In a recent MomentLive! conversation, The Christian Science Monitor’s Middle East correspondent Taylor Luck speaks with Moment Editor-in-Chief Nadine Epstein about the Israeli-Jordanian relationship. Luck and Epstein cover the history and complicated political equilibrium of the Jordanian regime; public opinion and democracy in the kingdom; Israeli-Jordanian security and diplomatic ties, and their fraying since the Second Intifada; the two states’ common geopolitical interests, particularly when it comes to Iran and its proxies; the peace process and issues of Palestinian self determination.
To watch the full interview, click here.
Key Quotes
- Taylor Luck: “Jordan, compared to other Arab states, has had a long line of stability since really the 1920s until now. Jordan as a monarchy was formed by popular consensus, first as an emirate and later as a kingdom.”
- Taylor Luck: “Jordan has always played the role of being the moderate, middle of the Arab world. I always like to refer to it as the Midwest of the Middle East, in that it never really took extreme positions or got caught up in the ideologies that have swept through the region, and it really tried to maintain this good neighbor approach, trying to maintain good ties when it could.”
- Taylor Luck: “Under King Abdullah, who came to the throne in 1999, it really pushed itself as a pro-Western, pro-America, pro-globalization, pro-economy country that was a safe oasis.”
- Taylor Luck: “The Hashemites have had ties and contacts with the Jewish communities in what is now Israel from the 1920s, pretty much from the beginning of Jordan. This relationship has gone through a lot of ups and downs in just the last twenty or thirty years, since the peace treaty was signed. I think there was so much hope that there would be a lot more economic and social peace with normalization, people to people ties on top of the security and governmental ties. Unfortunately, I think from the Second Intifada onwards, those person-to-person ties really lessened, while the state-to-state, security-to-security, army-to-army ties strengthened.”
- Taylor Luck: “There’s no love lost between Jordan and Hamas and Hezbollah, and no one would cry over Hamas losing control of Gaza and disappearing from Palestinian politics. But from Jordan’s standpoint, if Hamas is not an option for Gaza—and from Israel’s standpoint it cannot be in power—therefore the obvious viable candidate is the Palestinian Authority, which needs to be strengthened. And Jordan has lots of interest in having a viable Palestinian Authority. But those outlets and channels, and having discussion about a new Palestinian entity or a revamped Palestinian Authority, have all been closed by the Israeli side. And that’s been very frustrating for Jordan.”
- Taylor Luck: “The average person might say that the peace treaty is the only leverage and now’s the time to break off relations to send a message so that there’s some sort of accountability for the Israeli government’s actions. But any Jordanian official, from the palace on down, would say that, if you look at all the net positives and negatives, having full ties with Israel allows you to do more for the Palestinians than having no relations at all.”
- Taylor Luck: “If it were up to a vote, I’d say ninety nine percent of Jordanians would vote to get rid of the peace treaty.”
- Taylor Luck: “For young Jordanians, they see peace as something that’s being forced upon them.”
