Navigating the fallout of Gaza war

Since Israel launched its horrific war against Gaza in retaliation for the 7 October surprise attack, Jordan found itself moving in an ever-closing diplomatic space in its effort to end the war and spare the people of Gaza additional suffering.

Western sympathy for a wounded Israel in the first few weeks of its retaliatory operation, under the guise of self-defence, restricted Jordan’s ability to push for a ceasefire. King Abdullah was among the first to warn of an impending humanitarian catastrophe in the enclave while pointing to the indiscriminate targeting of civilians there.

Unfortunately, his pleas met with indifference by Western leaders, who competed to show solidarity with Israel and provided it with weapons and munitions to impose a new political reality in Gaza.

Igniting a regional war

Ten months later, none of these Israeli objectives were achieved. Instead, the carnage continues against international denunciations, while the crisis threatens to ignite a regional war pitting Iran and its regional proxies against Israel, the US, and other Western countries.

Jordan’s qualms over the Gaza war are multifaceted, ranging from the troubling scenarios of the day after to the prospects of salvaging the unlikely prospect of a two-state solution as the only conclusion to the Israel/Palestine conflict.

In the early days of the Gaza war, King Abdullah and Egypt’s Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi warned of an Israeli covert objective of pushing the more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza out of the enclave and into Sinai. Displacement represented a red line for both.

For Jordan, if transferring Palestinians into Sinai was allowed to happen, the far-right Israeli government would then move to enforce similar scenarios in the West Bank. That represents an existential threat to Jordan.

Netanyahu has irked the Biden administration on numerous occasions by putting obstacles to derail a possible ceasefire deal in Gaza. While declaring that he had accepted the Biden three-phase ceasefire proposal, he kept adding new conditions that made it impossible for the US, Qatar, and Egypt, as mediators, to close the gap between Hamas and Israel.

An already febrile atmosphere in the kingdom was getting worse. The peace treaty between the Amman and Tel Aviv, signed in 1994, was never popular.

Jordan’s dependency on Israel with regard to natural gas and water had restricted the kingdom’s ability to confront the Netanyahu government, especially over the Jewish settlers’ daily incursions of the Al-Aqsa compound in East Jerusalem, which is under the Hashemite custodianship.

Following the assassination of Hamas’ political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran late last July, Iran and Hezbollah vowed a painful and unprecedented retaliation against Israel.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, made a historic visit to Tehran to convince his counterpart to spare the kingdom any involvement in the expected strike. It is unclear if the Iranians were in the mood to hear what he said.

But this time, Jordan and Egypt made it clear that they would not be part of any US-led coalition to defend Israel. Jordanians have openly expressed support for Palestinian armed resistance, and widespread protests were back in Amman in support of Gaza after a long pause.

Burdened Jordanian economy

The fallout from the Gaza war has weakened an already burdened Jordanian economy. The kingdom will hold critical legislative elections in September.

The Israeli far-right government is tightening the noose around Palestinians’ necks in the West Bank by carrying out daily raids on refugee camps while unleashing large-scale colonisation of Palestinian lands in preparation for de facto annexation. The two-state solution is dead in the view of Israeli politicians. The Palestinian Authority (PA) is on the verge of total collapse.

The view from Amman is a pessimistic one. A regional war, limited or not, will make peace between Israel and the Palestinians a fantasy. The outcome of such wars will bring uncertainties.

Diplomacy seems to have reached the end of the tether for Jordan. Netanyahu wants to extend the war until the US presidential elections, even if that means more Palestinian deaths, possible transfer, and a regional war.

Meanwhile, annexation of the West Bank will be condemned but will not be reversible. What that means for millions of Palestinians and Jordan is unclear and equally daunting.

The war on Gaza has tested the rules-based order and was found wanting. Jordan is used to walking a tightrope when it comes to its acerbic relationship with Israel. But now it finds itself being pushed into a corner, which puts Amman between a rock and a hard place with unpredictable outcomes.

Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.