint projects.
Protesters demonstrate against Israel, in Amman in August.Credit: Jehad Shelbak/Reuters
But in addition, Jordan made the most important contribution to Israel's security, expressed in the Kingdom's decisive role in thwarting the Iranian missile and drone attack on Israel in April.
Jordan clarified to Iran that it won't allow its airspace and its territory to become a combat zone. It reiterated this message after the Israeli-attributed targeted assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, when the region was bracing for an Iranian retaliation. For the sake of "balance," Jordan issued a similar warning to Israel as well.
All throughout the war, regular demonstrations are held outside the Israeli embassy in Amman (although the embassy staff doesn't stay there), and the Jordanian security forces disperse anti-Israel demonstrations forcefully when they appear to jeopardize public order.
Israel, for its part, decided to "punish" Jordan for its condemnations and extended the water sale agreement to Amman by only six months instead of the five years that the kingdom requested.
King Abdullah II, while visiting London, in July.Credit: Carl Court/Reuters
Furthermore, there are no direct communications between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abdullah, but Israel authorized Jordan to drop humanitarian aid into Gaza: The king himself participated in one of the airdrops of humanitarian aid in the Strip, wearing a military uniform.
Jordan also clearly distinguishes between its humanitarian support of Gazans and its relations with Hamas, whose leadership was expelled from the kingdom and whose leaders are barred from reentering it.
Beyond the diplomatic one-upmanship, Jordan is apprehensive about the war's potential consequences for the kingdom. When Israel began expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in Gaza, and Egypt feared they would invade its territory as a result, Jordan was imagining what would happen if thousands of Palestinians began to migrate from the West Bank into the kingdom.
The scene of the attack, on Sunday.Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
This concern is only intensifying in view of the IDF's activity in the West Bank and the violent clashes between settlers and Palestinians, whose purpose, as Jordan sees it, is to spur a population transfer.
Abdullah has met with U.S. President Joe Biden and has held dozens of phone conversation with him and senior U.S. officials on the topic. According to senior Jordanian sources, the Biden administration has promised it wouldn't allow Israel to cause a mass emigration of Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan.
But that commitment hasn't reassured the king and the rest of Jordan's leadership, who rightly fear Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's actions on Jerusalem's Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's declarations.
While the United States and all the Arab and Muslim countries share this concern, the latter see how the Biden administration struggles to thwart Ben-Gvir and Smotrich's plans to take control of the Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and to prevent further savage actions by settlers.
"We need to investigate who was behind the attack at the Allenby Bridge border crossing and why it happened, but we don't need to go far. The atmosphere in Jordan over the last months of the war has created fertile ground for such attacks," a Jordanian journalist who works at a government newspaper told Haaretz on Sunday.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, last week.Credit: Alaa Al Sukhni/Reuters
"You can't imagine the extent of the rage and frustration among Jordanians," he added. "They see the video footage from Gaza, the destruction and the killing of more than 40,000 Gazans, Ben-Gvir's actions on the Haram al-Sharif [the Temple Mount] and the war in the West Bank."
"We as journalists can't write whatever we want because we have been warned not to 'stir up public opinion and harm national security.' But citizens don't need the [reports by] the official Jordanian media to know what's happening. Against that backdrop, one can only thank Allah that there haven't been more attacks."
The war has inflicted harsh economic blows on Jordan that'll require long-term recovery before it returns to its pre-war situation. In despair, Abdullah has already said that the "Jordan's economy won't return to being what it was."
According to the Jordanian chamber of commerce, tourism, which accounts for about 15 percent of the country's GDP, suffered a drop of about 50 percent in revenue at the beginning of the year. Roughly 57,000 people are employed in the tourism sector, and unemployment, is expected to soar above the mark of 22 percent.
Industrial production has also declined by about 5 percent, as has foreign trade, mainly due to the increased expense of shipping by sea as a result of the attacks in the Red Sea by the Houthis in Yemen.
The U.S. administration has agreed to provide $1.45 billion a year in assistance to Jordan through 2029 and the country is already receiving payment for the use of military bases. But such sums aren't sufficient to address the country's overall $56 billion debt – the equivalent of 115 percent of Jordan's GDP.
Earlier this week, the Standard & Poor's rating agency upgraded Jordan's credit rating, praised the country's banking system and plans for economic reform. However, in view of the heavy economic damage, it's doubtful that Jordan will be able to carry out its plan to boost government revenue by another $18 billion, which is due to be realized from tax collections and subsidy cuts.
The terrorist attack at the Allenby Bridge border crossing happened three days before parliamentary elections in Jordan – voting that in general is met with apathy, as reflected in the low voter turnout last year of just 29 percent – a sign of a deep lack of confidence that Jordanians feel about their country's institutions.
But this time, it's actually possible that opposition parties could see increased strength due to the war and, in the process, challenge the king's policies.
There's also concern that the tribal loyalty on which support for the king is traditionally based could be weakened because the terrorist in the attack on Sunday, Maher al-Jazi, was a member of one of the country's largest and most important tribes – the Huwaitat tribe – which has been among the main longtime supporters of the Hashemite regime.
Al-Jazi, who was a truck driver, was a resident of the town of Athroh in a part of Jordan where Haroun al-Jazi, one of the commanders of the Jordanian forces that fought against Israel in the 1948 War of Independence, was from – as was Mashour Haditha al-Jazi, a senior Jordanian commander who fought Israel in the 1968 Battle of Karameh.
It's still not clear if the attacker's affiliation with a tribe that has a privileged position in the country encouraged him to carry out the attack, but it presents Abdullah with a dangerous political challenge that is liable to put the king on a collision course with one of his government's mainstays.