Analysis: Jordan`s cold peace with “Israel”
source: UPI, 26-10-2004.
By ORAIB RANTAWI
summary: Amman, Jordan - Ten years after they have signed a peace treaty ending decades of enmity and war, Jordan and "Israel" have failed to normalize relations due to the persistent Arab-"Israeli" conflict, notably the Palestinian crisis.
The Oct. 26, 1994, Wadi Araba peace treaty resulted in demarcating the border between the two neighbors for the first time since January, 1949 and restored Jordan`s water rights in the rivers of Jordan and Yarmouk.
Officially and superficially, the treaty ended the state of war and enmity, but "Israeli"-Jordanian relations are far from good or merely normal.
"Lack of trust and depression are the main characteristics of relations between the two countries, whereby "Israel" is dealing with peace in a partial, not comprehensive, way," Adnan Abu Audeh, a political analyst, told United Press International.
He said peace between Jordan and "Israel" is standing on the basis of the Wadi Araba Treaty, and bilateral dealings are continuing accordingly.
"However, Jordan`s approach to that treaty is different from "Israel's" in the sense that Amman looks at the agreement as a first step toward a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the region," Abu Audeh explained.
"Such an approach entails a settlement of the Arab-"Israeli" conflict through the withdrawal of "Israeli" forces from Palestinian territories and the creation of the independent Palestinian state."
"But the "Israelis" viewed the treaty differently, which explains that peace with the Palestinians has not been achieved 10 years later," he added.
The U.S.-sponsored Wadi Araba treaty was signed in the presence of former U.S. President Bill Clinton by late King Hussein of Jordan and "Israeli" Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish zealot a year later for his overtures to the Arabs.
Political observer Ibrahim Badran argues that peace between Jordan and "Israel" exists only legally "because Jordan believes in a broader and more comprehensive peace."
"The swirling violence and growing complications on the Palestinian scene indicates that the initial implementation of the treaty was going on smoothly, but stumbled in the past five years," Badran told UPI.
""Israeli" policies harmed the region in recent years, and what is happening in the Palestinian territories adversely affected Jordanian-"Israeli" relations," he said.
Moreover, the peace treaty is not popular among Jordanians, but it is actually manipulated by the opposition to rally the people around it on the grounds that it failed to achieve the objectives it was supposed to achieve.
"Israeli" practices against the Palestinians since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against "Israeli" occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip four years ago further strengthened the opposition stance rejecting peace with "Israel".
Opposition parties led by the Islamic Action Front, the group representing Jordan`s Muslim Brotherhood, have been engaged in a nationwide campaign to resist normalization of relations with "Israel".
Mounir Hamarneh, secretary general of the Jordanian Communist Party, contends: "True peace between "Israel" and the Arabs has not been achieved despite the peace treaties signed by the Jewish state with Jordan and Egypt."
He argued, ""Israeli" policies in the region still posed a real threat to Jordan, notably the separation wall which "Israel" insists on building in the West Bank and "Israeli" practices aimed at displacing the Palestinians in contradiction to the spirit and content of the peace treaty."
Political writer Jamil Nimri noted that "the peace treaty between Jordan and "Israel" is nothing but ink on paper since it failed to secure peace and stability and could not motivate the people to normalize relations.
"The existing peace is only in the form. ... It is simply disfigured," he added.
"The experience of the past 10 years makes us come out with one conclusion -- that is, peace has not been achieved yet due to "Israel's" practices against the Palestinian people," Nimri said.
Observers agree that the treaty did not have any impact on ending the conflict and violence sweeping the region even though it gave Jordan land and water rights and eliminated the approach that Jordan could be an alternative state for the Palestinians.
Jordanian-"Israeli" relations have had many ups and downs since the treaty was signed 10 years ago.
Ties were particularly strained in 1997, when "Israel's" intelligence, the Mossad, tried to assassinate Hamas Politburo chief Khaled Meshaal in Amman. That was followed by "Israel's" refusal to supply Jordan with its water share from Lake Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee) in 1999 under the pretext that the water level had dropped.
But tension in relations increased after the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000. The Jordanian government then summoned its ambassador in Tel Aviv and has since refused to resend him before "Israel" implemented its commitments under the so-called Road Map for peace in the Middle East.
"Israel's" construction of the separation barrier in the West Bank further strained relations, as Jordan led an international diplomatic campaign to press for the destruction of the barrier, which it regards as a threat to its own national security.
The issue of Jordanian prisoners in "Israel" is another bone of contention in Jordanian-"Israeli" relations, whereby "Israel" is refusing to liberate some 22 Jordanians held in its prisons, including four who have been sentenced to life terms for killing "Israelis".
